Pilot dies as US jet crashes off Crete
An F-14 Tomcat fighter jet crashed on Saturday south of Crete in the Mediterranean Sea after taking off from the aircraft carrier USS John F. Kennedy (CV 67), killing one of the two crew members, the US Navy said in a statement. The carrier had left Crete on Friday morning after a two-day port call visit, and was 50 nautical miles (80 kilometers) south of the Mediterranean island when the fighter jet crashed into the water. According to a statement released from the USS John F. Kennedy, the F-14 «crashed immediately after launch» at approximately 3 p.m. local time, during routine flight-training operations. Two SH-60 Sea Hawks from Helicopter Support Squadron Five (HS-5) from the USS John F. Kennedy rushed to the crash site, along with boats from the carrier and the USS The Sullivans (DDG 68), to assist in rescue efforts of the aviators, who managed to eject before the fighter plunged into the water. The Search and Rescue (SAR) team recovered one of the pilots, while the other was recovered aboard the boat dispatched to the scene by the USS The Sullivans. «Both aviators were brought aboard Kennedy for medical evaluation, one perished and the second aviator is in stable condition,» the US Navy said in its statement. The names of the aviators are being withheld pending notification of the next of kin, while the cause of the accident is now under investigation. Saturday’s crash was the second emergency operation that the crew of the carrier has had to undertake since it left Crete at the end of the week. On Friday morning, and only a few hours after the USS John F. Kennedy had left from the port facilities of the US naval base at Souda Bay, the body of a missing elderly woman from Hania was spotted by the crew near the ship. «It was approximately 9 a.m. when they discovered the body,» a US base official told Kathimerini’s English Edition. «A search and rescue diver recovered the body, which was transferred aboard the ship.»
