THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, January 30, 1996 TAG: 9601300299
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Long : 144 lines
Five people died Monday when a Navy F-14 Tomcat fighter jet, piloted by an aviator who had crashed another jet into the sea last year, plunged into a suburb near Nashville International Airport while on a training flight.
The crash site is 2 1/2 miles south of Nashville's airport, which is next to the Tennessee Air National Guard's Berry Field installation.
Witnesses said the plane, which had just taken off from the military airfield to return to its base at Miramar Naval Air Station in San Diego, burst into a huge fireball upon impact, engulfing three homes.
The dead included an elderly couple and a man visiting them in one of the houses, and the plane's two-man crew.
Navy officials would not comment on a possible cause of the crash. Some witnesses told reporters that the plane was flying low and erratically, and that flames were shooting out the bottom of the plane. Others said the jet appeared to go straight up through the clouds and then straight down to the ground.
Navy officials said the jet was not armed.
The Navy has lost 30 F-14 fighter jets to crashes since 1991 but insisted Monday that the plane's overall mishap rate since 1981 was no greater than any other tactical aircraft.
``There is nothing inherently unsafe about the F-14 engines,'' said Navy spokesman Cmdr. Steven Pietropaoli. Aviators have complained for years that the engines are not powerful enough to suit their needs. The Navy is upgrading them.
Among the dead was the pilot, Lt. Cmdr. John Stacy Bates, 33. In addition to Bates, of Chattanooga, Tenn., the plane's radar operator, Lt. Graham Alden Higgins, 28, of Dover-Foxcroft, Maine, was killed. The victims inside the house were identified by Nashville police as Elmer Newsom, 66, and his wife, Ada, 63. A visiting friend, Ewing T. Wair, 53, also was killed.
Kenny Newsom, 37, left work as soon as he heard about the crash. He said he knew his parents were dead as soon as he saw their flattened house.
The dead couple were next-door neighbors of Joel and Anita Oeschle, who left for work well before the crash and whose house was destroyed by the fire.
``I feel very fortunate that neither of us was home. We lost two great neighbors, two great people. That's where my heart is now,'' Joel Oeschle said.
The crash was the fourth in 15 months involving F-14s from the same squadron, Fighting Squadron 213, known as the ``Fighting Blacklions.''
Bates was blamed in a crash last April, which occurred when he lost control of his Tomcat while doing what were determined to be unnecessary banking maneuvers over the Pacific, west of Hawaii, according to military sources familiar with the case.
In September, an F-14 from the squadron went down off the Philippines. Both crew members ejected safety.
In October 1994, another squadron member, Kara Hultgreen, one of the first two women in combat flight training, died when her Tomcat crashed into the Pacific as she attempted to land on the carrier Abraham Lincoln. Investigators attributed that crash to a combination of mechanical error and pilot handling.
After Monday's crash, a spokesman at the Naval Air Force, U.S. Pacific Fleet, said the commander had ordered a stand down of all squadron members to review the group's safety record and to go over safety procedures. The squadron includes 14 aircraft.
The Nashville crash occurred 2 1/2 miles southeast of the city's airport, which, when compared with Oceana Naval Air Station at Virginia Beach, would have placed the crash in Pungo or in the populous Lynnhaven Mall area.
The Navy is preparing to bring an additional 70 F-14s to Oceana beginning in May, adding five squadrons from Miramar. Miramar has been ordered closed by the Navy and will be transferred to the Marine Corps.
There has not been a crash of an F-14 on land near Oceana in recent memory, officials said. Most crashes that have occurred locally happened at sea, off Virginia and North Carolina coast training areas.
When armed, the F-14A can carry up to 13,000 pounds of air-to-air missiles as well as bombs. It also has an internally mounted gun. Manufactured by Grumman Corp., the plane costs about $38 million.
The F-14 is a supersonic, twin-engine fighter designed to attack enemy aircraft at night and in any weather. Its crew consists of a pilot and a radar intercept officer. It typically carries missiles, rockets and bombs.
The jet was introduced in the Navy in the 1970s and is no longer in production. MEMO: The Washington Post, The Associated Press and Virginian-Pilot staff
writer Jack Dorsey contributed to this report.
ILLUSTRATION: ASSOCIATED PRESS
A rescue worker stands amid the flames and rubble of a Navy F-14
fighter jet that crashed Monday in a suburb of Nashville, Tenn.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Diane Amico is stunned after learning that her friends, Elmer, 66,
and Ada Newsom, 63, were killed Monday when a Navy jet crashed into
their neighborhood in a suburb of Nashville, Tenn.
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THE AIRCRAFT
Premier carrier-based fighter, F-14 Tomcats cost about $38
million each. They first flew in 1970 and are scheduled to fly
through 2010.
All F-14s soon will call Oceana Naval Air Air Station in Virginia
Beach their only U.S. home. There are seven F-14 squadrons -
about 136 planes - at Oceana now.
Beginning in May, about five squadrons from Miramar Naval Air
Station near San Diego - where the plane that crashed Monday was
based - will be brought to Oceana.
ITS RECORD: The F-14 is regarded as no more hazardous than any
of the other tactical aircraft the Navy flies. Since 1981 the
F-14 has been in 87 Class ``A'' accidents - meaning a loss of life
or aircraft damage in excess of $1 million, or both, according to
the Navy Safety Center in Norfolk.
F-14s AT OCEANA
There has not been a crash of an F-14 on land near Oceana Naval
Air Station in Virginia Beach in recent memory, officials said. But
there have been at least 24 crashes, including 13 near residential
areas, involving Navy aircraft on or near the base in the past 25
years.
The deadliest military aircraft accident locally was June 19,
1992, when seven Navy reservists died in the crash of a Sikorsky
G-53 helicopter minutes after it took off from Oceana. The aircraft
went down in the Lynnhaven River because of mechanical failure.
Two Navy flight officers and a pregnant woman were killed in May
1986 when the A-6E Intruder hit a station wagon on Oceana Boulevard
and exploded. That crash was caused by an inexperienced pilot who
made an improper low-level turn.
It was the first time a civilian died in an accident involving
planes entering or leaving Oceana Naval Air Station.
F-14 ACCIDENTS BY YEAR:
1991 3
1992 3
1993 11
1994 5
1995 7
KEYWORDS: F-14 ACCIDENT PLANE ACCIDENT MILITARY FATALITIES by CNB