THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, August 23, 1996 TAG: 9608230057
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A2 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DALE EISMAN, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: 45 lines
The pilot of a Marine Corps Reserve F/A-18 fighter jet was missing and presumed dead Thursday night after his plane crashed earlier in the day off Virginia's Eastern Shore.
The crash was one of two around the Delmarva Peninsula Thursday involving military aircraft.
The Coast Guard called off a search for Maj. Patrick Thomas Gregoire, 40, around dusk. His F/A-18 went down roughly 50 miles east of Wallops Island around 9:30 a.m.; a search throughout the day turned up his parachute, float vest and various personal items, along with debris from the plane.
There was no indication Thursday of whether Gregoire had said he was in trouble.
The plane, a single-seat ``A'' model of the F/A-18, was part of a reserve squadron based at Andrews Air Force Base near Washington. The Marine Corps said Gregoire was on a training mission but there was no word on where he was headed or whether other members of the squadron were flying nearby.
Gregoire, a resident of Clackamass, Ore., had been living in Springfield, Va., while stationed at Andrews.
Gregoire's mishap was at least the third involving a Marine F/A-18 this year. An F/A-18D and both its crew members were lost in March in the Atlantic off Beaufort, S.C.. A single-seat F/A-18C crashed in April, but the pilot ejected safely.
Also Thursday, a Pennsylvania Air National Guard A-10 crashed around 1:25 p.m. in a marshy area of Maryland's eastern shore near Salisbury.
An Air Force spokeswoman said Navy units based at Patuxent River Naval Air Station were searching for the A-10's pilot. The pilot and plane were based at Willow Grove Air Reserve Station in Pennsylvania. The pilot's name was not immediately released.
Thursday's accidents came as the Air Force's Air Combat Command, headquartered at Langley Air Force Base in Hampton, prepared for a daylong safety review today. The review was ordered after the crash in Wyoming on Sunday of an Air Force cargo plane that was assigned to carry vehicles and other gear used by the White House during President Clinton's vacation in Jackson Hole.
A Secret Service employee and eight Air Force airmen assigned to the C-130 were killed in that crash.
KEYWORDS: ACCIDENT MILITARY ACCIDENT PLANE by CNB