DATE: Tuesday, November 25, 1997            TAG: 9711250585

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: By JACK DORSEY, Staff writer 

DATELINE: HAMPTON                           LENGTH:   48 lines

PILOT RESCUED AFTER F-15 CRASHES 60 MILES OFF BEACH

His mission began Monday in the cockpit of an F-15 Eagle, the jet rocketing from a runway at Langley Air Force Base.

It ended with 1st Lt. David M. Nyikos in hot water and heating blankets.

Nyikos, assigned to the 94th Fighter Squadron at Langley, spent nearly an hour bobbing in a one-man life raft in the cold Atlantic Ocean after his Air Force fighter crashed 60 miles off the Virginia Beach coast.

Officials credit a well-organized joint rescue effort between the Coast Guard, Navy and Air Force in retrieving the pilot from chilly ocean waters and gusty winds.

``Everything went pretty smoothly,'' said Coast Guard Lt. Cmdr. John Fitzgerald, spokesman for the Fifth Coast Guard District. ``There was good cooperation.''

Nyikos was flying a routine training mission off the coast with another F-15 when his twin-engine jet apparently ran into mechanical trouble at about 9:45 a.m., officials said. No details were released, pending a review board's findings.

Once Nyikos ejected from the fighter and scrambled into his raft, the second F-15 circled for about 15 minutes before it ran low on fuel and had to return to base.

A Navy F-14 Tomcat from the ``Gunfighters'' of Fighter Squadron 101, based at Oceana Naval Air Station in Virginia Beach, took over monitoring Nyikos for the next 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, the Navy diverted the cruiser San Jacinto, which sent its helicopter to the scene. The frigates Kauffman and Simpson and the carrier John C. Stennis, also in the vicinity, were ready to assist, but were never needed.

It was a Coast Guard helicopter from Elizabeth City that hoisted the downed pilot aboard and returned him to Langley.

``He's doing fine at the hospital and we don't think they will have to keep him overnight,'' said a Langley spokeswoman. ``They just warmed him up with some blankets and hot water. He's doing great.''

Nyikos' squadron returned last week from Saudi Arabia, where it completed a 45-day deployment, enforcing the ``no-fly'' zone over Iraq. ILLUSTRATION: Photo courtesy of Coast Guard

A Coast Guard helicopter hovers over the life raft of Air Force 1st

Lt. David M. Nyikos in this Coast Guard video. Nyikos' F-15 crashed

into the Atlantic Ocean after apparent mechanical trouble. KEYWORDS: ACCIDENT PLANE

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