Two aviators rescued from water after Navy jet crashes into San Diego Bay

SAN DIEGO – Two aviators were plucked from the water by an alert fishing boat crew and rescued after their Navy jet crashed into San Diego Bay near Shelter Island on Wednesday, officials said.

The 10:15 a.m. crash on a rainy and misty morning happened as the aircrew was executing a “go around” maneuver at Naval Air Station North Island, according to Navy officials. The plane had just landed and was preparing to take off again when the crew ejected from the aircraft, Navy Cmdr. Beth Teach said. Navy officials initially said the plane crashed while heading to the base for a landing.

The two aviators ejected before the jet hit the water.

Navy officials said the two crew members were “quickly recovered before being transported to a local hospital for medical assessment,” and that they are stable.

San Diego Fire-Rescue officials said the rescued aviators were taken to the University of California, San Diego Medical Center in Hillcrest.

Coast Guard spokesperson Adam Stanton said the two aviators were in the water for a minute or two before they were picked up by a crew in a fishing boat. They were then transferred to a Customs and Border Protection boat and taken to shore.

The crew aboard the Premier fishing boat spotted the pair eject from the jet and “quickly navigated toward the pilots before they even hit the water,” according to Frank Ursitti, general manager of H&M Landing, where the boat docks. Within minutes, he said, the aviators were aboard the boat.

“We are relieved and grateful to have had one of our vessels in the right place at the right time,” Ursitti said. “Captain Brandon Viets and the crew of the Premier acted swiftly, and thanks to their professionalism, were able to bring these pilots to safety.”

Navy officials said that Naval Base Coronado “has stood up an Emergency Operations Center in response to the mishap, and assessment of the crash site is ongoing.” The cause of the crash is under investigation.

The plane was a EA-18G Growler based out of Naval Air Station Whidbey Island in Washington state. A variant in the F/A-18 family, it is used to jam enemy communications and radar systems. The plane typically carries a pilot and a weapons systems officer. It has a price tag of about $67 million, according to the Navy.

One witness said that after the pilots ejected from the jet, the plane flew over Point Loma homes, then somehow circled around and went back over homes before crashing into the bay.

Point Loma resident Katharine Hope, who lives near Kellogg Street in the La Playa neighborhood across the bay from Shelter Island, was in her living room when she looked up and saw a jet coming straight toward her condo.

Typically, after planes take off from North Island, they veer toward the open ocean while still over the bay. This one kept heading west – straight toward Hope.

As it passed overhead, Hope noticed two parachutes landing in the water and realized the pilots had ejected and were in the bay, closer to North Island.

“The plane continues to go straight, and it goes over our condo … I take my binoculars and I’m looking and I see the parachutes are floating in the water. And I’m like, what is going on?” she said.

“And then maybe 30 seconds to a minute later – I wasn’t timing it and it happened so quickly – the jet came from the other direction, over our condo and landed into the water in front of our place.”

She said it was flying fast and low and “the sound was horrific.”

Once the plane hit the water, she said, there was an explosion, and she saw black smoke. And then it sank.

“It just was swallowed up,” she said. “It just disappeared.”

Harbor Police and other responding boats placed an orange boom line around the crash site in the water to contain the debris field and limit any potential environmental spills, according to Harbor Police.

“After the pilots were taken to the hospital, we basically set up a maritime perimeter along with Navy just to protect that debris field, because now there’s going to be a long recovery process of getting all the components of that airplane out of the water,” Harbor Police Lt. Daniel Moen said.

He said the crash happened right outside the Shelter Island basin in the northwest area of the bay. The immediate area near the crash site has been closed to mariners although the main traffic channel of the bay is open.

“The Navy is primary on the cleanup of all of this, so really not sure how their investigation is going to go and how long it’s going to take,” Moen said.

San Diego County officials issued a statement advising it closed access to the water along the Kellogg Beach shoreline around Lawrence Street because the crash spilled jet fuel into the water.

Crews working on the recovery efforts battled choppy waves under cold, gray skies as the wind whipped through palm trees along the shore.

Justin Eaves, who is vacationing in San Diego, said he saw the Navy jet crash into the bay after hearing it go over his motel near Shelter Island.

“It did a couple of maneuvers. You could hear it when it went over the motel and then it was kind of quiet and then it kicked up again,” Eaves told OnScene TV. “And all of a sudden, a few seconds later, I just saw the plane going straight down into the water.”

He said the pilots who ejected were a short distance away in the water and he saw boats responding to the area.

“Thank God that nobody – all this stuff right over here that plane could have hit,” he said. “Luckily it didn’t. (It was) very fortunate.”

The EA-18G Growler was built to replace the EA-6B Prowler and was the first newly designed electronic warfare aircraft produced in more than 35 years. The first Growler test aircraft went into production in October 2004 and made its first flight in August 2006. Its first deployment was in November 2010.

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(San Diego Union-Tribune staff writer Caleb Lunetta contributed to this report.)