2 US Navy T-39s Missing

[Navy_Adversary]

U S Navy are reporting that 2 T-39 Sabreliners from VT-86 at NAS Pensacola are missing, there were 7 souls on the two aircraft, sad day.

[WE Branch Fanatic]

Thats awful.

Sympathies to the famillies concerned.

[Flatus Veteranus]

On my knees for the seven souls - and their NOK, may He be merciful.

But TWO T-39s missing? I got about 1,000 hours on them during my exchange staff tour at SAC HQ, Offutt AFB. And a more pleasant, safer, user-friendly "gentleman's conveyance" could not be imagined. It even forgave my brutish mishandling (in my declining years)!

Were they bu**ering about in formation, and made a pigs of it as fat old staff officers trying to relive their youth are wont to do; or was there a massive tornado belt in the area - not uncommon in the Gulf area in May. I do hope they managed to put them down somewhere. Its a tough little airframe and has survived some extreme "arrivals" in the past.

[tinyrice]

CNN News.
7 missing in crash of 2 Navy training jets
May 9, 2002 Posted: 12:22 PM EDT (1622 GMT)

PENSACOLA, Florida (AP) -- Wind and waves forced the Coast Guard to expand its search Thursday for seven crew members from two Navy jets that crashed into the Gulf of Mexico.

No sign of crew members had been found amid four debris fields, said Harry White, a spokesman at Pensacola Naval Air Station, where the planes were based.

The two twin-engine T-39 Sabreliners went down Wednesday during a training mission about 40 miles south of this Florida Panhandle city. Three people were on one plane, four on the other.

White could not say whether the planes collided.

"They suddenly disappeared from our radar," White said. "There was no distress call."

Sorry guys.

[owe ver chute]

A sad day for everyone related to the seven missing crew.
MSNBC report that wreckage has been found off the coast near to Pensacola, but no sign of the crew.:(
Try and be safe everyone!

[millhouse21]

This is a pretty good article about it

http://www.pensacolanewsjournal.com/news/051002/Local/ST001.shtml