Pilot Dies After 2 Air Force Jets Collide

The Air Force says one of the two pilots whose fighter jets crashed into the Gulf of Mexico has died. The other pilot is in good condition.

The Air Force says the two single-seat F-15C Eagles likely collided and crashed during a training exercise Wednesday off the Florida Panhandle.

The pilots were able to eject and were later rescued.

Coast Guard Petty Officer James Harless said a Coast Guard rescue jet located one pilot and radioed the location to a fishing vessel, which picked him up. A Coast Guard helicopter then hoisted the pilot off the vessel.

That pilot told rescuers he saw the other pilot also eject, but lost him in the clouds, Harless said. He told them the approximate location for the second pilot, who was found by a Coast Guard helicopter, Harless said.

Harless added that no debris from the jets has been found yet.

Coast guard officials in New Orleans told CBS News affiliate WWL-TV that they responded to a distress call 40 miles off the coast from Tyndall Air Force Base.

The Air Force grounded all of its F-15s - nearly 700 - after the catastrophic failure of an F-15C during a routine training flight in Missouri in November. The pilot safely ejected.

Most were back in service by January, but others were grounded indefinitely after defects were found.

The Air Force began using the F-15C in 1979. The planes, built by McDonnell Douglas Corp., were deployed to the Persian Gulf in 1991 in support of Operation Desert Storm and have since been used in Iraq, Turkey and Bosnia.

The planes can fly up to 65,000 feet and each costs about $30 million, according to the Air Force.