Navy Calls Off Search For 3

The search for three missing Navy aviators has been called off more than 24 hours after they were ejected into the Atlantic Ocean by a crash on the flight deck of an aircraft carrier.

The Navy has called off its search for three aviators who ended up in the cold Atlantic Ocean after the nighttime collision of two jets on the deck of an aircraft carrier.

They were presumed dead, bringing to four the death toll from the accident. The cause of the collision remained under investigation.

The body of one crewman was recovered shortly after the crash Sunday evening, but a 24-hour search for the others was unsuccessful.

"If they had been in the water for that long, they certainly would not have survived," Navy spokesman Lt. Steve Tedder said Monday.

The water temperature had hovered around 60 degrees since the accident.

The missing aviators were part of a four-member crew on a Navy EA-6B Prowler practicing landings on the USS Enterprise, 120 miles offshore. Their plane struck an S-3 Viking aircraft on the deck, and all six crew members from the planes ejected.

Besides the three missing, one died and two were injured.

The four Prowler crew members apparently landed in the water. The body of Lt. j.g. Brendan Duffy, 27, of Annapolis, Md., was recovered shortly after the crash.

The missing Prowler crew members were identified as as Lt j.g. Charles Woodard, 26, of Herndon, Va.; Lt. j.g. Meredith Loughran, 26, of Sandston, Va.; and the pilot, Lt. Cmdr. Kurt Barich, 35, of Oak Harbor, Wash.

The two crew members of the Viking were slightly injured. The Navy identified them as Cmdr. James Wallace, 44, of Jacksonville, Fla., and Lt. j.g. Kirk Schneringer, 26, of Cardiff, Calif.

Written by Sonja Barisic