Rep. Seeks Fighter Jet Repair Records
A high-ranking congressman called on the Marine Corps on Tuesday to release the maintenance records of all fighter jets of the type that lost power and crashed into a San Diego neighborhood, killing four members of a family.
Rep. Duncan Hunter, the ranking Republican on the House Armed Services Committee, said the fiery crash Monday of the F/A-18D Hornet fighter as it approached Marine Corps Air Station Miramar was apparently caused by power failure.
"My understanding ... is that the engines failed, causing the aircraft to lose thrust," said Hunter spokesman Joe Kasper.
The crash was probably unrelated to the previous discovery of cracks in hinges on the wings of more than a dozen of the $57 million aircraft, the San Diego-area congressman said.
"It is important that we gain a complete understanding of what went wrong," Hunter said in a statement.
Marine Cpl. Travis Easter said officials at Miramar had no immediate response to the request for maintenance records.
The Navy announced last month that it was grounding 10 of the planes and limiting the flights of 20 others because of the cracks. It was not immediately clear whether the plane that crashed in San Diego was under any flight restrictions.
The pilot ejected safely and was taken to a naval hospital in stable condition. He was discovered hanging by his parachute from a tree in a canyon beneath the neighborhood.
Miramar officials declined to say whether he remained hospitalized, but witnesses said he appeared unhurt.
The Marine Corps fighter plane was returning from an offshore training mission when it clipped a tree and slammed into homes about two miles from Miramar. Two homes were incinerated, and three others were damaged. Three generations of a Korean family died in one home.
The family's pastor, the Rev. Kevin Lee of the Korean United Methodist Church in San Diego, identified three of them as Young Mi Yoon, 36; her 2-month-old daughter, Rachel; and her mother, Suk Im Kim, 60, who was visiting from South Korea to help care for her daughter's newborn.
The body of 15-month-old Grace Yoon, Rachel's sister, was found in the home Tuesday, Fire Department spokesman Maurice Luque said. No one else remained missing.
Young Mi Yoon's widower defended the pilot Tuesday.
"I don't have any hard feelings," Dong Yun Yoon, 37, told reporters near the rubble where his home once stood. "I know he did everything he could."
Dong Yun Yoon, who left Korea in 1989 and became a U.S. citizen, wondered aloud how he would persevere after losing his family.
"Please tell me how to do it," he said, surrounded by his pastor, sister, brother and church members. "I don't know what to do."
Two homes were destroyed and three were damaged in the crash.
Neighbors said the family of Korean immigrants moved into the area about three months ago.
The F/A-18 "Hornet" has long been the workhorse of the Navy and Marines since its design in the 1970s. The supersonic jet is widely used by the Marine Corps and Navy and by the stunt-flying Blue Angels. An F-18 crashed at Miramar - known as the setting for the movie "Top Gun" - in November 2006, and that pilot also ejected safely.
Dawn Lyons, who lives two blocks away, saw the pilot land. "I had heard the noises, and I thought, 'Oh my gosh, could that possibly be the pilot?' And I saw him pick up his helmet and start down the hill.
She told KFMB correspondent Rekha Muddaraj that she was the first to speak to the pilot and said while he did not appear to have any injuries, he was visibly shaken.
"He said, 'I was flying on one engine for about a hundred miles.'"
On the same street just a few houses away, Amy Sheridan had their own scare when the pilot's seat landed on her backyard fence.
She told Muddaraj that authorities warned people not to get too close in the event not all of the ejector seat's rockets had detonated.
The neighborhood in the University City section of San Diego smelled like a brush fire doused with jet fuel. Streets were choked with rescue vehicles. A Marine Corps bomb disposal truck was there, although police assured residents there was no ordnance aboard the jet. The team was looking for the aircraft's second ejection seat, which does have a small explosive charge, Marine officials told the Los Angeles Times.
Neighbors described chaos after the jet smashed into the houses and flames erupted.
"It was pandemonium," said Paulette Glauser, 49, who lived six houses away. "Neighbors were running down toward us in a panic, of course."
Jets frequently streak over the neighborhood, two miles from the base, but residents said the imperiled aircraft was flying extremely low.
KFMB correspondent Adrienne Moore reports that one family of three, who lived in one of the two destroyed houses, Robert Johnson, his daughter Heather and his two-year-old grandson Nicholas made it out alive when the plane crashed into their neighbor's home and sent debris flying across the neighborhood.
Robert described the scene as "surreal and horrific." He said he could see a giant ball of flames "as big as my house" coming from his front porch. He grabbed his family and ran from the back of his home.
Heather's car was destroyed, but as she told KFMB, "I'm very happy to be alive." She was treated for smoke inhalation and anxiety at Scripps Memorial Hospital and released.