Two die when fighter jets collide

ARLINGTON, Ore. – Two U.S. Marine fighter jets collided above this Columbia River town Wednesday afternoon, killing two aviators and sending a third to a hospital, reportedly with minor injuries.

Witnesses said the two F-18 jets collided, broke up and burst into flames, then went down in the river just west of the steel-silo grain elevators that bear the town’s name.

Nancy Corey, a spokeswoman for the Federal Aviation Administration in Seattle, said the jets were based at the Miramar Naval Air Station, which is in San Diego. The crews reportedly had been temporarily based in Portland since earlier this month for training at the Boardman Bombing Range, southeast of here.

Capt. Michael Braibish with the Oregon National Guard said at least one of those dead was a pilot; the other one is either a pilot or a weapons operator. An additional crew member was to be released Wednesday evening from the emergency room at Mid-Columbia Medical Center.

Josh Timmerman, 15, said he was playing basketball nearby when he heard what sounded like “a bomb exploding” right over the town.

There was a small explosion, like a truck popping a tire, said his friend Joe Covey, 15, who was swimming in a nearby lagoon. “Then a loud one,” Covey said.

The front part of one of the planes was “coming straight down, with flames,” said Charles Johnson, 15, who was also swimming in the lagoon. “The back end came down afterwards.”

Covey said the lifeguard ordered everyone out of the water, and many of the residents in this town of about 500 ran to the concrete wall overlooking the river.

There they saw one parachute and flyer coming down on the Washington side of the river, near Roosevelt Park. Another parachute and pilot came down near Andrew David and Jeremy Takala, who were just setting up their fishing nets in the Columbia to catch salmon.

“I heard it echoing through the canyon,” David said. “I looked up and saw a big ball of flame.”

He estimated the flaming debris missed their boat by 300 to 400 feet, and the two moved their boat toward the aviator who was under the water, below his parachute.

“His parachute was holding him up,” Takala said.

The fishermen said they pulled the lifeless aviator, whom David said was bent in half, from the water. “The top half of his uniform was gone.”

They brought the body to a stretch of the river bank where windsurfers often put in.

Gilliam County Undersheriff Gary Bettencourt said with the number of boats on the river and the wide swath of debris that rained down, “it’s rather surprising that somebody else didn’t get hurt.”

Debris also landed on Interstate 84, and in town.

That debris was being collected by a team of investigators headed by the Air Force that suspended its search before nightfall, but was expected to start again shortly after dawn this morning. The Environmental Protection Agency was called in to help with that search, as well as personnel from the Marines and the Navy.

Military planes flying low over the area is not unusual, witnesses said. A bombing range is located southeast of here, near Boardman, Bettencourt said.

“They fly over my house all the time,” said Covey, who lives about 15 miles east of Arlington.