The U.S. Navy is searching for two missing crew members after their EA-18G Growler jet crashed near Mount Rainier on Tuesday night. According to early reports from the Navy, the Growler was flying near the mountain during a routine training flight when it crashed at 3:23 p.m.
“Multiple search and rescue assets, including a U.S. Navy MH-60S helicopter, launched from NAS Whidbey Island to locate the crew and examine the crash site. As of 7 p.m. on Oct. 15, the status of the two crew members remains unknown,” the Navy said in a statement.
The crashed Growler was part of an electronic warfare unit and part of the Electronic Attack Squadron 130 based out of Naval Air Station Whidbey Island, Washington. Nicknamed the “Zappers,” the squadron had recently returned from the Red Sea where it flew 700 combat missions against the Houthis. The Growler survived hundreds of missions shooting down drones only to be felled during a training mission back home.
The cause of the crash remains unknown and Growlers haven’t gained a reputation for crashing and technical problems like the V-22 Osprey and the F-35 joint strike fighter. The Growler crash is the latest in a long line of recent aviation mishaps for the U.S. military. Many of the crashes involve new and technologically advanced aircraft like the V-22 and F-35.
The V-22 is a tiltrotor aircraft that can land and take off like a helicopter and then tilt its rotors to fly like a plane. Its unique design has caused problems. Last year, the Pentagon grounded its entire fleet of V-22s following a high-profile crash in November that killed eight airmen. In August of that year, another V-22 crashed in Australia and killed three Marines.
In 2022, a V-22 crash killed five Marines in Glamis, California. In March, four Marines died during a NATO training exercise in Norway when the V-22 they were in crashed. In 2015, two Marines died during another accident involving the V-22.
The F-35, America’s trillion-dollar boondoggle, is also prone to crashing. In September of 2023, one of the advanced fighter jets went missing in the skies over South Carolina. The Pentagon begged the public to help find it. The pilot had safely ejected but the jet was on autopilot. The DoD later found the remains of the thing two hours north of Charleston.
An F-35 shot itself in the skies over Arizona in 2021. In 2022, people filmed an F-35 crashing on a runway in Fort Worth, Texas. The same year, a software glitch caused one to crash in Utah. More dramatic video from an aircraft carrier in 2022 leaked online showing one crash as it came in for a landing. In May 2020, an F-35 landed so hard on a runway that it rolled, caught fire, and was completely destroyed.
The list of F-35 and V-22 accidents goes on, that’s just a small sampling. The Growler, by contrast, has a pretty spotless record. In 2018, an Australian Growler burst into flames on a runway ahead of a training exercise, but that’s the only high-profile disaster involving the jets to date.
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