Acoustix99 said:
Well looks like they found the aircraft, went down on a deserted island near Iwo. They're still looking for the crew, apparently.
Yeah here's an article about what you just said:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/military/20040811-9999-1m11plane.html
S.D.-based plane crashed on island south of Japan
By James W. Crawley
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
August 11, 2004
Navy aircraft and ships continued searching today for four San Diego-based airmen whose jet crashed into a small volcanic island about 620 miles south of Japan yesterday.
The S-3B Viking from Sea Control Squadron VS-35, based at North Island Naval Air Station, apparently went down on Kita Io Jima, an uninhabited, 2.4-square-mile island, about 7:42 p.m. yesterday Japan time, said 7th Fleet spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Marc Boyd in Japan.
The aviators' names were not released.
The twin-engine jet had been launched off the aircraft carrier John C. Stennis, which is deployed in the Western Pacific. It was lost during the first night of a four-day, joint training exercise involving the Stennis and the carrier Kitty Hawk, whose home port is in Japan.
An investigation has begun, Boyd said.
Search-and-rescue efforts were under way with ships and aircraft from the Stennis and Kitty Hawk flotillas. Japanese searchers also were participating.
Inspecting the wreckage and searching the island may be difficult because Kita Io Jima is the top of a volcano that thrusts 2,520 feet above the Pacific Ocean. It has nearly sheer sides with no flat areas or beach.
The peak is the northernmost of Japan's three Volcano Islands. Also known as Kita Iwo Jima, the island is about 42 miles north of Iwo Jima, which was the scene of ferocious World War II fighting by Marines in early 1945.
The American flag-raising on Iwo Jima's Mount Suribachi was captured in one of the most famous photographs of the war.
The naval exercise involving the Stennis and Kitty Hawk originally was to be conducted off Okinawa, 1,000 miles to the west. But a typhoon forced the Navy to relocate the exercise off Iwo Jima.
For 15 years, the island's airfield has been used by Japan-based Navy pilots to practice carrier landings. Navy officials said the ill-fated aircraft was not flying to Iwo Jima before the accident.
The Navy has several jet squadrons based at Atsugi Naval Air Station, near Tokyo, but local residents' protests against jet noise have forced Navy pilots to fly to Iwo Jima for training.
Besides Iwo Jima's remote location, weather can be fickle and unpredictable, according to articles in naval aviation journals.
In recent years, Navy officials have been trying to persuade the Japanese government to find another landing field, on one of Japan's main islands and closer to U.S. bases.
The Stennis left San Diego May 24, sailing first to the Gulf of Alaska to participate in Exercise Northern Edge, then cruising to Hawaii in July for the biennial RIMPAC exercise.
The carrier is expected to return to San Diego late this fall.
The Viking is a four-seat, $27 million aircraft originally built to hunt and sink Soviet submarines during the Cold War.
In recent years, the plane has taken on several roles, including aerial refueling and maritime strike missions. It can carry Harpoon and Maverick air-to-surface missiles.
President Bush landed on the aircraft carrier Lincoln off San Diego on May 1, 2003, aboard a VS-35 Viking flown by the unit's current commanding officer, Cmdr. John Lussier.
The downed plane's unit is scheduled to be shut down next year as the Navy retires its fleet of Viking jets.
More specifically, a pilot, 2 NFOs and an AT2 were on board.