Wednesday, March 28, 2001

By Scott Schonauer, Rota bureau

A British team searching the Scottish Highlands on foot for two missing U.S. F-15C Eagle fighters found a body and the wreckage of one plane, the Royal Air Force said Tuesday.

Mountain rescue volunteers followed the faint smell of jet fuel to three spare fuel tanks near the summit of Ben Macdui, the highest peak in the Cairngorm Mountains. They also found pieces of a cockpit and the cockpit canopy.

"That would tend to suggest it’s one of the F-15s," said Flight Lt. Chris Kay, a Royal Air Force spokesman.

The identity of the body has not been confirmed, and Royal Air Force officials said it could take some time to move the body from the mountain top. Bad weather hampered Tuesday’s search and rescuers worried they would have to suspend the operation.

"Helicopters can’t fly up there it’s so hostile," said Michael Mulford, spokesman for the Royal Air Force search and rescue teams.

Civilian and military search-and-rescue personnel combed the rugged terrain in icy conditions and looked for more wreckage, and possibly another body. As the search stretched into its second day, hopes of finding either Lt. Col. Kenneth Hyvonen or Capt. Kirk Jones alive diminished by the hour.

The pair disappeared Monday after failing to return to RAF Lakenheath, England, following a routine training mission in the mountains.

"Our prayers are with Lt. Col Hyvonen and Capt. Jones," said base spokeswoman Senior Airman Charlene Carl.

More than 200 people on the ground and in the air, including civilian mountain-rescue volunteers, Royal Air Force and U.S. Air Force personnel, battled blizzard-like conditions with 40-knot winds and temperatures plunging to -11 degrees Fahrenheit as they searched a 150-square-mile area.

A U.S. Air Force disaster-control group from Lakenheath rushed to RAF Kinloss, in northeast Scotland, to join British and U.S. search-and-rescue teams already on the scene. Three RAF mountain-rescue teams from Kinloss, Leuchars and Leeming, and two U.S. MH-53 helicopters stationed at RAF Mildenhall are part of the rescue operation.

U.S. and British military personnel are unsure what happened to the F-15s, but media reports speculate that the fighters collided on their way back from a low-level training mission. The planes disappeared 45 minutes after the pilots took off Monday from Lakenheath.

At least one person reported hearing a loud explosion at around the time controllers lost contact with the jets, but military personnel could not confirm whether it was connected to the F-15s. The planes were flying at "very high speeds and low levels," but it is too early to determine why the jets disappeared, Mulford said.

"What happened is a mystery," he said. "That is for the investigators to find out."

The Air Force initially released little official information on the mission, it’s timeline or the exact location the pilots last reported to control officials.

News of the missing F-15s came shortly after the fatal crash of an Army reconnaissance plane in Germany. Two soldiers died in that accident.

President George W. Bush asked for a moment of silence for the four servicemen Monday during a speech in Billings, Mont.

"I do want you all to join me in a moment of silent prayer for two soldiers, men who wore the uniform of America, who lost their lives in Germany and two of our pilots who are missing over Great Britain," he said.

Both aviators are considered qualified and experienced F-15C pilots.

Hyvonen, a member of the 48th Operations Support Squadron, arrived at Lakenheath in August 1999. He has served in the Air Force since 1984, when he received his commission through Officer Training School.

Jones, a 493rd Fighter Squadron member, was assigned to Lakenheath in June 1999 and has been in the U.S. Air Force since 1997.

He received his commission through the Reserve Officer Training Corps program.

Eagles have served as the Air Force’s premier air-to-air fighter jets for more than 20 years. The single-seat, all-weather, extremely maneuverable, tactical fighter is designed to gain and maintain air superiority. It is packed with the latest in avionics and radar systems. Both aircraft lost are assigned to the 493rd, which is part of the 48th Fighter Wing, the only Air Force F-15 unit in Europe.

The wing, along with British military pilots, routinely fly training missions over the sparsely populated Scottish Highlands. The Cairngorm range has some of the highest peaks in Britain. Ben Macdui is more than 4,000 feet high. The open space, lack of people and valleys make for some challenging training missions for jet pilots.

"It’s ideal for low-level flying," Kay said.

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