Special forces were deployed to crash a Marine jet on Mount Rainier

Army Green Berets with special mountaineering training attempted to reach the crash site of a Navy EA-18G Growler near Mount Rainier in Washington, two days after the plane crashed during a routine training mission. The jet’s two-person crew remained missing after rescuers discovered the crash early Thursday in bad weather and mountainous terrain.

The Whidbey Island-based EA-18G crashed Oct. 15 during a flight the Navy described as a “routine training mission.” Search and rescue flights – which included a Navy spy plane and a submarine hunter – discovered the wreckage at an altitude of about 6,000 feet in a “remote, steep and heavily forested area east of Mount Rainier,” according to the Navy said.

To reach the site, officials called in soldiers from the 1st Special Forces Group from Joint Base Lewis-McChord near Seattle. These soldiers, the Navy said, have expertise in “high-altitude rescue skills and medical and technical communications necessary to negotiate the difficult terrain of the Cascade Mountain Range that is inaccessible by other means.”

In a statement, Navy officials did not say whether they believed the crew was still alive or at the crash site.

“Our priority is to locate our two Airmen as quickly and safely as possible,” said Capt. David Ganci, commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet’s Electronic Attack Wing. “We cannot identify or confirm the names of aircrew involved in an accident until 24 hours after their next of kin are notified of their status.”

Since the first hours after the plane crashed on Tuesday, search parties using Navy, Army and civilian planes and helicopters have been combing the rugged, heavily forested landscape around Mount Rainier.

“Flight operations continued throughout [Tuesday] At night, it launched from NAS Whidbey Island and searched in the area 30 miles west of Yakima,” a Navy spokesman said in a news release Wednesday.

The two-seat EA-18G flies with one pilot, an electronic warfare officer.

The search included EP-3E Aries II aircraft from Fleet Air Reconnaissance Squadron One (VQ-1) and P-8A Poseidon from Patrol Squadron 46 (VP-46). The EP-3E is a signals intelligence aircraft built to intercept enemy communications and other electronic espionage purposes, while the aircraft-sized P-8A performs anti-submarine warfare missions. Teams from NAS Whidbey Island Search and Rescue and Army helicopters from Joint Base Lewis-McChord’s 4-6 Air Cavalry Squadron were also searching.

According to the Navy, the fighter jet crashed “east of Mount Rainier,” which is about halfway between Seattle and Yakima.

The aircraft was stationed on Whidbey Island as part of Electronic Attack Squadron (VAQ) 130. Whidbey Island is home to nearly all of the Navy’s EA-18Gs and is the primary schoolhouse for pilots and flight officers assigned to the aircraft. VAQ-130 is part of Carrier Air Wing 3, assigned to the aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower.

The EA-18G Growler is a variant of the FA-18 fighter aircraft with weapons and electronic systems for electronic warfare tasks such as finding and attacking enemy radar sites.

This is a developing story and will be updated as new information becomes available.

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