Falling pieces of Navy jet raise concerns over fleet

Published 9:00 pm Friday, November 28, 2003

ARLINGTON — Another piece of metal airplane paneling has been found in Arlington, one day after at least three panels fell off a Navy Prowler jet based at Whidbey Island Naval Air Station.

While nobody was injured by the falling metal and the plane’s four-person crew landed safely, the incident underscores concerns about the aging Prowler fleet.

The accident is at least the second time this year that a Prowler has lost parts during a flight in this state. This summer, a pod-shaped piece of electronic gear fell from a Prowler flying over the Columbia River Basin.

This fall, the Navy grounded 43 EA-6Bs — at least 40 percent of the Prowler fleet, mostly based at Whidbey Island — to replace aging, brittle metal in their wings.

The planes were built between 1970 and 1991, according to a Navy League online report.

The pieces in Arlington were engine panels, not wing panels.

Kimberly Martin, public affairs officer for Whidbey Island Naval Air Station, said that fact might mean Wednesday’s accident was an isolated incident. But she emphasized that investigators would have to make such determinations.

Congress has approved spending $115 million in 2004 to upgrade the Prowler fleet, said U.S. Rep. Rick Larsen, D-Wash.

"The Prowler is a go and no-go asset for our air power superiority," Larsen said.

The Prowlers jam enemy radar to clear a path for other fighters and ground troops. They continue to play a vital role in Afghanistan and Iraq.

"If it doesn’t fly, our strike-jet fleet doesn’t fly," Larsen said.

A replacement for the Prowlers is in the works. The F-18G Super Hornet, also called a Growler, is planned for 2009. In the meantime, the armed forces are rotating the Prowler fleet through the necessary upgrades.

The EA-6B Prowler that lost its engine panels Wednesday was on a routine training mission when it lost a few aft-engine and midengine panel doors. The panels plunged to earth south of Arlington. Two pieces fell near the new Arlington High School on Crown Ridge Boulevard, and at least one more fell less than a mile west in a yard at the Gleneagle golf course’s residential development.

The newest find was not noticed until Thanksgiving Day in Margie Phillips’ yard on 186th Street NE. It landed in a roughly straight line less than a mile east of the other pieces.

Martin confirmed that the panel in Phillips’ yard was from the same plane.

"It was apparently a heat shield, part of the same panels" that were found earlier, Martin said.

Navy investigators retrieved the heat shield from Phillips and are incorporating it into the investigation.

"They think that this is the last piece," Martin said. "It’s like putting a puzzle together."

Phillips said she wasn’t surprised she didn’t see or hear the panel hit the ground, because she was busy getting ready to have relatives over for the holiday.

"I may have been out shopping when it fell," Phillips said.

The panel’s discovery sparked some friendly arguments in her family of aviators as to what type of plane it might have come from. Her son, Kevin, works for Boeing, and her other son, Tim, is a private pilot.

"They thought it might have come from an airliner," Phillips said.

Once they read news reports about the Prowler incident and saw where the other pieces landed, the family figured they had solved the mystery. Phillips then contacted the Navy.

Phillips said having the panel hit so close to her home — within 100 feet — was unnerving.

"It could’ve taken out my skylight," Phillips said.

Reporter Scott Morris: 425-339-3292 or smorris@heraldnet.com.