Carlsbad
The Navy has recovered the pilot’s body and most of the wreckage of a plane that crashed 15 miles east of San Clemente Island, a Navy spokesman said Wednesday.
The plane, an MU-2 Mitsubishi twin-engine turboprop, owned by Flight International in Carlsbad, had just finished a training flight Tuesday for air-traffic-control students on the ground at the Navy’s Fleet Combat Training Center in San Diego, Lt. Cmdr. Bob Pritchard, a spokesman for the Navy, said. It crashed shortly before noon.
The wreckage was spotted at 3:50 p.m. Tuesday by two Navy helicopters based at Miramar Naval Air Station and a Navy plane based at North Island Naval Air Station. All three aircraft were participating in training and were called in to help the search, Pritchard said. The wreckage and body were retrieved by the USS Copeland, a Navy guided-missile frigate.
The identity of the pilot was being withheld until relatives could be notified, a spokeswoman for Flight International said.
The cause of the crash is under investigation.
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