Two Enterprise F-14 Tomcats collide; crews survive, By JACK DORSEY, The Virginian-Pilot

Two Enterprise F-14 Tomcats collide; crews survive, By JACK DORSEY,
The Virginian-Pilot

(EXCERPT) © February 2, 2004 |
Last updated 9:04 PM Feb. 2

Two F-14 Tomcat crews survived a mid-air collision over the Red Sea on
Monday, managing to return to the Norfolk-based carrier Enterprise
with successful landings and no injuries.

The accident occurred early in the evening local time – about midday
in Norfolk – while the ship was making its way back toward the
Mediterranean Sea.

The aircraft are assigned to the Fighting Checkmates of Fighter
Squadron 211, based at Oceana Naval Air Station in Virginia Beach and
attached to Carrier Air Wing 1.

Names of the aircrews were not released.

“We have very few details about how the mid-air occurred, but the main
issue is everybody made it back on deck safe,” said Mike Maus, a
spokesman for the Atlantic Fleet Naval Air Force, headquartered in
Norfolk.

The extent of damage to the two F-14s also was unknown, Maus said.

They were believed to have made relatively routine cable-arrested
landings on deck, using their tailhooks to stop.

The nearly 30-year-old planes are twin-engine, swept-wing
fighter/bomber jets capable of flying in excess of twice the speed of
sound, or more than 1,400 mph.

They were...

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