PENSACOLA, Fla. — Two fighter jets crashed into the Gulf of Mexico during a training mission Wednesday, but the pilots ejected and were later rescued, the Air Force said.
Eglin Air Force Base spokeswoman Shirley Pigott said the pilots were rescued after their single-seat F-15C Eagles disappeared Wednesday afternoon off the Florida Panhandle, about 35 miles south of Tyndall Air Force Base.
The Air Force has not determined if the planes collided. Weather in the area was clear.
Coast Guard Petty Officer James Harless said a Coast Guard rescue jet located one pilot and radioed the location to a fishing vessel, which picked him up. A Coast Guard helicopter then hoisted the pilot off the vessel.
That pilot told rescuers he saw the other pilot also eject, but lost him in the clouds, Harless said. He told them the approximate location for the second pilot, who was found by a Coast Guard helicopter, Harless said.
The conditions of the pilots were not immediately available, he said. They were being taken to Eglin base hospital.
Harless added that no debris from the jets has been found yet.
The Air Force grounded all of its F-15s — nearly 700 — after the catastrophic failure of an F-15C during a routine training flight in Missouri in November. The pilot safely ejected.
Most were back in service by January, but others were grounded indefinitely after defects were found.
The Air Force began using the F-15C in 1979. The planes, built by McDonnell Douglas Corp., were deployed to the Persian Gulf in 1991 in support of Operation Desert Storm and have since been used in Iraq, Turkey and Bosnia.
The planes can fly up to 65,000 feet and each costs about $30 million, according to the Air Force.