Elite SEALS to join divers in search for downed Air Force plane

From InterAksyon (Jun 27): Elite SEALS to join divers in search for downed Air Force plane

A team of technical divers from the Navy’s elite SEALS unit was en route from Sangley Point in Cavite City to Palawan to join the search for the fuselage of an OV-10 Bronco aircraft that crashed off Puerto Princesa City Sunday night as it came in to land.

The six-man team left Villamor Airbase in Pasay City on a C-130 transport plane early Thursday morning, Navy spokesman Lieutenant Commander Gregory Gerald Fabic said.

He said the team would dive in waters where sonar located what is believed to be “a wreck on the seabed,” Fabic said.

The Air Force earlier contracted the Cebu-based M/Y Sakura, which is equipped with portable sonar equipment, to aid in the search for the downed aircraft, one of two planes that conducted a night proficiency flight Sunday.

On Wednesday, Commodore Joseph Rustom Pena, chief of Naval Forces West, said it was possible the downed plane’s pilots -- Major Jonathan A. Ybanez and 1rst Lieutenant Abner Trust Nacion -- failed to bail out and remained trapped in the fuselage.

Commander Carlo Lagasca, skipper of the Navy’s BRP Mangyan (AS71), which has led the search operations for the missing airmen, said they hope what the sonar detected was the plane’s body.

The 507th Strike Wing has formed a Board of Inquiry to investigate the crash while the Air Force has grounded its eight remaining OV10s for inspection.

http://www.interaksyon.com/article/65037/elite-seals-to-join-divers-in-search-for-downed-air-force-plane