XBradTC

3 dead in Whidbey Island Navy jet crash | www.kirotv.com.

Sad news.

With three dead, it’s almost certainly an EA-6B Prowler. The Prowler is a four seat aircraft, but flying with a crew of only three is fairly common.

The area it crashed is, if I recall correctly, part of a long established low-level training route.

No word on the cause yet, and likely not for quite some time. It could be CIFT (controlled flight into terrain), that is, the pilot simply flew into the ground, or a mechanical problem, or bird strike, or a combination of factors.

The hazards of Naval Aviation are real.