Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
Miami Herald
January 20, 2007
JACKSONVILLE (AP) -- A downdraft related to a thunderstorm caused a Navy jet to crash into a park near Jacksonville Naval Air Station, according to a report.
Lt. Cmdrs. Scott Bracher and Thomas Blake died from smoke inhalation when their S-3B Viking crashed and caught fire in September 2005, according to a 465-page report obtained by The Florida Times-Union through a Freedom of Information Act request.
The flight was delayed earlier that day due to weather conditions, which forecasters had difficulty predicting, the Navy investigators' report said.
''Rapidly deteriorating weather conditions were not communicated to the air crew in a timely fashion,'' the report said.
Bracher, 33, of Malverne, N.Y., and Blake, 33, of Spencer, Neb., were both 11-year veterans of the Navy.
''I am comforted to know that Tom and Scott didn't mess up,'' Blake's wife, Jessica Blake, said. ``I know that nothing more could be done to change the outcome of their flight.''
January 20, 2007
JACKSONVILLE (AP) -- A downdraft related to a thunderstorm caused a Navy jet to crash into a park near Jacksonville Naval Air Station, according to a report.
Lt. Cmdrs. Scott Bracher and Thomas Blake died from smoke inhalation when their S-3B Viking crashed and caught fire in September 2005, according to a 465-page report obtained by The Florida Times-Union through a Freedom of Information Act request.
The flight was delayed earlier that day due to weather conditions, which forecasters had difficulty predicting, the Navy investigators' report said.
''Rapidly deteriorating weather conditions were not communicated to the air crew in a timely fashion,'' the report said.
Bracher, 33, of Malverne, N.Y., and Blake, 33, of Spencer, Neb., were both 11-year veterans of the Navy.
''I am comforted to know that Tom and Scott didn't mess up,'' Blake's wife, Jessica Blake, said. ``I know that nothing more could be done to change the outcome of their flight.''