Reuters
An U.S. military plane assigned to a Washington state Naval Air Station on Whidbey Island crashed on Monday morning during a routine training flight, killing all three crew members on board, Navy officials said.
The plane, a Northrop Grumman EA-6B Prowler, a twin-engine electronic warfare aircraft, went down sometime before 8:45 a.m. local time in Lincoln County in eastern Washington state, base spokesman Mike Welding said.
“It was flying out there. I don’t know exactly what it was doing,” Welding said. “Everything is really preliminary at this point.”
The Navy said its personnel were investigating the crash in the rural area roughly 50 miles west of Spokane, where the crew had been conducting a routine training flight.
The base where the plane was assigned is located on Whidbey Island in the Puget Sound, north of Seattle. The plane crashed roughly 10 miles from Harrington. The Navy was withholding the names of the dead until after their families are notified.
The Northrop Grumman EA-6B Prowler’s main use is to support air and ground troops by disrupting communications and obtaining tactical electronic intelligence within a combat area, according to the aircraft’s maker.
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