2 Navy Planes Collide; 27 Are Believed Dead : Aviation: Ships and helicopters search unsuccessfully for survivors 60 miles southwest of San Diego.

SAN DIEGO — In the worst naval air crash in recent years, 27 crew members are believed to have died in the midair collision of two Navy P-3 Orion anti-submarine planes during a training mission Thursday off the San Diego coast.

The crash occurred 60 miles southwest of San Diego at 2:30 a.m. as a storm pounded the area. Navy crews found wreckage from the downed planes but had not found any bodies by late Thursday. The crewmen are listed as missing, but Navy officials said they have little hope that there are any survivors.

The collision occurred as one plane flew out to relieve the other, which had been airborne for seven hours. Fourteen crew members were aboard one Orion; 13 were on the other.

The two aircraft were assigned to Patrol Squadron 50, based at Moffett Naval Air Station in Mountain View, Calif., where the military community was stunned by the news of the accident.

“We’re a small community,” said Lt. Cmdr. Frank Pearson, assistant chief of staff for the P-3 patrol squadrons at Moffett, which is almost three flight hours away from the crash site. “When something like this happens, it affects us all.”

The P-3 is a sturdy turboprop that was used in the Persian Gulf War to search for mines. It is also capable of flying into hurricanes to monitor the strength of storms. The Orions that collided were conducting a routine anti-submarine warfare training exercise.

Airmen on a Navy helicopter flying 6 miles away and sailors aboard the San Diego-based destroyer Merrill 9 miles away reported seeing a ball of fire and loud explosion about 2:30 a.m., said Senior Chief Petty Officer Bob Howard, a spokesman for the Pacific Fleet’s Naval Air Force in San Diego.

The Navy is attempting to determine what altitude the planes were at when they collided. The Orion is capable of flying as low as 500 feet above the water during operations, Howard said.

It is also not yet known what role the stormy weather played in the crash. About two hours after the crash, the National Weather Service reported a funnel cloud off the coast near Ocean Beach, about 60 miles from the accident.

“Obviously, weather is being considered--it’s always a factor,” Howard said.

Several pilots, however, said that the P-3 is capable of handling considerable turbulence.

“It’s a hard, rough ride, but it’s got a lot of power, and it’s amazing how much the aircraft can take. . . . Multiply the turbulence on an any kind of airline flight by 10--they’re amazing,” said Lowell Genzlinger, a National Center for Atmospheric Research pilot who has flown the Orion into storms for 12 years. “But no airplane is going to handle a midair collision--that’s like running into a brick wall.”

At the time of Thursday’s crash visibility was 3 to 7 miles and the sea had 4- to 5-foot waves. Clouds layered the sky as rain pummeled the area.

“Certainly, weather conditions, while not optimal, were within the operating range and capability of the P-3,” Howard said.

The two aircraft, which had been in radio contact with the Navy battle group participating in the training exercise, were not using air-to-air radar but relying on their assigned altitude, an official said. Aboard ships, radar operators who were tracking the Orions saw both planes disappear from their screens.

One expert familiar with the aircraft said the crash was more likely to be a result of the pilots’ inability to see.

“You can assume any time there’s a midair collision--whether military or civilian--it results from the inability of one or both pilots to see. The primary means that pilots have to avoid collision is the human eyeball--if they are flying at night and in bad weather, the ability of the pilots to see each other is more difficult,” said the expert, who asked not to be identified.

Names of the missing crewmen had not been released Thursday as the Navy undertook the task of notifying relatives.

About five ships, including the San Diego-based guided missile cruiser Lake Champlain, the Long Beach-based guided missile frigate Gary and the Alameda-based aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln, combed the sea in search of bodies as aircraft flew overhead. It had not been determined Thursday how long the search will continue, Howard said.

Rescue efforts began almost immediately after the crash when the crew of a nearby Navy SH-60 Seahawk helicopter spotted the fireball, flew closer and identified floating debris from the planes. Rescuers found two lines of debris--including exposure suits and helmets--100 yards apart.

About 20 minutes after the incident, the Merrill--also participating in the training exercise--arrived at the crash site to help search for survivors. But none had been found by Thursday evening.

The Lockheed-manufactured Orion, named after the Greek god of the hunt, is a fixed-wing plane that typically carries a crew of about a dozen. Usually, the crew includes two pilots, a backup pilot during long flights, a flight engineer, and a mission team that monitors the sonar sweeps of the sea.

The plane is equipped with side search radar, which is used for detecting submarine periscopes. Crew members aboard the P-3 look for submarines by launching sonobuoys that are ejected from the belly of the plane and parachute into the sea. The crew can also use magnetic anomaly detection equipment, or a boom extending from the rear of the plane that functions as a magnetic sensor and detects large metal objects. Torpedoes dropped by the Orion home in enemy subs.

Used by the Navy for 29 years, the plane has a reputation as being safe, officials said. Since the Navy began using the P-3 three decades ago, there have been 38 mishaps for more than 6 million flight hours, officials said, a rate that compares favorably with other military aircraft.

The last P-3 accident occurred Sept. 25 at Crowes Field, part of the Moffett Field facility, when a plane landed hard and was engulfed in flames. Three were injured in that accident. The last fatal accident involving a P-3 occurred in Hawaii during 1983, when a plane crashed into a mountain, killing 14.

“The P-3 is one of the safest airplanes. With four engines and tremendous range, if you have an electrical problem and lose an engine, you still got two or three engines to get you home,” said Lt. Dave Wray, a Navy spokesman in Washington. “We’ve had every opportunity to get the kinks out of it--it has an outstanding safety record.”

Nonetheless, the plane is reaching the end of its usefulness for the Navy, which received the last of an ordered 540 in April, 1990. Lockheed is currently manufacturing the last of three P-3 planes for Canada and plans to build eight for South Korea.

“It’s extremely unusual for any airplane to remain in production 30 years,” said Jim Ragsdale, a Lockheed spokesman.

Navy officials acknowledged that the crash dampened the soaring spirits of naval aviators who have relished the victory of the Gulf War and what had been a relatively low accident year. Before this crash, five men had been killed in naval aviation accidents so far during 1991--or about one-fifth of the total who died during the previous year.

In fact, for the past year and a half, the Navy has made a concerted effort to improve their safety record. The campaign was launched after 1989, a year that marked the decade’s highest death toll of Navy personnel when 110 were killed, including 27 in aircraft crashes.

At Moffett Field, a base of 6,000 military and civilian personnel at the south end of San Francisco Bay, the flags flew at half-staff and word about the tragedy spread fast--”as soon as it happens,” an airman said, over a beer at the King of Clubs, a bar across from the base’s main entrance.

“It’s a big letdown,” the airman said, who was talking quietly with two friends, and asked that his name not be used. “ . . . It makes you feel pretty sick. Those are brothers.”

The crash comes as the military goes about the process of decommissioning two of the seven P-3 squadrons at Moffett. That process began this week. There are roughly 300 crew members for each squadron of eight planes.

Time staff writer Dan Morain in Mountain View contributed to this report.

THE P-3C ORION

A look at the P-3C Orion aircraft. Two of the Navy planes collided in mid-air over the Pacific off the California-Mexico coast on Thursday morning.

The P-3C Orion is a four-engine turboprop anti-submarine warplane built by the Lockheed Corp. The P-3 line of planes, originally built for the Navy in 1959, have a wing span of about 100 feet, a length of 116 feet, 10 inches, and a height of more than 33 feet. Their maximum speed is 473 mph, and they have a cruising speed of 378 mph.

The updated P-3C, with more sophisticated computer equipment, made its first flight in September 1968 and was officially placed into service in 1969.

Normally carrying a crew of 12, it is designed to hunt for submarines, is equipped to drop sonar buoys and can also carry torpedos.

The land-based Orion has a range of more than 2,000 miles.

Source: Jane’s All The World Aircraft, 1990-91