Lander County Sheriff's Office employees, the Lander County Sheriff's Office Search and Rescue, Lander County EMS and members of the Battle Mountain Volunteer Fire Department were at the incident command site after a Navy jet crashed March 1, Sheriff Ron Unger said.
The call came into the Lander County Sheriff's Office from Naval Air Station Fallon that a jet had crashed in the southern portion of Lander County at around 4 p.m. on March 1. Unger said he headed to the site right away along with a member of the fire department and Lander County EMS.
Unger dispatched Deputy Derek Zacharias, from the southern portion of the county, to the scene right away. Zacharias went there with NHP Trooper Charlie Brown, the sheriff said.
Cpl. Dennis Lowe, with the sheriff's office, who also works down south, helped to coordinate getting the Kingston Volunteer Fire Department on scene as well.
Unger headed up emergency crews from Lander and Eureka counties. There were 21 search and rescue members from Lander County at the scene and four members of the Kingston Volunteer Fire Department. Crews searched the rugged terrain on four-wheelers.
The plane was located around midnight and the pilot was found deceased around 2:30 a.m., Unger said. Lander County's search and rescue crew arrived on scene in the early morning hours of March 2 to help locate additional pieces of the wreckage, which they flagged for Navy emergency crews and investigators, he said.
"It was a joint effort between Eureka County, the Kingston Volunteer Fire Department and Lander County, who all assisted in locating the downed aircraft," Unger said. "It was a very long night. It was 29 hours for myself and others without any rest. The outcome was not what we would have liked but it was a successful search because nobody was injured during the search and we did locate everything in a reasonable amount of time. Our condolences to the family of the pilot. It's a tragic loss."
He added he was thankful for all of the other agencies that offered assistance such as search and rescue crews from Humboldt County, Pershing County, Churchill County and Nye County.
Mama's Pizza donated sandwiches for 30 people, Unger said.
As of the morning of March 4, the pilot's name was being withheld pending notification of next of kin, reported the Reno Gazette-Journal.
The F/A-18C, a U.S. Marine jet on loan to the Naval Strike and Air Warfare Center, went down about 70 miles east of NAS Fallon, the RGJ said.[[In-content Ad]]
