Crewmen From Jet Spotted in Raft

A second F-14 Tomcat fighter based at Miramar Naval Air Station was lost this week when two Navy aviators flying off the aircraft carrier Enterprise ejected over the Pacific near the Philippines, but searchers had located the men and were close to rescuing them, the Navy said Friday night.

The names of the crewmen, both San Diego residents, were not immediately released. A Navy spokesman said they had been sighted in a raft and apparently were uninjured. They were expected be picked up by a rescue helicopter and flown back to the carrier.

On Tuesday night, two lieutenants based at Miramar, Shawn Lavine and William Ritter, were killed during a routine training mission when their F-14 went down in a rugged area of Nevada 65 miles southeast of Reno.