PENSACOLA, Fla. – A Marine combat veteran with three young children, a Virginia Tech aerospace engineering graduate, a retired Navy lieutenant commander and a young Marine died when their Pensacola-based Navy jet crashed this week in North Georgia woods, the military said today.
Military investigators remained in Fannin County today where the T-39N Sabreliner went down, killing all four aboard in dense forest near Georgia’s boundaries with North Carolina and Tennessee. No one on the ground was hurt in Monday’s crash, though authorities say the plane barely missed a house.
The crash happened during a training mission and the bodies of all four crew members have been recovered, said Navy Lt. Brett Dawson, a spokesman for the Navy’s Air Training Command headquarters in Corpus Christi, Texas. He released the identities and said a 25-acre brush fire started by fuel had slowed investigators.
“As I understand it, the fires from the crash had been too hot and they are just now able to approach the wreckage and begin the investigation,” Dawson told The Associated Press.
The Navy identified the men on Wednesday as Ret. Navy Lt. Cmdr. Charles McDaniel, 67, of Cantonment; Marine Capt. Jason Paynter, 38, of Pensacola; Marine Lt. Shawn Nice, 26, of Levittown, Penn.; and Navy Ensign Zachary Eckhart, 25, of Orefield, Penn.