Four Onboard Include Civilian, Navy And AF Airmen

ANN REALTIME UPDATE 01.11.06 1245 EST: The search continues for a T-39 Sabreliner, used by the Navy for navigator training, that vanished Tuesday while enroute from Chattanooga, Tennessee, to Pensacola NAS, Florida. The aircraft took off at 11 AM on an instrument flight rules flight plan and was last heard of some twenty minutes later, when it made a routine ATC handoff. No subsequent transmissions were received from the Navy Jet.

The crewmembers of the missing aircraft from Navy training squadron VT-86 have not been identified by name. The plane was flown by a civilian contract pilot; A Navy officer instructor and two officer students, one each from the Navy and the USAF, were aboard.

The aircraft took off at 1100 and was expected in Pensacola by 1500. When the airplane was overdue, search procedures got underway.

The T-39 crewmembers have parachutes available in the aircraft, but the elderly training jet does not have ejection seats.

The venerable Sabreliner (civilian version shown, at right) was developed as a military crew trainer in the 1950s, and then "repurposed" to be the first business jet. Relatively few of the civil aircraft remain -- all have required expensive re-engining, as they originally had earsplitting, thirsty turbojets -- but the machine remains a military training workhorse.

The search has centered on the rugged, mountainous area of north central Georgia, in the area of Carters Lake. An Air Force rescue aircraft from 347th Rescue Wing at Moody Air Force Base ran the route the missing plane was to have flown without detecting any sign of it. "The CAP is out today. Whether we get tasked or not will depend on whether they find anything today," Capt. Gary Arasin of the 347th told the Associated Press.

"We've got five air crews standing by ready to go," Civil Air Patrol public affairs officer Capt. Paige Joyner said. Visual search operations by the CAP have been frustrated by low ceilings and rainy weather.

Ground elements including CAP units, sheriff's departments and other local law enforcement agents have been searching and canvassing rural residents in the hopes that someone might have seen evidence of the missing plane. The Georgia Department of Natural Resources and US Army elements have also participated in the search, according to some sources.

FMI: www.navy.mil