Navy pilot lost bearings before crash

WASHINGTON, Dec. 1 (UPI) -- A U.S. Navy pilot who died in a training accident this year had lost his bearings before the mishap, military investigators say.

A Navy report on the incident said the pilot, Lt. Jeremy Wise, of Oceana, W.Va., was flying a single-seat F/A-18C with a two-seat F-5 Tiger trainer June 13 in Nevada when the collision happened, The Virginian-Pilot newspaper in Norfolk, Va., said Monday.

The planes had been assigned separate altitude "blocks" in which to fly but at some point Wise apparently lost his bearings and entered the Tiger's block even though he hadn't been instructed to do so, the report said.

Wise made no radio contact with the Tiger and within 10 seconds, the two planes collided at 13,400 feet over the Nevada desert about 50 miles east of Fallon Naval Air Station, the newspaper said. Both planes were destroyed. Wise died and the Tiger pilots escaped.