One person is dead and two others are injured after a Navy plane crashed near Chincoteague in Accomack County, Virginia, Wednesday night.
The plane crashed around 7:30 p.m. into the water near Wildcat Marsh, just north of the NASA Wallops Flight Facility on the Eastern Shore. Three people were aboard the plane.
The E-2D Hawkeye was conducting routine flight operations in the vicinity of Wallops Island before it went down, Lt. Cmdr. Rob Myers, a public affairs officer with Naval Air Force Atlantic, told The Associated Press.
The plane, an advanced tactical airborne early warning aircraft, is based out of Naval Station Norfolk and assigned to an East Coast Airborne Command and Control Squadron, the U.S. Navy said in a news release.
The U.S. Coast Guard responded to the crash. The Coast Guard used helicopter crews and a lifeboat to help rescue two crew members. They have non-life-threatening injuries.
The third crew member was found dead in the aircraft. The name of the deceased crew member will be released once next of kin is notified, Navy officials said.
The identities of the crew members were not immediately released by the Navy or others.
A spokesperson at the NASA Wallops Flight Facility said emergency crews with NASA also responded to the incident.
Ryan Whittington, a spokesman for Maryland’s Ocean City Fire Department, told The Associated Press that it and other agencies were on the scene after the plane went down in Chincoteague Bay near the community of Stockton.
Whittington said a volunteer fire department in Stockton responded after getting a call around 7:30 p.m., adding other agencies were assisting. He said waters in the bay were relatively calm as divers from his fire department and one other helped rescue two people from the plane.
“One person was stuck in the plane,” Whittington said.
Whittington said emergency responders were staged at a George Island Landing, an area just on the Maryland side of the line with Virginia on the west side of Chincoteague Bay. The Eastern Shore location is about 150 miles east-southeast of Washington, D.C.
In a tweet Wednesday night, Virginia Rep. Elaine Luria, D-Va., said she’s “keeping our naval aviators, their families, and our first responders in my thoughts and prayers.”
I’m continuing to monitor the Navy plane crash in Accomack County.
I’m keeping our naval aviators, their families, and our first responders in my thoughts and prayers tonight as rescue and recovery efforts continue. https://t.co/etYBI7nHTy
— Rep. Elaine Luria (@RepElaineLuria) March 31, 2022
Below is a map of where the crash occurred.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
