Well, I guess we can forget the dogfighting comment.
(Update from 6:30 pm CST)
Coast Guard search and rescue aircraft have discovered two debris fields believed to be the remains of two T-39 Sabreliners that went down about 40 miles south of Pensacola Beach on Wednesday afternoon.
There is no sign, however, of seven Pensacola Naval Air Station aviators who went down with the planes.
The search continues.
Air traffic controllers lost radio and radar contact with the planes about 3:30 p.m., said Harry White, spokesman for the naval air station.
There was no mayday and no distress signal before the disappearance, he said.
Within minutes, Navy and Coast Guard aircraft and boats were launched to scour the area where the planes are believed to have gone down.
The T-39 is a multiseat, multipurpose training jet that serves the intermediate phase of flight officer training, after the T-34 and before the T-2.
The T-39, which in civilian life is used as an executive jet, is not equipped with ejection seats.
The missing planes are part of Air Wing six, Training Squadron 86.
Last month the squadron celebrated its 25th anniversary of accident-free flying.
Since 1990, eight T-34s have crashed locally.
The crash was reported to Coast Guard Group Mobile, which immediately dispatched two Dolphin helicopters, one Jayhawk helicopter and a C-130 longe-range plane from Air Station Clearwater. The 87-foot cutter Stingray from Mobile, a 41-foot utility boat from Pensacola also were sent.
Coast Guard aircraft reported the two debris fields - separated by about six miles - shortly after they arrived and a helicopter dropped a data-marker buoy to assist searchers in locating survivors, a Coast Guard report stated.
Well, I guess we can forget the dogfighting comment.