Miramar Naval Air Station

A SkyWest commuter plane with 14 passengers and three crew members made an emergency landing Wednesday at Miramar Naval Air Station after its right engine caught fire and was shut down, officials said. Flight 724 was 18 minutes into its 1 p.m. flight from San Diego to Los Angeles International Airport when a fire-warning light came on. The pilot turned off the engine.

In a ceremony Thursday, a rifle range at Miramar Marine Corps Air Station was renamed for Vietnam War sniper Gunnery Sgt. Carlos N. Hathcock. Hathcock, credited with 93 kills of Viet Cong soldiers and North Vietnamese army regulars, founded the Marine scout-sniper school in Quantico, Va. He died in 1999 at age 57.

The Navy brags about its Top Gun school at Miramar Naval Air Station, but Mike Scott will tell you that the mesa mint and Palmer's grappling hook don't take a back seat to any of the hotshot fighter jockeys who train there. While Miramar is known worldwide for its fighter pilot school, Scott and three assistants, two civilian and one in the Navy, are working to preserve a lesser known feature of the sprawling air base.

An F/A-18 Hornet jet crashed Thursday at Miramar Marine Corps Air Station but the pilot ejected safely, Marine officials said. The plane went down three miles east of the runway in an unpopulated area.

The San Diego Assn. of Governments declined Friday to commission a $400,000 study of a "multiple airport" solution for crowded Lindbergh Field, returning the issue to subcommittees for reconsideration. Sandag's board of directors also added a wrinkle to the continuing attempt to relocate the airport when it instructed the committees to consider another alternative, the joint military-civilian use of Miramar Naval Air Station.

Brown Field could not be used as a major international airport because the nearby San Ysidro Mountains would dictate much steeper takeoffs and landings than normal, a new Sandag study obtained Friday by The Times concludes. The study, commissioned by the city of San Diego, evaluated the possibility of building a commercial airport at Brown Field. Jack Koerper, San Diego Assn.

Illegal immigrants housed at a privately run jail at Miramar Naval Air Station set mattresses and sheets ablaze Friday, spreading fire and panic that left 24 inmates injured. Eight to 10 prisoners who were angry over the recent loss of canteen privileges for all inmates at the newly opened jail started the fires by cutting electrical wires inside light sockets to provide sparks, U.S. Atty. Alan Bersin said.

Though important to the Navy, San Diego will not be exempt from proposed budget cuts facing the military, Defense Secretary Dick Cheney said Monday. Speaking at a San Diego press conference, Cheney also put the kibosh on a controversial plan to alter Miramar Naval Air Station for use as a civilian airport. "At this point, we have no plans to transform Miramar or to close down Miramar. I won't say we won't listen to proposals from the community--obviously we will," Cheney said.

Surely the time has come for San Diego officials to push for a swap with the Navy of Lindbergh Airport for Miramar Naval Air Station. Lindbergh Airport may not be suitable for international air services, but in conjunction with the North Island Air Station, it should be able to meet all Fighter I helicopter requirements, plus the fact that it adjoins the San Diego Training Center would seem to strengthen the bid for the retention of the latter....

An F-14 fighter jet crashed into San Diego Bay shortly after takeoff today from a Navy base. The two fliers ejected and were rescued. The jet went down two to five miles from the runway at North Island Naval Air Station. The plane was being delivered to a fighter squadron at Miramar Naval Air Station in San Diego.

Tito Ortiz, an "ultimate fighting" star, will not be the guest of honor at the Marine Corps birthday ball sponsored by the Miramar Marine Corps Air Station because of objections by top officers to his intended date, pornography star Jenna Jameson. The Marine command decided Jameson was "not an individual or guest that we really felt was appropriate" for the ball, which celebrates the founding of the corps, a spokesman said. Told of the objection, Ortiz bowed out of the Nov. 13 event.

Airport officials Monday voted to endorse the idea of a civilian airport at Miramar Marine Corps Air Station, setting up the biggest clash between the civic leadership and military brass here in decades. The military insists that joint use of the airport would be dangerous and undercut training and readiness. But the San Diego County Regional Airport Authority voted 7 to 2 to send the issue to a countywide public vote in November.

Mayor Jerry Sanders said Wednesday he would not support a proposed ballot measure that would ask voters to pick Miramar Marine Corps Air Base as the best site for a new airport. The Marine Corps has repeatedly rejected the idea of a joint-use airport, but officials at the San Diego County Regional Airport Authority believe the corps will relent if the public endorses the idea. The authority is set to vote June 5 on whether to put the issue on the November ballot.

A 31-year-old civilian stunt pilot was killed Friday when his customized plane crashed in the opening hours of the annual air show at Miramar Marine Corps Air Station. Sean deRosier was flying a single-engine plane that he and his father built called the "Cabo Wabo Skyrocker" when it failed to pull out of a steep descent. DeRosier was flown by helicopter to Scripps Memorial Hospital in La Jolla, where he was pronounced dead of massive external and internal injuries.

A Marine killed in a Humvee accident over the weekend was identified Tuesday as a 26-year-old sergeant from Illinois. Sgt. Matthew S. Adams of Rock Island was killed in the crash Sunday afternoon at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar in San Diego, the Marine Corps said. Four others, who were not identified, were hospitalized. Adams joined the Marine Corps on Nov. 23, 1996. He was a member of the 2nd Battalion, 24th Marine regiment.

One Marine was killed and four others hospitalized after their Humvee crashed at the Miramar Marine Corps Air Station over the weekend, officials said. The crash occurred shortly before 3 p.m. Sunday. The cause of the crash is under investigation.

A Navy Reserve pilot who steered his crippled jet fighter away from a populated residential area in Sorrento Valley before it crashed into a parking lot March 11 has been awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross. Cmdr. David G. Strong, a radar project engineer for Westinghouse Corp. in Baltimore, received the medal June 13 from Secretary of the Navy John Lehman. The engine of Strong's RF-8G Crusader failed right after he took off from Miramar Naval Air Station.

The Navy's proposal to build 1,600 housing units near Miramar Marine Corps Station took a step forward with the release of a final environmental impact report. To ease a housing crunch for young service members, the Navy wants to put apartments, townhouses and duplexes on 264 acres in the city's Tierrasanta area. The report released Friday mirrors findings from a draft last July.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service declared Tuesday that more than 500,000 acres of prime Southern California real estate stretching from Los Angeles to the Mexican border is critical habitat for the tiny California gnatcatcher bird and the San Diego fairy shrimp. The ruling means developers and road builders will face another layer of government scrutiny that could cause delays and add possibly billions of dollars in new costs.