Plane Probe

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31649, 8 April 1968, Page 20

Plane Probe

fN.Z. Press Assn.—Copyright) WASHINGTON, April 7. The Senate Preparedness Sub - committee has quietly started an investigation into the loss of two of six swing-wing FIIIA fighters within a week after they | went into combat in i Vietnam. The chairman. Senator John ' Stennis, said the study of the: FIIIA was part of the sub-! committee’s look at tactical: air power, which it announc ed late last year. Senator Stennis said the in-! restigation of the FlllA| losses was being handled by the sub-committee’s staff and no hearings were planned at: present.

Within a week after the 1500 mile-an-hour Air Force fighter-bombers went into combat, flying out of a base in Thailand, two of them had been lost. Although the Defence Department has had little to say about the losses, the indications are that the first one was shot down, and that the second crashed because of mechanical troubles. One issue reported to be under study by the sub-com-mittee was the assignment of the FlllAs to combat before the completion of certain operational tests to which warplanes are normally sub jected. The sub-committee has been I told, however, that the com bat assignment for the SUS 6 million planes was, in effect, an extension of the test programme into a full-scale com bat laboratory.