Death of pilot who returned this year from Mideast investigated

The death of a pilot training at the Fallon Naval Air Station is under investigation.

Base spokesman Zip Upham told the Lahontan Valley News that the 27-year-old aviator fell to his death early Wednesday from the fourth floor of a Bachelors Officers' Quarters building on the base.

Efforts to revive him were unsuccessful.

His name wasn't immediately released.

Upham said the pilot was assigned to the Golden Dragons, a strike fighter squadron in Carrier Air Wing 9 from the Lemoore, Calif., Naval Air Station, about 40 miles southwest of Fresno.

The squadron has been training at the Fallon base for three weeks, and had returned to the United States in February after a seven-month deployment to the Middle East.

The death is under investigation by Navy and Churchill County sheriff's investigators.