Autopsy: Pilot found in Florida bay drowned

Autopsy: Pilot found in Florida bay drowned
By Patrick Winn - Staff writer
Posted : Thursday May 29, 2008 6:15:08 EDT

An autopsy ruled out foul play in the death of an Air Force pilot-in-training whose body was found washed up in a Florida bay.

Second Lt. John Alley, 26, of Colorado Springs, Colo., appears to have drowned, according to the Pensacola Police Department. Toxicology results will not be released for several weeks and police remain unsure of the circumstances leading to his death.

Alley, a 2006 Air Force Academy graduate, was last seen in his green flight suit leaving Whiting Field, Fla., the naval air station where he was stationed. He and his wife, who is four months pregnant, lived in nearby Milton, Fla. Police and a nearly 200-person search team organized by the lieutenant’s family and friends began searching for him Saturday after discovering his car, crashed into a guardrail by a coastal highway, was locked with the keys in the ignition.

He was found on the shore Monday by a teenage fisherman about half a mile from the crash, which was not severe enough to kill or even severely injure the airman, according to Assistant Chief Chip Simmons of the Pensacola Police Department.

It would have taken a determined person of at least average physical ability, Simmons said, to make it through the wooded embankment and stone berms between the crash site and the beach where Alley’s body was found.


Rest of article at: http://www.airforcetimes.com/news/2008/05/airforce_dead_pilot_052808/