landed in rebel-held territory and is in the process of being brought back to the kearsarge and the plane experienced mechanical failure, according to pentagon officials and officials, out with afri-com and they know because they have debriefed the pilot and from what the pilot described he does not think there was a surface-to-air missile involved and there were other pilots in the air at the time who saw the f-15 go down and they are saying they did not see a missile strike the plane. so, right now we can report that one u.s. pilot is safely back on board the uss kearsarge and the second pilot is in the process of being rescued as we speak. martha? martha: it looks like their training served them well, jennifer griffin, thank you so much. great reporting this morning. bill: let s get the second pilot safe and home, too. martha on the map behind us we can point out a couple things, day three, moving towards day 4
libya. you have essentially five naval vessels, two destroyers, the u.s.s. scout and the u.s.s. barry and then you also have the two amphibious warships, the u.s.s. kearsarge, you have the u.s.s. providence, a submarine, and the control ship u.s.s. mount whitney. you do not have an aircraft carrier. the enterprise crossed, is back in the fifth fleet zone in the cent-com area and they re the not in the mediterranean, towards the gulf of aden as of a few days ago, but we re also told that don t rule out the fact that that aircraft carrier, even from the position towards the gulf of aden could participate in this no-fly zone over libya. so there are plenty of assets we re told, but again, u.s. military assets not involved in these first strikes on libya. uma: not involved in the first strikes, but again, you re saying that you re being told that we can expect
lejeune to augment the kearsarge. despite being able to land marines, is also a floating hospital bay. it s got six operating rooms, can care for up to 600 patients. could be used as the base for a big humanitarian mission there. and if we take you back over to the red sea on the other side of the suez canal, there is the aircraft carrier uss enterprise, which would be sort of the base for any no-fly zone. of course, as secretary gates, no one carrier has enough planes to run a no-fly zone. but just last night, the chief of naval operations says if commanders needed more jets, what he could do was speed up the deployment of another carrier and get it out to the med faster. chris, obviously it is not an easy thing to enforce a no-fly zone over libya. a lot of different moving parts. no, exactly. first of all, they ve got to decide whether they re going to concentrate this no-fly zone simply over colonel gadhafis acommand and control center in
jennifer griffin continues team fox coverage tonight. jennifer, some very serious matters to consider here. that s right. and the pentagon continues to push back and warn of the dangers of trying to set up a no fly zone. frustrating both democrats and republicans on capitol hill. we are spending over half a we are spending $500 billion, not counting iraq and afghanistan, on our nation s defense. don t tell me we can t do a no fly zone over tripoli. libyan diplomats at the u.n. urged the rebels h however, to ask formally request them to set up a no fly zone, to request a no fly zone through the u.n. they said if that formal request comes, they will try to push it through the security council, shep. shepard: now to the military, the warships are either there or on the way there. but it appears this is more a humanitarian effort than anything else. is that right? that s right. if you look at the two ships that passed through the suez canal today, the uss ponte on the one hand
correspondent chris lawrence to give us a sense about the military assets. there are a lot of them that are in that area, and they are moving around. chris, obviously this is a big investment from our country. exactly, suzanne. and there s more military assets now in that area than there were even just 48 hours ago. let s take a look at a map and started in italy. that is where the uss mt. whitney. it s a command and control ship, is in port there. it s the type of ship that could be used to coordinate missions of other ships. also in the mediterranean sea, you have two u.s. navy destroyers, the uss stout and the uss barry which came through the suez canal yesterday. now, also, some of the other ships in that area, the uss ponce and the uss kearsarge. the kearsarge is an amphibious assault ship. the pentagon has ordered another 400 marines to deploy from camp