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Remains of 2 aviators killed in Navy growler crash returning to Washington this week

Lieutenant Commander Lyndsay Payge Evans, a naval flight officer, and Lieutenant Serena Nicole Wileman, a naval aviator, were killed in the Oct. 15 crash.

WHIDBEY ISLAND STATION, Wash. — The remains of the two aviators killed in a growler crash near Mount Rainier last month are returning home to Washington from Dover Air Force Base this week.

Lieutenant Commander Lyndsay Payge Evans, 31, a naval flight officer, and Lieutenant Serena Nicole Wileman, 31, a naval aviator, were killed in the crash. Both were from California. According to Naval Air Station Whidbey Island officials, the flight took off from Oak Harbor on Oct. 15 and the crash was reported at 3:23 p.m. 

Wileman arrived in Oak Harbor around 7 p.m. Monday. The community was invited to show its support as the motorcade drove by. 

Evans will be returning home to Anacortes later this week. Her arrival will be private.

Evans and Wileman were assigned to the Electronic Attack Squadron (VAQ) 130. They died when their electronic warfare aircraft crashed in remote terrain on Oct. 15.

Evans was commissioned in 2014 and has been stationed on Whidbey Island since 2016. Evans was most recently assigned to the electronic attack squadron in September 2023. She has also served for several years in the electronic communications weapons school and the Electronic Attack Squadron (VAQ) 136 at NAS Whidbey.

Wileman was commissioned in 2018 and has been stationed at Whidbey Island since 2021. Wileman was assigned to the electronic attack squadron in 2022. She was previously in a student role at several bases across the country.

The crash site involving a U.S. Navy EA-18G Growler, an electronic warfare aircraft, was on a mountainside east of Mount Rainier.

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