The Navy identified Patrick Ruth and Wallace Burch as the two Naval Air Station Meridian pilots killed in Sunday's crash in Tennessee. 

The Navy identified Lt. Patrick L. Ruth, 31, and Lt. Junior Grade Wallace E. Burch, 25, as the two pilots killed in a jet crash Sunday afternoon in Tennessee while training near Tellico Plains.

Ruth, of Metairie, Louisiana, and Burch, of Horn Lake, died near the Cherokee National Forest Sunday. Monroe County emergency responders discovered the crash site at 4:17 p.m. but needed helicopters to locate the fuselage deep in the thick forest. The pilots were recovered on Monday.

Both part of the “Eagles” Training Squadron SEVEN at the Naval Air Station in Meridian, Ruth served nine years with the Navy while Burch served nearly three years.

Ruth, the middle of five siblings, ran track and played football before attending Tulane University in the fall of 2004. There, he met his fiancee, Jessica Fugitt, and obtained a degree in mathematics while she majored in psychology. The two were scheduled to marry this month, on Oct. 28, in Arkansas, according to their wedding website adventuresofruth.com.

Tennessee Legislature Representative Ron M. Grant posted about Burch, whose Facebook listed his hometown as Memphis, Tennessee. “A fighter pilot and naval aviator from a family of military service members, Wallace Burch has the designation of American Hero,” Grant wrote.

According to Burch’s Facebook, he listened to the rock band Aerosmith. His father, William Burch, a family medicine doctor in West Tennessee, attended the Missouri Military Academy before studying to become a doctor, according to the father’s Facebook. 

A spokesperson with the Chief of Naval Air Training Command Public Affairs Office said investigators hadn’t determined a cause and that the process could take several weeks before being publicly released.

The Navy briefly suspended all T-45C flights in early April and then limited flights to instructor pilots in May and June due to problems with the cockpit oxygen systems.

After nearly three months of investigation, the Navy announced in late June students at NAS Meridian would resume flying the T-45 Goshawk after engineers found a way to circumnavigate problems with the oxygen system.

The Naval Air Station in Meridian has had three crashes involving T-45 Goshawks in the last 13 months. Crashes in September 2016 and January are still under investigation. In both cases, the two pilots in each jet ejected, went to local hospitals, received treatment for their injuries and were released on the same day. 

The most recent T-45 crash reported by the Navy at the Naval Air Station in Kingsville, Texas, occurred in August of 2016. Both pilots ejected and received medical treatment. 

At the Pensacola Naval Air Station, the most recent crash reported by the Navy happened in 2013. Both pilots ejected and received medical treatment.

The T-45 aircraft was valued in 2009 at $17.2 million, according to the Navy Fact File website.