"After an extensive search by military units, the navy suspended search and rescue efforts at 6 pm (1400 GMT) on April 2 ... The missing pilot has been declared deceased," said the Bahrain-based Fifth Fleet.
It had waited 24 hours after notifying the aviator's family before making the public announcement that the search was over without a body being retrieved.
The aviator was identified as Lieutenant Steven Zilberman, who was born in the Ukraine but immigrated to the United States and "considered Columbus, Ohio his hometown".
Zilberman served in the US navy for nearly eight years, the Fifth Fleet said in a statement.
He went missing when an E-2C Hawkeye radar aircraft crashed into the northern Arabian Sea on Wednesday about five miles (eight kilometres) from the Dwight D. Eisenhower aircraft carrier on which it was based.
The three other crew members on board the aircraft, which was returning from supporting US operations in Afghanistan, were rescued that same day.
US navy ships and aircraft, along with aircraft from the US Central Command and the US air force, searched across 5,300 square miles (13,700 square kilometres) for Zilberman, the statement said.
The Fifth Fleet said the crash was under investigation.
AFP
