F16 crash yesterday

[Lazerus]

Happened just a few miles from me yesterday afternoon.

link

[DiabloTX]

Gotta register.

[LePaul]

I checked here  ( http://www.aero-news.net ) and didnt see any mention of it....usually this site is on top of stuff like that

[Nilsen]

Did anyone die?

[Sandman]

F-16 CRASHES IN MARSH
2 Shaw Air Force Base pilots safely parachute onto banks of the Ashley River

BY ADAM FERRELLAND JOHN CHAMBLISS
Of The Post and Courier Staff
Two pilots on a training mission ejected from an Air Force F-16D seconds before the jet crashed and burned Monday along the Ashley River.

The airmen, Maj. Steve Granger and Lt. Col. Maurice Salcedo, parachuted into the marsh near The Citadel about 5 p.m. A half an hour later, their green jumpsuits muddy but dry, the airmen chatted briefly with the Charleston police and fire rescuers who brought them ashore at the Charleston Rifle Club pier at the end of Heriot Street.

When asked what went through his mind after he shot out of the cockpit, "Wow" was all one pilot could muster. Both said they were fine. An ambulance then took them to Trident Medical Center.

The Air Force is investigating the crash of the more than $18 million jet, which was based at Shaw Air Force Base in Sumter. Witnesses said the jet was in the air for about 10 seconds after the pilots ejected. Then it plummeted into the marsh and burst into flames.

Reggie McCoy, 36, was manning a construction vehicle at Boasso America Corp. on Braswell Street when he heard two "pops" as the men ejected. He saw two white parachutes. His co-worker, Adrien Roy, said the jet crashed just a couple of hundred feet from the chemical plant.

"The next thing I know, I heard an explosion, and then I saw a bunch of smoke and fire in the water," he said.

Mark Koblos, who was in a boat about 500 yards from the explosion, said the plane leveled off before the pilots ejected. Koblos, who said flames from the wreckage were about 30 feet high, checked on the pilots and gave them global positioning satellite coordinates when they asked for them. He waited with the pilots until emergency officials picked them up.

Marc Miramontes and his 9-year-old daughter, Elize, said a second jet circled the crash site seven times. They watched the scene from the parking lot of Omni Health and Fitness in West Ashley.

"They were flying pretty low," Miramontes said.

Jewana Dais said she and other Gordon Street residents ran to the edge of the Ashley River after the crash and saw the two pilots standing in the marsh on the north side of the river.

"We yelled to them to see if they were OK," Dais said. "They waved back at us and started packing up their 'chutes.' "

By about 6 p.m., Dais and other onlookers watched as Charleston police officers and a trio of Citadel cadets who had witnessed the crash walked through the marsh marking pieces of the wreckage. The canopy, still in one piece, was stuck in pluff mud about 30 yards from a home on the edge of the marsh.

Air Force officials urged people to stay away from the wreckage. The jet was carrying no munitions, said Lt. Suzanne Ovel, a spokeswoman at Shaw Air Force Base. She did not know whether the jet was carrying anything else.

Charleston Air Force Base accident investigators searched the river and marsh for wreckage throughout the night.

Local officials, including the Coast Guard, scrambled to find and access the crash site. Several witnesses said pieces of the fighter jet flew off as it went down. Wreckage was found in several areas, said Capt. Gina Jackson, chief of public affairs at Charleston Air Force Base.

Salcedo was observing Granger, who flies with the 77th "Gamblers" Fighter Squadron, on a training mission designed to increase pilots' proficiency, Shaw officials said.

A board of officers will investigate the accident.

Col. Michael Beale, vice commander of the 20th Fighter Wing, said the pilots were just getting started with the mission when there was "some sort of malfunction."

The pilot tried to land at Charleston Air Force Base, and "when he realized he couldn't make Charleston Air Force Base, he put it down in an unpopulated area," Beale said.

Beale said the pilot has flown for more than 12 years, though he was unsure how long the pilot has flown F-16s.

Experts from Shaw immediately headed to Charleston to secure and inspect the equipment. Beale said he couldn't speculate about the cause.

The crash comes one month after a non-fatal F-16 crash at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada and barely a week before ShawFest 2005, an air show featuring the Thunderbirds, an Air Force demonstration team that performs aerobatic maneuvers in F-16s.

On the same day as the Nellis crash, Shaw took delivery of the last F-16 built for the Air Force. Since 1978 the Air Force has purchased 2,231 of the planes. U.S. allies will continue to purchase the F-16.

The "Fighting Falcon" is used for both air-to-air and air-to-ground combat. Shaw has 80 of the planes, which cost about $26.9 million in their latest incarnation.

Shaw's three fighter squadrons have deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. They also guard the eastern seaboard as part of Operation Noble Eagle. Shaw pilots patrolled the skies over President Bush on Christmas Day and during the Republican National Convention.

The Gamblers lost a pilot in the last major crash involving a Shaw jet. In that accident, Capt. Mitchell August Bulmann, 27, of Traverse City, Mich., died July 6, 2001, in the Atlantic Ocean after ejecting from the plane.

He had been engaged in an air-to-air combat training exercise about 40 miles off the coast of Charleston. An Air Force investigation found that he lost control of the plane while suffering from gravity-induced loss of consciousness, which typically lasts 24 seconds.

By the time he regained consciousness and was able to eject, his plane was moving too quickly and at an unsafe angle for him to eject properly. He suffered fatal injuries while ejecting.

 
This article was printed via the web on 4/20/2005 1:53:53 AM . This article
appeared in The Post and Courier and updated online at Charleston.net on Tuesday, April 19, 2005.

[Sandman]

Originally posted by DiabloTX
Gotta register.

There is another way.

http://www.f-16.net/f-16_news_article1349.html

[Lazerus]

Originally posted by Sandman
There is another way.

http://www.f-16.net/f-16_news_article1349.html

Thanks sandy, forgot to post that link with it. That's how I got it, other than reading the front page that day.

[Lazerus]

Next day's story.


Pilot says F-16's main power, backup system failed
Investigators seek clues about what caused problem, forcing crew to eject over marsh

BY JOHN CHAMBLISS
Of The Post and Courier Staff
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After the main power failed, the pilot whose F-16D jet plummeted along the Ashley River activated a backup power switch.

When that failed, pilot Maj. Steve Granger steered the jet toward the marsh before he ejected.

Investigators on Tuesday gathered burned sections of the fallen jet and searched for an event-data recorder and other clues to what caused the engine to fail.

Granger and Lt. Col. Maurice Salcedo were on a training flight. They both escaped injury in the 5 p.m. crash Monday when they ejected from the jet just seconds before it crashed.

The jet had just taken off on a 1-1/2 hour training mission from Shaw Air Force Base in Sumter when it experienced engine problems near Charleston, said Suzanne Ovel, a spokeswoman with the base.

Granger tried to land at Charleston Air Force Base when he realized he had engine problems and hit the backup switch for lights and hydraulics.

On Tuesday, Ninth Air Force pilots Granger and Salcedo were resting at their respective homes. Ovel said they were a "little achy" but in good condition after they parachuted into the marsh near The Citadel.

The two men had never flown together. Salcedo normally flies F-15 jets but rode as an observer with Granger on Monday. Granger, who flies with the 77th "Gamblers" Fighter Squadron, provided an account Tuesday to an Air Force board of investigators.

Questions such as when Granger developed engine problems and how high they were flying when they ejected remain unanswered.

Maj. Ian Phillips, chief of flight safety, said that Granger knew the area well and was trained for an emergency. "When you fly, you identify certain air fields," Phillips said. "He had the situational awareness and the ability to keep it in an unpopulated area."

Both men had trained in mock ejection seats. "That is your last chance and you have to be solidly aware of its (ejection seat's) capabilities," Phillips said.

Mark Bednar, an Air Force lieutenant colonel who's in charge of recovering the jet, said the Air Force will hire a contractor to use a barge and crane to pull the jet from the marsh.
 crash.jpg
MARK KOBLOS/KTA GROUP
An explosion erupts after an F-16 from Shaw Air Force Base crashed Monday in a marsh across the Ashley River from the Rosemont neighborhood. This photo was taken by a boater in the river.

During the search, which is expected to last a couple of days, a portion of the Ashley River from the pier at the Charleston Rifle Club to the Cosgrove Avenue bridge will be closed for safety reasons.

The jet was carrying 20-millimeter shells on board, which likely burned in the fire after the crash. Investigators said that if there are any remaining shells, they are within the closed-off portion.

The fire burned much of the 1,070 gallons of jet fuel on board, but the Air Force continued to monitor the area for fuel in the river.

About 30 members of the Air Force and other local units could be seen in boats and on shore at the Dolphin Cove Marina off Austin Avenue. The Charleston County Sheriff's Office used sonar to search the water for the two seats that shot from the jet.

A scorched exhaust nozzle and the remaining pieces of the tail could be seen in the marsh from the marina. Besides the jet canopy, which landed in the marsh several hundred feet from where the jet crashed, most of the remaining pieces were suspected to be near the marina.

Witnesses were relieved Tuesday that the jet didn't crash into nearby chemical plants or schools.

"I think that a lot of people were breathing a sigh of relief," said Citadel spokeswoman Charlene Gunnells. "People get desensitized to airplanes flying overhead, and they never think that a crash like this might happen."

Brent Anderson was in a boat north of the crash.

"At first I said to myself, 'Uh-oh, where is that going?' " Anderson said. "But he knew he had trouble and he just kind of leveled it."

The crash raises questions about private-sector buildup near the Air Force base.

The armed services discourage private development in critical places around military installations to minimize the risk of accidents in populated areas. The Pentagon is considering what it calls "encroachment" as one of the determining factors in the upcoming round of base closings and restructurings.

But encroachment was not an issue in Monday's crash, said Tom Mikolajcik, a retired brigadier general and former wing commander at Charleston Air Force Base. If the cause was an engine problem, the accident would have occurred whether the single-engine F-16 was over a city, a military base or an unpopulated area, he said.

[Gunslinger]

Air Force officials urged people to stay away from the wreckage. The jet was carrying no munitions, said Lt. Suzanne Ovel, a spokeswoman at Shaw Air Force Base. She did not know whether the jet was carrying anything else.

Hydrazine (SP) maybe nasty stuff

Both men had trained in mock ejection seats. "That is your last chance and you have to be solidly aware of its (ejection seat's) capabilities," Phillips said.

When all else fails Egress prevails....thrust you can trust.  We punch pilots out!

Kudos to the Egress guys at shaw!  There's only one way to test a seat and maintainers that put it in and this is it.

On Tuesday, Ninth Air Force pilots Granger and Salcedo were resting at their respective homes. Ovel said they were a "little achy" but in good condition after they parachuted into the marsh near The Citadel

+14Gs will do that to a person   glad to know their safe.

[GreenCloud]

gunslinger..my brother is in the marines..he does "work" on f-18s


hes in virginia..well off the coast of virgina this week..doin soem sort of flight thingy


its kikazz to hear his stuff...h ewas out awhile ago ..i think where your at doing soem sort of ..missle stuff on f18s.

[Dago]

Hmmm, flying low near a rifle range and all of sudden has an engine problem?

"Hey bubba, hold my beer and while I take a shot at that jet""

[Pooh21]

When my Dad was stationed at Shaw in 87, our little league fields were right next to the freeway and right under the landing path. Was cool watching A-10s fly over during our games.

[Pongo]

so the electrical systems failed?

[Mini D]

What I got from the article was that the engine failed. If the electrical system failed, they wouldn't have been able to stear the F-16 anywhere.

[Gunslinger]

Originally posted by Mini D
What I got from the article was that the engine failed. If the electrical system failed, they wouldn't have been able to stear the F-16 anywhere.

that's correct.  The engine produces the electrical power needed for most systems on the A/C.  If that fails somhow they have a back up EPU.  I don't know enough about that to  really comment on it but from what I've heard that is supposed to give you enough juice to point your A/C in a safe direction OR make a safe landing if you still have enough engine to make it to a suitable site.

alot of the F15 guys I know (cobra412 would probably attest to this) call the F16 the "lawn dart" for this very reason.