Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
Arizona Daily Star (Tucson)
October 23, 2007 By Associated Press
The dreaded BANG! came from deep within the F-16's lone engine, shaking the warplane as it made passes over an Arizona bombing range last December. Then came the alarming loss of thrust.
Two attempts to restart the engine failed. Having exhausted their options, the pilot and his student bailed out, parachuting to safety before the plane slammed into the Sonoran Desert, a $21 million loss for taxpayers.
Not all F-16 pilots have been so lucky recently. The accident rate for this workhorse fighter has risen over the past few years, and two pilots have died in the past year, according to an Associated Press review of Air Force documents.
In the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, there were 10 "Class A" F-16 accidents — crashes that resulted in death, loss of the aircraft or damage of more than $1 million. (An 11th F-16 crash was counted separately as a combat loss by the military because the pilot was strafing enemy trucks at the time.)
The total was up from nine the previous year, five the year before that and just two the year before that.
The number of crashes has gone up even though the total number of hours flown has dropped steadily over the past five years.
An Air Force official said that one factor appears to be human error, and that pilots and maintenance crews must stay on guard against complacency. Pilot error was blamed for three accidents and the Iraq combat crash last year.
"I liken the problem to a really good football team that drops its guard," said Col. Willie Brandt, the chief of the Aviation Safety Division at the Air Force Safety Center and an F-16 pilot now flying combat in Iraq.
The rate of Class A accidents this year — 3.18 per 100,000 hours flown — was the highest since 2001, when it was 3.85 because of a rash of engine failures.
The Class A accidents last fiscal year include crashes that happened during training in the United States and Italy. The total also includes several crashes that happened during sorties in Iraq while the pilots were not engaging the enemy.
One expert said that it may be that as the Iraq war drags on, the stress of combat is taking a toll on the 1,300 F-16s in the U.S. fleet, and their pilots.
The F-16 is known in Air Force circles as the "lawn dart" for its tendency to plunge back to Earth when its single engine flames out, and in most years engine failure causes more accidents than any other factor. But pilot error was responsible for about the same number of F-16 accidents as engine failure in the past year.
In the late 1990s and the early part of this decade, engine problems caused the number of F-16 Class A crashes to spike. Experts fixed the problem and the accident rate fell.
October 23, 2007 By Associated Press
The dreaded BANG! came from deep within the F-16's lone engine, shaking the warplane as it made passes over an Arizona bombing range last December. Then came the alarming loss of thrust.
Two attempts to restart the engine failed. Having exhausted their options, the pilot and his student bailed out, parachuting to safety before the plane slammed into the Sonoran Desert, a $21 million loss for taxpayers.
Not all F-16 pilots have been so lucky recently. The accident rate for this workhorse fighter has risen over the past few years, and two pilots have died in the past year, according to an Associated Press review of Air Force documents.
In the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, there were 10 "Class A" F-16 accidents — crashes that resulted in death, loss of the aircraft or damage of more than $1 million. (An 11th F-16 crash was counted separately as a combat loss by the military because the pilot was strafing enemy trucks at the time.)
The total was up from nine the previous year, five the year before that and just two the year before that.
The number of crashes has gone up even though the total number of hours flown has dropped steadily over the past five years.
An Air Force official said that one factor appears to be human error, and that pilots and maintenance crews must stay on guard against complacency. Pilot error was blamed for three accidents and the Iraq combat crash last year.
"I liken the problem to a really good football team that drops its guard," said Col. Willie Brandt, the chief of the Aviation Safety Division at the Air Force Safety Center and an F-16 pilot now flying combat in Iraq.
The rate of Class A accidents this year — 3.18 per 100,000 hours flown — was the highest since 2001, when it was 3.85 because of a rash of engine failures.
The Class A accidents last fiscal year include crashes that happened during training in the United States and Italy. The total also includes several crashes that happened during sorties in Iraq while the pilots were not engaging the enemy.
One expert said that it may be that as the Iraq war drags on, the stress of combat is taking a toll on the 1,300 F-16s in the U.S. fleet, and their pilots.
The F-16 is known in Air Force circles as the "lawn dart" for its tendency to plunge back to Earth when its single engine flames out, and in most years engine failure causes more accidents than any other factor. But pilot error was responsible for about the same number of F-16 accidents as engine failure in the past year.
In the late 1990s and the early part of this decade, engine problems caused the number of F-16 Class A crashes to spike. Experts fixed the problem and the accident rate fell.