Thunderbirds F-16 flips on landing

Breaking news that a Thunderbirds F-16 has flipped on landing in Dayton. The team was supposed to practice today, but the remains of Tropical Storm Cindy combined with a cold front to create wind gusts and storms. The team had called off practice, but the teams F-16D took off on a media flight. Reports are that there is an entrapment, and the pilot is to be taken by Care Flight to the hospital. One occupant was moving around and gave a thumbs up to emergency crews. The aircraft is completely on its back.

www.daytondailynews.com...
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ETA: According to witnesses, the aircraft landed safely, and was taxiing back to parking when a wind gust hit them and flipped the aircraft and pushed it off into the grass.

edit on 6/23/2017 by Zaphod58 because: (no reason given)

a reply to: Zaphod58

Was it #7 ?.

a reply to: Bigburgh

It's either 7 or 8. Both are two seat aircraft.

a reply to: Zaphod58

While it was taxiing? Wow. How weird.
Any idea how high the wind gusts were?

I'll pray that both on board will walk away from this accident with no more than a few scratches or bruises.

a reply to: muzzleflash

We have been gusting around 60mph Im 35 minutes away
Winds have died down now but flooding is rampant.
It was a lot like a catagory 1 hurricane this morning.

a reply to: muzzleflash

Winds at the time were reported about 6 knots, with gusts that were stronger. They were getting over 2 inches of rain an hour at times.

Both 7 and 8 were airborne at the time. A person taking pictures on scene at the time reported that two aircraft landed at the same time, and then one flipped.

a reply to: Zaphod58

I pray he gets out safely.

Can't be an easy job getting the pilot out of an inverted aircraft....

They've got one person out, and he's walking around. They're working on getting the second one out.

a reply to: Zaphod58
Sending thoughts & prayers to the pilots. I hope everyone can walk away.

Zap - Why are we seeing this so much? Just the age of the planes catching up with them?

a reply to: Martin75

They seem to come in cycles. We'll go years without seeing any really major accidents, then people get complacent and issues catch up and we get hit with a bunch of accidents. Then we have safety stand downs and briefings and pay attention more, and the accidents stop....

According to someone that has flown with them in the past, as soon as they land, the pilot has them engage the safety on the seats, to prevent any accidents with them while they're on the ground. So they would have safed the seats before the accident, which prevented an accidental firing.

There's a press conference scheduled, but they haven't said when yet. I'll update when it happens.

a reply to: Martin75

I would argue that this type of thing happened way way more often back in the early age of aircraft. Those early models were far less well designed and weighed much less too. There were tons of wrecks back in the day compared to how incredibly rare a wreck is in our current age.

Just because a few aircraft wreck every day shouldn't mislead you, there are so many more aircraft in operation right now today than at any point in the 1910s' 20s' or 30s'. I would place my bet on the assertion that aircraft are incredibly safe and sturdy compared to the early era of flight.

I know there is more important issues to deal with when something like this happens but would this effect their air show circuit ? They are meant to be heading to RIAT this year and I'm going lol you catch my drift

a reply to: ThePeaceMaker

It shouldn't. They might have a stand down for a week or two, but with it being pretty obviously wind related, this shouldn't affect anything.

Udate... both persons are safely out.

a reply to: Bigburgh

They're out. They got them out a couple minutes ago.

Music to my ears thank you

a reply to: Zaphod58

Yep just saw that.

Ok just to have my replies more related to the subject. The ejector seats. Is there a system manual or automatic that shuts down the seats if a plane was to flip over like that?

a reply to: ThePeaceMaker

They have a safety that is engaged until they're lined up on the runway. They safe them as soon as they're off the runway on landing.