Air Force Fighter Jet Missing in Alaska

Air Force Fighter Jet Missing in Alaska

www.foxnews.com

ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- A search was under way Wednesday for an overdue Air Force F-22 fighter jet based at a military facility near Anchorage.

(visit the link for the full news article)

Ok first off I do not think this is normal at all. Jets simply do not vanish especially when they are of the military type. I think this might be something else in the making. The military can fly a drone from the US to bomb a village in Iraq etc but they seriously want the people to believe that it just "vanished"?

www.foxnews.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

Not just any jet, an F-22 Raptor ... those are the really expensive and really dangerous kind.

reply to post by Rhadamanthus


Wow that's a pretty bad place to go down if you are planning to crash a jet... Hopefully the pilot got out if that is the case, he will be very very cold tho.

Of course there is always the possibility he's gone all Clint Eastwood in Firefox on America (that is to say taken the latest and greatest aircraft and delivered it to the other side).... No idea how that would go down tho, up there in Alaska he can't really go too far without either landing somewhere or refuelling.

Most likely the US has an aircraft downed for some reason, just hope the pilot is just cold and waiting to get picked up, hope the cost of the F22 don't have to come out his check.

I'll be the first to propose this idea.

Could this be a case of defection?

Times are getting tough. I'm sure some country would pay greatly for the aircraft so it can be back-engineered.

"Elmendorf-Richardson, said the jet was on a training mission and lost contact with air traffic control at 7:40 p.m. Tuesday"

Im in the UK and its 6.30pm Wednesday, furthest time diff to the USA is 8 hours. So either way this plane has been missing over 13 hours and there is no update?

reply to post by susp3kt


we don't defect in this country... you either love it or you leave it !

reply to post by Now_Then


Actually from Alaska, if I'm not mistaken, it would be a pretty short flight to Russia?

Originally posted by susp3kt
I'll be the first to propose this idea.

Could this be a case of defection?

Times are getting tough. I'm sure some country would pay greatly for the aircraft so it can be back-engineered.

There is a very very good possibility of this. They have stopped production on the F-22 to make the F-35 LightningII which is almost the same plane. (source is Wiki F-22 page) and Valued at 150M USD each the F22 would make for a pretty penny on the market. Also the US has banned Export on the F22 because of numerous reasons to national security. (source again Wiki)

interesting story, but somone beat ya to it.

exisiting ATS thread

I also mention this story in my thread

Odd things going down in alaska today

seems to be a lot more than usual going on in alaska today...

I am sure the US military would have a fail safe device on board their weaponry ? even so there has been lots of happenings on the west coast these past few weeks, now I am just waiting for the 'China shot it down' theory.

Hopefully the pilots were able to eject safely, and hopefully they find them soon.

Sometimes things do fall out of the sky, and hopefully they will find the pilots.

ooh on Fox News now

Odd. I'd think if it was a case of defection that the military would know - surely they'd track a plane like that everywhere it went? Not that I'm familiar with how these things actually work

And if it was a crash - here's hoping that whoever was flying it will be found safe and sound.

reply to post by Cosmic.Artifact


I have the same patriotic attitude as you sir, but the only reply I have for you is...PFT!

You can't speak for the 300 million other Americans. Do you know how much people are hurting these days? Money is a motivator. For some, it's the only motivator.

I can only imagine what the dollar amount some of our enemies would pay for an F-22. I'm talking BIG TIME $$$...

Originally posted by Khayal
Odd. I'd think if it was a case of defection that the military would know - surely they'd track a plane like that everywhere it went?

You've never seen movies such as Con Air?

It's as easy as removing the plane's transponder (a tracking device).

Though in the case of the F-22, I'm sure it's a little more trouble that cutting a few wires...

Is this another Chinese attack ?

2nd line

Originally posted by wisintel
reply to post by Now_Then

 

Actually from Alaska, if I'm not mistaken, it would be a pretty short flight to Russia?

Well yhea now you mention it... Bit daft of me not to realise but that's probably why they are stationed in Anchorage - I just fired up Google Earth and used the ruler tool from Anchorage to the closest bit of Russia, I made it 730 miles..... So yep that's gotta be pretty dooable I suppose, of course that's straight line and no messing about - how far can those things fly anyway?

wiki gives

Range: >1,600 nmi (1,840 mi, 2,960 km) with 2 external fuel tanks
Combat radius: 410 nmi[196] (471 mi, 759 km)
Ferry range: 2,000 mi (1,738 nmi, 3,219 km)

link

So that's always a possibility, proper cold war stuff that would be!

reply to post by Now_Then


I'm sure the range of the aircraft is information that is classified, but rest assured it would have the capability of reaching mother Russia.

Most probable cause is a crash due to a technical fault of some kind.

The aircraft will be fitted with an IFF transponder of some sort. That would not work post crash, nor in very severe system failures. It could also just be turned off. The CVFDR might have a beacon for post crash use, or it might not.

The pilot should have a locator beacon as part of the aircrew equipment. That should make him easy to find if he wants to be found.

Maybe he's just gone postal like happened with the A-10 pilot a few years ago and stuffed it in over the wilderness somewhere.

I'm wondering why this has not been mentioned on the BBC News yet.

I've searched their web site and nothing about it all.

Is it not news worthy ?