Draken A-4 crashes near Las Vegas Motorspeedway

A Draken A-4 participating in Red Flag 16-4 has crashed near the Las Vegas Motorspeedway. Spotters said that it came down right near the dirt track that is part of the complex. A Temporary Flight Restriction is in place, but flight operations from the base are continuing. Witnesses said that the aircraft was performing the overhead recovery, and appeared to stall and crash. The pilot ejected at low altitude, but only suffered minor injuries.

From reports, it was one of these aircraft:

a reply to: Zaphod58

Glad to hear the pilot is okay. Wonder if this was human error or mechanical in nature.

That was not cheap, whatever the cause is

a reply to: FamCore

No and it hurts that it was an A-4. They're about the only operator left of them.

Some early pictures here,
www.rt.com...

According to media reports, it was the two seater, the one in the second picture in the OP.

This gives an idea of about where the crash occurred. Where the two roads meet is the approximate location. It was about 300 yards from the Kart track at the Las Vegas Motorspeedway.

Sorry to hear about that.
I haven't been out near Nellis since the 70's when I was getting emergency repair parts at that place out on Lamb.

a reply to: smurfy

My phone stalled on your link so did a quick image search. Wow!
The black and white ones look really cool.
Scary looking wasp/cows!!!

Anyway, hope the pilots OK.

OMG that's VERY close to where I was parked last year to take photos of Nellis.

a reply to: Imagewerx

Zaph and I too. We were just under 600 yards from where it went down this year and last.

Ex RNZAF..

a reply to: Blackfinger
I wonder if it's one of the A4G's we sold the Kiwis? If so then you probably saw it being worked on in H131 years ago. That's a real shame.

LEE.

Glad the pilot made it,but damn,those A4`s were sweet little planes.shame to lose one.

Nellis was trying for all three of the "crashes happen in threes" yesterday. At some point yesterday a Pavehawk crashed on the NTTR. All four crew survived and were airlifted for treatment.

It was N140EM for the registration number.

a reply to: Zaphod58

YOU FORGOT BRAZIL!!!

a reply to: Barnalby

ABOUT the only operator.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Yeah, aren't they mostly grounded anyways?

Brings back memories coming into Vegas out of the desert on highway 15 with "Hotel California" playing on the radio.
By the way "Colitas" in the song lyrics had nothing to do with Marijuana.

a reply to: Barnalby

They're being modernized. The first of them was delivered last year, with plans to operate them until about 2025 or so.

Some interesting info:

foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com...