Possible Viper down in Germany

Reports are in of an F-16 down in Western Germany. The crash hasn't been confirmed by official sources, but word is that the pilot was able to eject before the crash.

www.usnews.com...

The aircraft belonged to the 52nd Fighter Wing at Spangdahlem AFB.
Pilot was evacuated by a resuce chopper, only lightly injured.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Trier / Zemmer

A US fighter crashed on Tuesday afternoon in Rhineland-Palatinate. "I can confirm the crash of one of our F16 machines," said a spokeswoman for the US airfield Spangdahlem in the Eifel. The machine had started from the base and crashed during a routine training flight. The pilot had rescued the ejection seat and was recovered with minor injuries, it said in a statement. He came to a hospital.

The police in Trier said that the crash site near Zemmer in the district of Trier-Saarburg had been cordoned off. There are no indications for damages. According to the local mayor of Zemmer, Edgar Schmitt, the jet went down over a forest. The accident is being investigated.

Residents were asked to avoid the crash site. Vehicles should bypass the area over a large area. Several county roads were closed to traffic.

Source Translate via google bc am lazy.

Good to hear. I despise lawn darts, although we had a flight of stike eales in....all code 3 lol. MC rates are atrocious all over the AF.





a reply to: mightmight

a reply to: lakenheath24

The Mountain Home boys can't let Seymour be the only utterly screwed up Mud Hen base. They're gonna have to work hard to catch up though.

Lakenheath is right behind!
They are taking 18 ships now! Christ that says a lot dont it. Last one down last nite had a double blow out. Guessing he locked em up as at night, rainy, and he had a hydro utility failure.



a reply to: Zaphod58

a reply to: lakenheath24

Antiskid and hydro issues usually sees them all go as soon as they touch the runway. Had a B-1 lose all 8 mains after the pilot panicked with half the runway left and an antiskid issue.

a reply to: lakenheath24

Next batch of MO birds inbound.

Luckily not at work! SJ's should be coming in as well.



a reply to: Zaphod58

a reply to: lakenheath24

Let me know how many are Code 3. I need the laugh.

Will do, my guess...80%! lol


a reply to: Zaphod58

a reply to: lakenheath24

I was going with at least half, but wouldn't be surprised at 80%.

The aircraft was scheduled as part of a four ship SEAD mission during Sabre Fury. The fourth aircraft ground aborted for a navigation failure. The ceiling was 500 feet, with IMC up to 15,000 feet.

Thirteen seconds after takeoff, the Mishap Aircraft suffered a brown out, losing the HUD, malfunction display set, electronic HSI, GPS, and INS. In addition the attitude indicator froze, and the pilot recovery system failed. At 45 seconds the pilot had descended to 280 feet and could see trees. He initiated an afterburner climb, and attempted the recovery system. He radioed the rest of his flight that he was in trouble, and to knock off the exercise. The HSI restarted and froze again.

At one minute, the aircraft descended below the clouds again, and the pilot initiated a second climb. At this point he realized that if he descended again he wouldn't be able to recover, and made the decision to eject. The AIB found a combination of electrical failure and poor weather led to the accident.

www.airforcemag.com...

Please turn the computer off then on again to reset didnt work.....

a reply to: Blackfinger

It tends to not work when your power supply fails.

a reply to: Zaphod58
Clearly he was having a very bad day. So is the pilot recovery system that's referenced the Hydrazine powered emergency power unit that's fitted to F-16, or does it refer to a "wings level" automatic attitude stabilization type system? Its been a few years since I looked up the F-16's systems.

a reply to: thebozeian

It's been awhile for me too, but IIRC it's a wings level system. It's tied to either the EHSI or ADI so in this case it couldn't work due to the brownout.

a reply to: Zaphod58
Ok, and they fitted at least some of the F16 fleet with an automatic GCAS type system too I think, which is what I wondered this might have been. Sounds pretty bad what happened here. Seems like the whole main electrical bus died and for some reason the EPS system either didn't initiate or wasn't able to supply to basic instrumentation and PFD's. There must have been some electrical power though, probably from a battery DC bus as he still had sidestick authority, radios, flight controls and engine EEC and afterburner response. I think he made a wise decision to punch out when he did.

a reply to: thebozeian

They're still installing AGCAS in them. The EPU activates when the power drops below a certain level. With a brownout the power doesn't always drop far enough for it to activate, and with everything going on he didn't have time to activate it manually.

White mans magic....