Midair at Red Flag North (Cope Thunder)

[Scrapdog]

[FONT=Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif]U.S. Air Force F-15 Crashes after Alaska Mid-Air
[FONT=Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif]By James Halpin
Associated Press Writer
[/FONT][/FONT][FONT=arial,helvetica]posted: 11 June 2007 06:24 pm ET[/FONT]

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) - An F-15 fighter jet crashed Monday after colliding in mid-air with another military jet during a training exercise, Air Force officials said. The other jet landed safely and no-one was seriously injured.
The pilot of the F-15C ejected safely and was taken a military hospital, said Airman Jennifer Anton, a spokeswoman at Eielson Air Force Base near Fairbanks. The pilot did not have serious injuries, she said.
The pilot of the other jet, an F-16C that landed safely, was uninjured, she said.
It was not immediately clear why the two jets collided at 11:23 a.m. local time during the Red Flag-Alaska 07-2 training exercise about 90 miles (145 kilometers) east of Fairbanks in Alaska's interior, Anton said. A board of Air Force officers will investigate.
The crash happened at the Pacific Alaska Range Complex, a 60,000-acre training ground.
The $27 million F-15C that crashed was from Langley Air Force Base, Virginia, and the F-16C was from Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada.
The Alaska Air National Guard took the F-15C pilot to Bassett Army Hospital at Fort Wainwright, also near Fairbanks, said McHugh Pierre, a spokesman for the Alaska Department of Military and Veterans Affairs.
The training exercise includes more than 1,400 military members from the U.S., Singapore and Australia. The simulated combat exercise is scheduled to run through June 15, according to Eielson's Web site.

On a side note - both the F-15C and the F-16 guy are OK. I know the F-15 guy personally...very good guy. Fly safe!!

 

[LOBO98]

Just speculating:

Block adherence is critical!!!

Scapdog
Was the Eagle driver a young guy (first tour) or not?

Lobo

 

[SIG600]

Shouldn't take to long to investigate. I assume they all had TACTS pods.

 

[TV9Driver]

that's 2 f-15's down and 2 f-16's landing safely after midairs in the last two weeks. (MO guard in Indiana)

 

[AdlerDriver]

that's 2 f-15's down and 2 f-16's landing safely after midairs in the last two weeks. (MO guard in Indiana)

MO guard wasn't a mid-air. Just happened during DACT w/ F-16s.

The names of the AK dudes were released and the F-15C pilot was a major from Langley. So, I would guess not a first tour guy.

Lobo,
You make it sound like the only reason there might be a mid-air is because someone failed to adhere to their block. Blocks are nice but just because there was a mid-air doesn't mean there had to be a violation of them. You only have to stay in your block until you see everyone and/or have SA on those you don't. This could have been a 9k' pure pursuit problem, a bubble violation on a gun shot, a mis-assessed aspect (thinking you're seeing belly when it's really top planform), and the list goes on. Way too early to jump on blocks, IMO.

 

[LOBO98]

Like I said just speculating:

I agree it could be an aspect angle problem, greater than 8 guys going into a merge or anything like that.

But I helped out with the RTO act during the last RFN and I would say that block adherence with visual and SA on all players came up during the debrief at least every other day.

 

[bagasticks]

I speculate a rusty meat-whistle. .

 

[instructordude]

Let's not speculate guys.

 

[AdlerDriver]

But I helped out with the RTO act during the last RFN and I would say that block adherence with visual and SA on all players came up during the debrief at least every other day.

Yeah, that usually happens at every RF. Sometimes it's a valid critique. Other times it's the product of the O-6 running the show who hasn't been near a tactical aircraft in years trying to fly other pilot's jets via RFMDS.

We should start calling RF "Deconfliction Flag". That seems to be the goal of many of the missions - not BOT. The RF I was at last year was a joke. You couldn't work your plan until they had run every blue route through the mission planning system to see if it flagged blue vs. blue conflicts.

Good thing we didn't have that for Desert Storm - we would have never flown a sortie.

 

[AlbieF15]

Adler,

Has the St Louis bro's name been released? Haven't seen it yet. If you know I'd appreciate a PM....