Posted on 01/26/2015 6:45:28 PM PST by BenLurkin
The F-16 crashed at about 3:20 p.m. (9.20 a.m. EST) shortly after taking off at a training center in Albacete, 260 km (160 miles) southeast of the capital Madrid.
"There are also quite a lot of people injured ... 10 French people, 11 Italians," Rajoy said in an interview with Telecinco TV.
The Greek fighter jet was carrying out a NATO training exercise at the Spanish base but something went wrong during the take-off.
"The plane lost power, crashing into the parking area for planes, crashing into various planes that were parked there," the defense ministry said in a statement.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
God rest their souls.
I guess the training didn’t go too well.
What is a NATO plane? And why does Greece or Spain need Fighter jets at all? Silliness and a waste of money.
Any Turks in the area?
They definitely do not need a military. All those nasty dirt places have militaries to keep their own in check and little else.
At best they need a coast guard and an air force with a few transport planes and rescue helicopters.
From the BBC:
“One of the two Greek pilots had performed a wrong manoeuvre, local media said. Both pilots were killed.”
“Aviation analyst Sean Maffett told BBC News Channel it was difficult to imagine how the accident had occurred because the runway where the aircraft was taking off is about 1,000 ft (305 m) away from where the crash apparently took place.”
I imagine a jet can cover a thousand feet pretty quickly
Sounds like Euros barnstorming and trying to show off again. You tube is filled with Euros utterly unsafe with their toys. They were playing the low pass game of some sort, bank on it.
The Spanish need an air force to keep the Moroccans nice, and the Greeks need one even more to keep the Turks at bay.
Same old same old.
I guess you don’t understand what being part of NATO entails (or at least is supposed to entail.)
If Putey-Pute gets too cute, guess who takes out Putin’s Black Sea fleet? Southern European NATO countries (Italy, esp., but Greece and Spain too) help out, which frees up US forces for other work.
Heck, the Italians alone could do it (wipe out the Russian’s Black Sea fleet), but “overwhelming advantage” works to minimize losses to the West.
Greece is one of the few Euro NATO members that actually meets it’s NATO commitments - not that it likely will continue to do so with its new ultra-left gov’t.
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