[bigdaddy45]

Why would heads roll? This hurricane went from nothing to a Cat 4 in about 4 days. You don’t just put an airplane together at the last minute and fly it out.

[al baby]

I would hope 400 million dollar taxpayer owned jets would be stored and worked on in much much better hangers

[rlmorel]

With that kind of money at stake, you put them on flatbeds to drive them out, hook them up to a tow cart to tow them out over regular roads, get a Skyhook...or SOMETHING. Grrr, this just pisses me off.

How many millions of dollars is that, for nothing????

[PAR35]

So you don’t believe in accountability for poor planning?

[KC Burke]

The issue is that the AF was already getting reamed out for having such a large percentage of its top aircraft not combat ready the month prior. This many sitting awaiting repair and maintenance is stupid.

I would think that contingency plans would have been in order, it isn’t like this base is not on the Gulf Coast.

[Ingtar]

No, you take off the wings and truck it out.

[DuncanWaring]

17 is roughly 10% of the total number built.

Why were that many unflyable? Not even in good-enough condition to be ferried “day VFR under 10000 ft”?

That’s why heads should roll.

[Attention Surplus Disorder]

“Why would heads roll? This hurricane went from nothing to a Cat 4 in about 4 days. You don’t just put an airplane together at the last minute and fly it out.”

No; but (not knowing anything about it, in particular) it would seem like you could tow any plane still on wheels out of a hangar and anchor the daylights out of it on to tiedowns on bare open tarmac, so it doesn’t get lunched by falling girders and sheet metal. That a hangar would come apart in a strong storm is a virtual certainty.

[nevergore]

Enough time to truck them out if they couldn’t fly..... several billion dollars of aircraft should have been protected......

[Manly Warrior]

You are correct. You dewing and load 6 or so on a C5M Galaxy.... You truck them sans wings and tails. These are the USAs air superiority fighters, they are national defense priorities. This is not “normal”.

I am certain that there are contingency plans addressing this, my bet is that someone rather high in the food chain (3 or 4 star) used “hope” as a method. That does not work in the military. You plan, exercise every branch and sequel to every risk or capability of the threat and plan some more, then execute vigorously.

So, what we lose 1/5th of our latest fighters- but the Airmen are all safe....and looks like they didn’t have to break a sweat too.

[DannyTN]

No, but there might be some hard questions about why 17 planes were needing maintenance and whether equipment is kept in operating condition.

If these were maintenanced faster and kept in flying condition, the losses wouldn’t have been as great.

[Rebelbase]

“”Why would heads roll?”

Because you shouldn’t park 2+ billion dollars worth of delicate, immobile equipment in a hurricane zone?

[SkyPilot]

I don't know all of the particulars.

However, the F-22s and F-35s that were non-flyable for maintenance issues could have been rapidly readied to be loaded and transported onto C-5s and C-17s.

The reason (I suspect) this was not done was that the Wing Commander of Tyndall did not anticipate Michael being 1 knot of wind shy of a full Cat 5, and he didn't anticipate the base being almost completely destroyed (including the hangers).

The Tanker Airlift Control Center (TACC) at Scott AFB could have been contacted, and they would have diverted other missions, and generated new ones, to use outside cargo carriers (including civilian contract airlift) to gather the fighters from Tyndall, and this could have been very, very quickly. It's what Air Mobility Command does - for the entire US military, every day, worldwide.

I suspect there is already an investigation underway. You don't lost $1.5 Billion in valuable aircraft assets and say "My bad." And if the Air Force doesn't launch an investigation, Congress soon will (trust me).