It’s gonna be tough to live that one down...
I thought they had a squat switch that prevents them from firing when on the ground.
Since the cannon is electrically fired, there is a wire and plug to disconnect and cover, AS WELL AS HAVING THE AIRCRAFT GROUNDED OUT WITH A STATIC GROUND WIRE, TOO!!!!Not the first this happened, F4E not grounded-static charge fired off, swiss cheesed a maintenance van!
Looks like that plane landed. Poorly. :-)
The “glass half full” base commander actually THIS
“You can’t help thinking of what a disaster this could have been,” he said.
If they took $50 dollars out of his paycheck every pay period....
“Mechanic ‘Accidentally’ Fires Vulcan Cannon & Obliterates F-16 Sitting on the Runway”
Note that in the headline “Accidentally” is in quotes.
That’s like the time I broke the copier at the office, his manager will want to speak with him.
This happened in Oct of 2018. Former F-16 Crew Chief here....I’ve yet to see an official mishap report.
To be an accident, so many things would have to go wrong. Minimally, the aircraft would have to be armed (which is somewhat rare at home station), the ground safe pins would have to be pulled, and the weight on wheels interlock would have to be overridden.
Then, the trigger would have to be pulled.
John McCain?
I was wondering why this story sounded familiar. Event happened in mid October, 2018.
Don’t know if Belgian Air Force rules and regs are different than ours but in the USAF this could never happen. Our planes have all explosives downloaded before hangar entry.
Safeties are the the WOW (weight on wheels ) switch, clearing sector holdback tool, and an electrical safety pin.
Here’s the F-16 Hangar Entry Checklist;
I guess oops doesn’t quite cover this does it?
That payroll deduction to pay for the F 16 is gonna hurt for a while...
Spray and pray...I’d rather have the Russian 30.mm.
That’s going to come up in his annual performance review.
I’m guessing that guy won’t have weekend leave.
Ping.
Wanna get away?
John McCain doesn’t have a grandson in the military, does he?
Could have been worse. Could have taken out an F22 Raptor.
So is this an instant court martial, or what?