F-16 Crashes Near Phoenix; Condition of Pilot Unknown

Fox News.com ^ | March 14, 2008 | AP

[RDTF]

PHOENIX — The military says an F-16 flying out of Arizona's Luke Air Force Base has crashed northwest of Phoenix.

Base spokeswoman Mary Jo May says the aircraft went down around noon Friday.

-snip-

[IonImplantGuru]

Ping to Aeronaut's aviation list.

AF jet jocks will know that Luke AFB near Phoenix is where most F-16 training is based. Foreign buyers of F-16s also send their folks to Luke to train.
Warthog wannabes learn their trade out of Davis-Montham AFB in Tucson.

[KeyLargo]

Cool slide show here:

http://cbs2chicago.com/slideshows/Fighter.Jets.20.671202.html

[fieldmarshaldj]

Prayers for the pilot’s safety.

[Jet Jaguar]

F16 FROM 62FS (LUKE AFB) CRASHED TODAY (14march2008 12:00pm)

http://www.f-16.net/f-16_forum_viewtopic-t-10104.html

Prayers up for the pilot.

[Jet Jaguar]

Thanks for the ping.

[Lost Dutchman]

Luke AFB was my last assignment. Being a training base, with many high airframe hour jets and an incredible sortie schedule. The law of averages makes Luke a prime candidate for accidents of all kinds.

Prayers up for the pilot and his family.

P.S. also, prayers up for the crew-chief who just lost his “baby”.

[af_vet_rr]

It's true - those airframes have a lot of hours piled on them, but when I came through (*ahem* before the F-16), I was always impressed with the crews who kept them running.

In a way, it's a credit to them (the ground crews, ATC, etc.) that this is so rare that it makes the news. If you go back 50 years, things used to be a lot more dangerous.

[Jet Jaguar]

The Air Force pilot of a F-16 that crashed Friday near Phoenix is unlikely to have survived, an Air Force source has told FOX News.

The source said a witness saw the plane go down but no parachute, and the crash might have occurred when the pilot lost consciousness due to flying conditions.

A definitive cause of the crash and the condition of the pilot still aren’t available.

The crash occured at about noon Friday south of Alamo Lake, Ariz., during a student training mission out of Luke Air Force Base. The pilot was the only person on board.

http://www.f-16.net/f-16_forum_viewtopic-t-10104.html

[RDTF]

damn

[wita]

If you go back 50 years, things used to be a lot more dangerous.

...and seemingly less news worthy, and I can go back 50 years. Although at the time I probably didn’t care much about news.