Posted on 08/31/2009 7:11:38 AM PDT by Never on my watch
"A Plane was damaged while landing at Nellis AFB Friday, causing the plane to catch fire and forcing its 32- member crew to escape..."
(Excerpt) Read more at lvrj.com ...
Elf-One? Yeah, that was indeed quite some time ago. Time flies. Did you know that Col. Rice, former 552 OG commander, is now a three-star?
Everything seems to be pretty much purged about this story.
Seems to me the pictures that had been posted may be too revealing about something.
99 ABW Office of Public Affairs
8/29/2009 - NELLIS AIR FORCE BASE, Nev. -- An E-3 Sentry airborne warning and control system (AWACS) aircraft was damaged while landing at Nellis Air Force Base late in the evening Friday, Aug. 28.
The aircraft, flown by the 552nd Air Control Wing, Tinker Air Force Base, Okla., is deployed to Nellis for Red Flag exercise 09-5 and was returning from a mission when the incident occurred. The 32-person crew safely evacuated the aircraft and the subsequent fire was quickly extinguished by Nellis emergency response forces.
The Air Force will convene a formal board to thoroughly investigate and determine the cause of the mishap.
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Search under keywords AWACS, Nellis, and fire. You’ll find several articles and discussion threads on it. So far I only found one picture. The damage seems isolated to the nose. Soot probably makes it look worse than it really is. It looks like the nose gear collapsed, but it’s hard to tell. Maybe it’s just from the front tires being blown. This isn’t remotely close to an event like the NATO E-3 or Yukla 27 (Thank the Lord).
I took another look, and it definitely appears the nose gear is up or collapsed. The fire damage in the nose wheel area is extensive, but the aircraft appears in pretty good shape otherwise. Here’s a link to the photo:
http://www.ar15.com/forums/topic.html?b=1&f=5&t=920290
The general had only been out of UPT for three years when I was in Saudi in 1983. Here’s a story about the Saudi controllers who flew with us. They would stop in the middle of their shift to go to the back of the airplane and pray toward Mecca. The missions were 14 hours long. Some of the personnel would point them toward Jerusalem, instead. They got wise and used tiny pray rugs with compass in the corner. So the maintenance folks put a magnetic under the floor where they prayed so their compass never worked right.
Training mission (probably Red Flag), usually 17 or so crew members.
Totally a rumor but the people around here have pretty good connections.
thanks for the ping TB.
Too heck with the plane!!! Is LVMS OK???
LOL!
Usually 17-19 mission crew members, plus 4 in the cockpit (for those of us who aren’t politically correct)...and if it was just arriving, it would have up to 10 maintainers as passengers (if I remember correctly).
“...up to 10 maintainers as passengers...”
I hope they brought lots of spares. The front end looks like a write-off, but maybe they can salvage the big round thing in the back.
:)
On Red Flag missions they load up the mission crew members for training opportunities and rotate them through the seats. They usually only carry the crew chief and a couple of ground crew on the deployment missions, but they rarely fly on the OP/Training missions. 17 crewmembers (including the flight crew) can run the show.
I think the plane will end up on a pedestal as a static display at Nellis. There will be plenty of equipment to re-use from the plane, but I think the structural damage will not be cost effective to repair if it is repairable at all.
America's Worst Amateur Clown Show. Just kidding, of course.
(1,500 hours E-3B/C Block 30/35)
If it ends up on a stick, I hope it ends up at KTIK.
It will be a little difficult to get it through the underpasses on interstate 40 to Tinker.
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