And yes, he looks to belong to the Gamblers.
Posted on 10/15/2009 8:44:37 PM PDT by gura
HARLESTON, S.C. — Crews searching for an F-16 fighter pilot whose jet hit another fighter off the South Carolina coast have spotted debris and an oil slick in the Atlantic Ocean.
The search has been expanded for the pilot, who has been missing since the planes collided during training exercises late Thursday about 40 miles off Folly Beach.
Capt. Michael McAllister of the Coast Guard in Charleston said Friday that the search area is now about 1,300 square miles.
The Coast Guard, Navy, Air Force and other agencies are using boats and planes to search for Capt. Nicholas Giglio of Shaw Air Force Base in Sumter.
The other pilot landed safely at Charleston Air Force Base.
McAllister said Giglio and his ejection seat would have had beacons, but no signal has been picked up.
Prayers for the missing pilot and his/her family.
Update:
By ANNABELLE ROBERTSON
Item Staff Writer
arobertson@theitem.com
Rescue workers are searching for a missing pilot and a F-16 plane from Shaw Air Force Base.
The pilot, Capt. Nicholas Giglio of the 20th Fighter Wing at Shaw, was flying his F-16 Fighting Falcon during night training maneuvers. He vanished following a mid-air collision with another F-16.
The collision happened Thursday about 8:30 p.m. Capt. Lee Bryant’s plane was reportedly struck by Giglio’s aircraft.
Bryant’s F-16 was damaged, but he was able to make an emergency landing at Charleston Air Force Base. He was not injured.
Giglio’s plane is believed to have crashed into the Atlantic Ocean, said Col. Joseph Guastella, 20th Fighter Wing commander.
“There is debris in the water that is suspected to be from the mishap aircraft,” he said. “They think they have seen parts of the airplane, to include an oil slick. But the focus is on the pilot.”
There is no sign of the plane’s emergency beacon at this time, he added.
The U.S. Coast Guard is leading the search, with support from the Air Force. Initial efforts focused on a 725-square-mile area about 40 miles off Folly Beach. However, the search has now widened to a 1,000-square-mile rectangle of approximately 25 miles by 40 miles in an area 30 miles northeast of Charleston.
According to Guastella, the two F-16s were flying together in a two-ship formation when the collision occured. Bryant did not see what happened, Guastella said, because he was focused on landing his own aircraft.
Two other F-16s were nearby, in the same air space. Those pilots did not see the collision, however, nor were they able to see what happened to Giglio or his plane.
The water temperature is believed to be 75 degrees in the location where the plane went down, and Giglio was wearing a regulation Air Force flight suit.
“If he landed in the water in good health, then he has up to 36 hours of life expectancy,” Guastella said. “That’s the average for a healthy male, under these conditions. But there are a lot of ifs. We have no idea about his condition when he entered the water, whether he was in the airplane, in the seat, or in a parachute. We can only hope that he ejected and that he survived the ejection.”
Among other vessels, the Coast Guard is using a C-130 Hercules six-wing aircraft. The vessel is a popular choice for rescue efforts because of its ability to fly low and to remain in the air up to 12 hours. About six guardsmen are aboard.
The Coast Guard is also manning a Cutter Yellowfin with 10 to 12 guardsmen.
Guastella said hopes are still high for Giglio’s rescue.
“We are still operating off the fact that he could be down there (even if) the beacon isn’t on,” he said. “That’s why we’re going to continue our search.”
Given how well trained these pilots are, and the fact that the 2nd plane/pilot survived well enough to get back for a landing, it makes me wonder if something happened to Giglio before the crash, i.e., loss of consciousness. Otherwise, it seems he’d have had time to eject. And such a loss of consciosness or other physically debillating event could account for the crash to begin with. It’s just sad.
By BRUCE SMITH (AP) – 35 minutes ago
CHARLESTON, S.C. — Debris and an oil slick were spotted in the Atlantic off the South Carolina coast as the search expanded Friday for an F-16 fighter pilot whose jet collided with another during night training exercises.
“We did have a report of an oil sheen which might be consistent with fuel from the fighter jet itself and we have also had a report of a small amount of debris,” said Capt. Michael McAllister, commander of Coast Guard Sector Charleston.
The search was expanded from 750 to 1,300 square miles as Coast Guard and Air Force aircraft joined vessels from the Coast Guard, Navy, law enforcement and commercial shippers searching for Capt. Nicholas Giglio. He is based at Shaw Air Force Base in Sumter.
McAllister, who said he did not know exactly what the debris was, said there would have been a tracking beacon both on the pilot and his ejection seat, but no signal has been picked up.
“We presume there is a pilot who is in the water and needs to be rescued,” he said. “The lack of a beacon might indicate that the pilot didn’t safety eject or that there was an equipment malfunction. It makes it more difficult for us since we don’t have the beacon to home in on.”
The planes collided Thursday around 8:30 p.m. about 40 miles off the South Carolina coast, said Senior Master Sgt. Brad Fallin at Shaw Air Force Base. Both jets, based at Shaw, are single-seat aircraft.
The jet piloted by Capt. Lee Bryant landed safely at Charleston Air Force Base, Fallin said. Bryant was examined at the base but suffered no injuries and was released.
McAllister said visibility was good and winds were about 25 mph at the time of the collision. He said he did not think it was raining at the time.
The water temperatures in the crash area were about 75 degrees and most people could survive 24 hours, he said.
“Given that this was a military member they would probably be in good shape and have a will to live. We would expect it would be quite a bit more than the 24 hours,” McAllister said.
Giglio graduated from Lacey Township High School in New Jersey in 1995, said the school district’s assistant superintendent, Vanessa P. Clark. His mother, Helen Giglio, is a special education teacher at a district elementary school.
“Obviously, our hopes thoughts and prayers are with the family,” Clark said.
Shaw Air Force Base Col. Joseph Guastella said Giglio flew the same training flight several nights before the Thursday accident. He said the collision took place toward the end of the 80-minute mission, which is conducted two to five times a week by Shaw-based pilots. Officials said Giglio has been a fighter pilot for 18 months and that he has distinguished himself since his arrival at Shaw a short time ago.
The pilots’ ages were not immediately available, nor was Bryant’s home town.
Fallin said he didn’t know how much damage Bryant’s plane sustained and that it was being examined as part of the investigation.
Earlier this week, Shaw Air Force Base announced that pilots would be conducting nighttime exercises to allow pilots to fly with night vision equipment and practice tactics critical to surviving in combat.
Associated Press Writer Seanna Adcox in Sumter contributed to this report.
No beacon, no ejection. Again, prayers for the family. THe guy had been a pilot for 18 months.....
THants for the updates/
Search continues for F-16 pilot
Rescue workers are searching for a missing pilot and a F-16 from Shaw Air Force Base that crashed on Thursday night after a mid-air collision with another Shaw-based F-16.
The pilot, Capt. Nicholas Giglio of the 20th Fighter Wing at Shaw, was at the controls of his F-16 Fighting Falcon during night training maneuvers.
From The Item. The local paper. Still looking.
this one names Capt. Giglio, looks like 77th.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hnaGJISnnm3geK5jYYeXsU6eg_tgD9BCDUH83
And yes, he looks to belong to the Gamblers.
One more from the local paper.
Coast Guard: ‘We’re out there to save a life’
By ANNABELLE ROBERTSON
Item Staff Writer
arobertson@theitem.com
The search for the missing pilot and the F-16 Fighting Falcon from Shaw Air Force Base is in full swing.
Capt. Nicholas Giglio of the 20th Fighter Wing at Shaw went missing about 8:30 p.m. Thursday after a mid-air collision with another Shaw F-16. The other F-16 was piloted by Capt. Lee Bryant, who was able to land safely at Charleston Air Force Base. Bryant was examined by Air Force medical personnel and is unharmed.
The aircraft were participating in night training maneuvers.
As of 11 a.m., the Coast Guard, with assistance from the Air Force, was combing a rectangle-shaped area of approximately 1,000 square miles about 30 miles northeast of Charleston. The initial search focused on a smaller area of about 725 square miles about 40 miles off Folly Beach.
“It has shifted slightly more east,” said Coast Guard Petty Officer Bobby Nash.
Participating in the search are one helicopter, a Coast Guard Cutter Yellow Fin, a small boat from the Coast Guard station in Georgetown, another small vessel from its Charleston station and a C-130 Hercules six-wing aircraft from.
The C-130, said Nash, is commonly used for search and rescue offshore and flew in from Clearwater, Fla., to assist. Five to six guardsmen are aboard.
“It’s a turboprop aircraft that can stay in the air for 12 hours, so it gives a lot of on-scene time,” he explained, “whereas a helicopter can only stay in the air for four hours.”
As many as a dozen guardsmen are manning the cutter, with four or five on each small boat and another four on the helicopter, Nash said.
At the time of the collision, the weather conditions were cloudy and rainy with three foot seas. Currently, conditions are cloudy with scattered showers.
“We’re out there to save a life,” Nash said. “And there are a lot of things that are working for the pilot right now. There’s his Air Force training. (Air Force) pilots are well trained and have plenty of survival gear on board, including rafts and flairs and signaling devices, which is not what your average boater would have. There is (also) all the rescue equipment that we have on board. We just have to remain confident that if he’s out there, we can find him and bring him home.”
The Coast Guard will continue its search, he added, as long as necessary.
“We will search as long as there is the possibility of life, until we have saturated the area and until, if there was someone out there, we would have found them,” he said. “This is a tough situation, but we have been doing search and rescue for more than 200 years, and we do it very, very well. We are going to do our very best to find this pilot.”
Nash requested that any civilians who are thinking about joining the search, particularly with a boat or plane, refrain from doing so.
“We have a lot of aircraft and a lot of agencies involved. We have surface and air assets, and we would rather that (civilians) stayed away. They would be putting themselves at unnecessary risk, as well as putting our search and rescue team members and potentially the pilot at risk, too.”
http://www.theitem.com/article/20091016/ITNEWS01/710169884
Debris and an oil slick were spotted in the Atlantic off the South Carolina coast as the search expanded Friday for an F-16 fighter pilot whose jet collided with another during night training exercises.
“We did have a report of an oil sheen which might be consistent with fuel from the fighter jet itself and we have also had a report of a small amount of debris,” said Capt. Michael McAllister, commander of Coast Guard Sector Charleston.
The search was expanded from 750 to 1,300 square miles as Coast Guard and Air Force aircraft joined vessels from the Coast Guard, Navy, law enforcement and commercial shippers looking for Capt. Nicholas Giglio. He is based at Shaw Air Force Base in Sumter.
“We remain hopeful,” said base commander, Col. Joseph Guastella Jr., noting the 77th Fighter Squadron did not fly Friday.
“In the Air Force, we’re a family and when we lose one of our airmen, it’s losing one of our family members. Naturally those that work with Capt. Giglio every day are pretty shook up about it. It’s the right thing to do to stand down, take a day off from our normal routine and reflect on what happened, reflect on the loss.”
But he stressed the search was “indeed still a rescue mission.”
McAllister, who said he did not know exactly what the debris was, said there would have been a tracking beacon both on the pilot and his ejection seat, but no signal had been picked up.
“We presume there is a pilot who is in the water and needs to be rescued,” he said. “The lack of a beacon might indicate that the pilot didn’t safely eject or that there was an equipment malfunction. It makes it more difficult for us since we don’t have the beacon to home in on.”
The planes collided Thursday around 8:30 p.m. about 40 miles off the South Carolina coast, said Senior Master Sgt. Brad Fallin at Shaw Air Force Base. Both jets, based at Shaw, are single-seat aircraft.
The jet piloted by Capt. Lee Bryant landed safely at Charleston Air Force Base, Fallin said. Bryant was examined at the base but suffered no injuries and was released. By Friday afternoon, Bryant was back at Shaw, Guastella said.
Bryant’s plane “was indeed damaged significantly, but it was still flyable and he was able to return it to Charleston,” he said, declining to specify what was damaged or estimate its cost.
Two other aircraft from the 77th Fighter Squadron were training nearby. When those pilots learned of the collision, they quickly helped Bryant assess damage to his plane and get back to Charleston and also looked for Giglio, Guastella said.
McAllister said visibility was good and winds were about 25 mph at the time of the collision. He said he did not think it was raining at the time.
Water temperatures in the crash area were about 75 degrees and most people could survive 24 hours, he said.
“Given that this was a military member they would probably be in good shape and have a will to live. We would expect it would be quite a bit more than the 24 hours,” McAllister said.
Giglio graduated from Lacey Township High School in New Jersey in 1995, said the school district’s assistant superintendent, Vanessa P. Clark. His mother, Helen Giglio, is a special education teacher at a district elementary school.
“Obviously, our hopes thoughts and prayers are with the family,” Clark said.
Lt. Col. Lance Kildron, commander of the 77th Fighter Squadron, said Giglio flew the same training flight several nights before the Thursday accident.
Guastella said the collision took place toward the end of the 80-minute mission, which is conducted two to five times a week by Shaw-based pilots.
Kildron said Giglio has been a fighter pilot for 18 months but hadn’t been at Shaw very long.
“During that short time, he’d distinguished himself as being a fine F-16 fighter pilot, and overall, personality-wise and just attitude, a great guy, and I’m happy to have him as part of my team,” he said.
The 77th Fighter Squadron is training for deployment to Iraq early next year, Kildron said.
The pilots’ ages were not immediately available, nor was Bryant’s home town.
Earlier this week, Shaw Air Force Base announced that pilots would be conducting nighttime exercises to allow pilots to fly with night vision equipment and practice tactics critical to surviving in combat.
http://www.wistv.com/Global/story.asp?S=11324477
That's a variant I haven't seen yet. Any pictures?
LOL! Nope.
Update expected regarding missing F-16 pilot
SHAW AFB, SC (WIS) - The Air Force and Coast Guard are expected to give an update Saturday night about their search for a missing F-16 pilot whose plane crashed during a night training exercise.
Officials did not give any specifics about the update, but said there will be a joint press conference at 10:00pm Saturday at Shaw Air Force Base.
Aircraft and ships have been searching more than 4,000 square miles of ocean northeast of Charleston since Capt. Nicholas Giglio’s F-16 Fighting Falcon disappeared following a mid-air collision.
Coast Guard Petty Officer Bobby Nash said Saturday that searchers are confident that Giglio could survive at sea if he survived the crash.
“A lot of things have happened where people survived impossible odds - fishermen clinging onto a cooler for several days,” he said. “Those people have no training. He certainly has training.”
The water temperature in the area of the crash is about 75 degrees, although a cold front has moved through since the crash. Temperatures along the South Carolina coast Saturday were expected to only rise to about 60.
Officials said after the crash that there were reports of debris and an oil slick in the water.
There has also been no signal from beacons that would have been on Giglio’s ejection seat and on his flight suit.
Giglio, originally from New Jersey, has been a fighter pilot for 18 months and is part of the 77th Fighter Squadron that is training for deployment to Iraq early next year.
http://www.wistv.com/Global/story.asp?S=11332053
F-16 Pilot Believed to be Dead, Wife Expecting
Updated: Oct 17, 2009 10:48 PM
Volunteers join search for missing F-16 pilot, Jordan Sandler reports
Picture released of missing F-16 pilot, debris found, Jack Kuenzie reports
Coast Guard finds oil slick from missing F-16, Hatzel Vela reports
Captain. Nicholas Giglio
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SHAW AFB, SC (WIS) - The Air Force and Coast Guard believe the accident that caused a Shaw-based F-16 pilot to crash was “most certainly fatal.”
In a news conference late Saturday a spokesperson said they believe Captain Nicholas Giglio died immediately after his jet crashed. In a news conference officials went on to say they believe Giglio was relatively new to F-16’s. They also said he was new to Shaw Air Force Base.
Military officials said Captain Giglio is leaving behind a wife, daughter and a baby is on the way.
The effort to find Captain Giglio is has officially gone from “active” to “recovery.”
Aircraft and ships have been searching more than 4,000 square miles of ocean northeast of Charleston since Captain. Nicholas Giglio’s F-16 Fighting Falcon disappeared following a mid-air collision.
Coast Guard Petty Officer Bobby Nash said Saturday that searchers are confident that Giglio could survive at sea if he survived the crash.
“A lot of things have happened where people survived impossible odds - fishermen clinging onto a cooler for several days,” he said. “Those people have no training. He certainly has training.”
The water temperature in the area of the crash is about 75 degrees, although a cold front has moved through since the crash. Temperatures along the South Carolina coast Saturday were expected to only rise to about 60.
Officials said after the crash that there were reports of debris and an oil slick in the water.
There has also been no signal from beacons that would have been on Giglio’s ejection seat and on his flight suit.
Giglio, originally from New Jersey, has been a fighter pilot for 18 months and is part of the 77th Fighter Squadron that is training for deployment to Iraq early next year.
http://www.wistv.com/Global/story.asp?S=11332053
Sad update at 76.
Thanks for the update on title.
God bless the men that fly and fight.
I expected this from the moment that I heard his ELTs hadn't gone off.
God bless his family, his bereaved wife and unborn child.
He gave all for us. What do we do to earn that?
/johnny
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