Posted on 03/22/2011 8:22:05 AM PDT by smokingfrog
Two US airmen were forced to eject from their F-15E fighter jet over Libya on Monday night after an apparent mechanical failure, the US military said.
The wreckage of their F-15E Strike Eagle jet, which crashed at 9.30pm GMT, was found near Benghazi.
Vince Crawley, a spokesman for the Africa Command, said both crew members had been safely recovered and had received only minor injuries. Crawley said the crash was likely to have been caused by mechanical failure rather than hostile fire. He declined to give the location of the crash and would not say how the rescued crewmen were picked up or where they were taken.
The aircraft, based at RAF Lakenheath, was flying out of Italy's Aviano airbase in support of Operation Odyssey Dawn at the time of the incident. The cause of the crash is being investigated.
Photographs on the Daily Telegraph's website showed local Libyans inspecting the charred wreckage of the plane. "Just found a crashed US warplane in a field. Believe a mechanical failure brought it down," the paper's correspondent Rob Crilly said on Twitter. "Came down late last night. Crew believed safe," he added later.
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
How old are those aircraft?
Our planes are dropping more parts than bombs.
Testament to their longevity, I guess. First flight of the F15 was what, 1972?
Most of the plane is pretty burned-up. One photo shows some sidewinder missiles on the ground near the plane that are broken but overall don’t look too bad.
Yes, but the F-15E is a revised airframe first produced in the mid-1980s.
When we had wing issues a few years back, the F-15Es were excluded from grounding because they were so new.
Most of them are 20+ years old.
Somewhere around 2007 - 2008 they were all grounded for possible wing problems.
http://www.acc.af.mil/news/story_print.asp?id=123086680
The -E models are so new that they were excluded from the groundings.
How much do F-15E Fighters cost?
~ 30 million $
S. Korea is paying 4.2 billion for 40 of the new Slam Eagles (with weapons package).
They don't need wreckage. They got all they needed from Clinton and his plants in government and the updates come straight from the present administration. There are probably more Communists in our government than in Russia's.
So, all the spending cuts by the Republicans in the last few weeks have gone up in smoke in Libya! Obama has found another way of spending us off a cliff with little concern on the Republican side.
I’m thinking - we are screwed.
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