Davis-Monthan AFB: F-16 crashes in Douglas (Arizona)

KPHO ^ | 6-25-2015 | Catherine Holland

[tcrlaf]

n F-16 from the 162nd Fighter Wing of the Air National Guard has crashed near Douglas close to Arizona's border with New Mexico, Davis-Monthan Air Force Base has confirmed.

[tcrlaf]

Twitter pics and video showing a big fire, and a couple of explosions.

[umgud]

Hope the pilot bailed.

[az_gila]

A little confusing headline...

The crash was confirmed by Davis-Montham AFB, but the National Guard F-16 actually operated out of Tucson International Airport (KTUS) 5 miles SW of the Air Force Base.

[StoneWall Brigade]

Prayers

[Gaffer]

Thought so. Davis-Monthan is largely an aircraft storage and boneyard.

[Hulka]

And the largest A-10 FTU. This is where piglets become full Hog Drivers.

[Gaffer]

I think they do a lot of in-betweens with the Ft. Huachuca runway, too.

[Bulwyf]

They say no word on pilot. That doesn’t sound good. I hope he got out too though.

[AzSteven]

The area is pretty rough terrain and a pilot who bailed might be hard to find, but he should have comms at least. Hoping for good news but it doesn’t sound likely.

[az_gila]

Now reporting that it is an Iraqi pilot who has been in the US for 4 years -

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/reports-danger-after-f16-crashes-in-arizona/

The Tucson ANG location is the main foreign F-16 pilot training center.

Still no word on the pilot’s condition...

[MeganC]

Odd that there’s still no mention of the pilot’s condition. Makes me wonder what’s going on?

[Jet Jaguar]

F-16 ping.

[az_gila]

The F-16 blog group suspect he was killed...

http://www.f-16.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=27474&p=293658#p293658

[MeganC]

He was descending at 45,000 feet per minute? That’s around 500mph straight into the ground! Must be quite a hole! I can only think he must have passed out or something. Poor man.

[mabarker1]

Confirmed by Poster on the F16 Board via a Friend that was working the Flight Line at Departure Location.

Prayers for the Family/Friends of Pilot.

IIRC the F16 has Auto Recovery for GLOC. If so this may have been a Suicide. Even at that speed Punching Out should not have been a problem. 511MPH is “slow” for an F16.

[mabarker1]

Patriot

Senior member

• Posts: 298
• Joined: 02 Sep 2006, 17:48
• Location: Poland

25 Jun 2015, 15:15

Friend of mine is working on the flightline in Tucson. 2 Iraqi F-16s departed that evening along with 2 US ones, 3 one-seaters, and one 2-seater. Only one didn't came back. My friend saw D-model with dorsal spine while taxi towards EOR Apron and he told me it was #1601. He's not personally assigned to the plane which was lost but info spreads fast arround the personnel.

I think MD point was maybe the ADS-B transponder that could (should..?) be turned on as long as the jet is in Civilian Controlled Airspace thus it got to act like civilian plane.. (e.g.) - speed limit is stricted for 350kt (250? can't recall) below 10K ft. And flightradar24.com is for example showing such data like speed, alt, hdg, rate of climb/descent online in real time.

[TexasGator]

“IIRC the F16 has Auto Recovery for GLOC. If so this may have been a Suicide. Even at that speed Punching Out should not have been a problem. 511MPH is “slow” for an F16.”

The auto recovery will not ‘recover’ from all situations.

I can’t find the source for the 45,000 fpm but it was implied that that was the downward vector. His actual speed may have been much higher.

[mabarker1]

OK Thanks

exfltsafety

Senior member

• Posts: 331
• Joined: 05 Aug 2009, 19:11

25 Jun 2015, 13:58

MD wrote:

Patriot wrote:#1601, confirmed.

Last satellite hit showed about a 45000+ fpm descent rate. No chute, no beeper. Witnesses reported an explosion of some kind in the sky.

Where do you get such information less than 24 hours after the event??? What satellite data are you talking about???

From Here

[CivilWarBrewing]

Did it ever occur to you that this pilot might have gone into 'ISIS mode' over American territory, violated his flight boundary headed for a populated place and was..

SHOT DOWN?

[CivilWarBrewing]

To clarify, this was an IRAQI F-16.