U.S. fighters brush in mid-air; no one hurt

Compiled from wire reports
Two U.S. F-15 fighter planes brushed each other over the sea near Okinawa on Monday, but both returned to base safely and there were no injuries, the U.S. military said.


The damaged tail fins of a U.S. Air Force F-15 are seen at Kadena Air Base in Okinawa Prefecture. PHOTO COURTESY OF SEIAN KYAN/KYODO  

Both planes, based in Alaska and on a training mission, were damaged in the incident, which took place at around 2:45 p.m. They flew back over water to the U.S. Air Force's Kadena air base in Okinawa to avoid populated areas, the U.S. military said.

The Kadena base straddles the city of Okinawa and the towns of Kadena and Chatan.

A U.S. Air Force spokeswoman said the cause of the accident was being investigated.

According to a witness report, the upper parts of two vertical tails of one of the planes were clipped off.

The planes landed on the base runway shortly before 3 p.m., according to another witness report.

The mishap may fuel local resentment over the U.S. presence in Okinawa, which has long felt that it bears an unfair burden of hosting U.S. forces.

In August, a U.S. military transport helicopter crashed and burst into flames on the grounds of a university in Ginowan, Okinawa Prefecture, injuring three crew members.

While nobody on the ground was hurt, the accident prompted some 30,000 residents to take part in an antibase rally.

I've got a pic of an Israeli F-15 that had a mid-air with another and landed with its right wing completely torn off.  All the way down to the wing root!  I wish I had a place to host pics so I could post it.  I've also got one of a F-15C based at Elmendorf AFB, AK that was hit in a blue-on-blue by an AIM-9 Sidewinder near the No. 1 engine and it, too landed safely.  This is just one of the many reasons I love that aircraft so dearly.

Just do a Google search, that IAF F-15 picture is all over the place.

Quoted: I've got a pic of an Israeli F-15 that had a mid-air with another and landed with its right wing completely torn off.  All the way down to the wing root!  I wish I had a place to host pics so I could post it.  I've also got one of a F-15C based at Elmendorf AFB, AK that was hit in a blue-on-blue by an AIM-9 Sidewinder near the No. 1 engine and it, too landed safely.  This is just one of the many reasons I love that aircraft so dearly.

Thanks KA3B!

The sad part is that probably shitcanned someones career.  (the recent thing in japan)

bump

Quoted: While nobody on the ground was hurt, the accident prompted some 30,000 residents to take part in an antibase rally.

I hope the Japanese remember the lesson of Puerto Rico when they tell us to leave: We might just pull out entirely.

Kharn

They were probably on a search mission for those two bullets. Glad to hear noone was hurt.

Quoted: They were probably on a search mission for those two bullets. Glad to hear noone was hurt.

Quoted: I've got a pic of an Israeli F-15 that had a mid-air with another and landed with its right wing completely torn off.  All the way down to the wing root!  I wish I had a place to host pics so I could post it.  I've also got one of a F-15C based at Elmendorf AFB, AK that was hit in a blue-on-blue by an AIM-9 Sidewinder near the No. 1 engine and it, too landed safely.  This is just one of the many reasons I love that aircraft so dearly.

btw, for future reference, check out tinypic.com... hosts up to 250k and auto-resizes larger pics...no membership or account or anything required and it will give you the url with tags in like three different formats...very handy

f'in "message text missing" error again...this is getting old

Quoted: Quoted: I've got a pic of an Israeli F-15 that had a mid-air with another and landed with its right wing completely torn off.  All the way down to the wing root!  I wish I had a place to host pics so I could post it.  I've also got one of a F-15C based at Elmendorf AFB, AK that was hit in a blue-on-blue by an AIM-9 Sidewinder near the No. 1 engine and it, too landed safely.  This is just one of the many reasons I love that aircraft so dearly. btw, for future reference, check out tinypic.com... hosts up to 250k and auto-resizes larger pics...no membership or account or anything required and it will give you the url with tags in like three different formats...very handy f'in "message text missing" error again...this is getting old

Thanks legalese77, sorry about the error.

Can you imagine the Statement of Charges on that little mishap?
BTW, can someone tell us  how something like that is actually written up? I mean a high ticket item like a $30 mill aircraft isn't something that can just be "written off" to training.

That'll buff right out.

A little duck tape will fix it!

There is no "statement of charges" for an aircraft mishap.
There is an aircraft mishap investigation.

There are multi-million dollar aircraft that are written off due to training mishaps every year.

Quoted: Can you imagine the Statement of Charges on that little mishap? BTW, can someone tell us  how something like that is actually written up? I mean a high ticket item like a $30 mill aircraft isn't something that can just be "written off" to training.

I knew an F-15 pilot who was in a mid-air collision during a training exercise.  He was certain that he was going to die, but he was able to land the plane with a piece of the wing missing.  The other plane (not an F-15) was also able to land.

Looks like both vertical stabs will need replaced (they will cann the rudders). It should cost about $250,000 for each stab, not including the man hours.

Quoted: I've got a pic of an Israeli F-15 that had a mid-air with another and landed with its right wing completely torn off.  All the way down to the wing root!  I wish I had a place to host pics so I could post it.  I've also got one of a F-15C based at Elmendorf AFB, AK that was hit in a blue-on-blue by an AIM-9 Sidewinder near the No. 1 engine and it, too landed safely.  This is just one of the many reasons I love that aircraft so dearly.

I was on duty in the SRC at Elmendorf during an excercise when that happened.  The 1Lt  that fired the missile had "forgotten" that he was ferrying a live missile at the time.  The  LTC that was hit was a 'Nam vet that had been shot down while he was there.  His last second maneuver caused the missile to miss the engine and proximity detonate under the left wing.  He was over the gulf of Alaska at the time and his survival time in the water would have only been a few minutes, so he brought it home.  He landed with zero fuel and very little control.  When the fire chief commanded him to ground egress, he said over an open comm link (with the wing king listening)  "just tow me in you stupid bastard, I rode it this far I'll ride it the rest of the way"  followed by a heartfelt "Jesus Christ I'm getting tired of this shit!"  I have never seen an exercise end so quickly!  

In 1985 I was deployed on a destroyer in the USS CONSTELLATION Battle Group.  One day two of the Tomcats were involved in a midair.   At the time, we heard nothing about it...other than there had been a midair.

Some time later, while we were in Subic Bay during the last three months of the cruise, I stopped by the JAG office to update my will.  During my conversation with the JAG, I happened to mention the bumping...and he gave me an earfull.

Apparently the four intrepid aviators were having a fine day and decided to take some cool pics for their GFs back home...so they tried a maneuver right out of Top Gun.  They got REAL close for the pics so they could see each other well.  Problem is, they forgot some basic laws of fluid dynamics...such as the vacuum that is created just adjacent to a solid body like a ship or plane moving rapidly through the medium, either water or...in this case air.  This phenomonon tends to pull the aircraft together.  This is what caused the B-70 and the chase F-104 to crash.

As the navy flyboys drew close, they bumped and the fins of one fighter hit the bottom of the other fighter.  The bottom plane lost its ESM antennas and the top plane lost...a PHOENIX MISSILE!  That's right boyz and girlz, that million dollar supermissile fell right into the sea.

Oh boy...now what?  Well, the two crews started talking to each other on the radio about how to deal with it.  They decided to cover the cause of loss up and tell the ship that they were doing some normal air combat maneuvering and accidently bumped.  They weren't going to mention their picture taking.

The circuit they were using to hatch this little plot was normally not covered by the ships and the four aviators apparently were aware of that fact.  What they were UNAWARE of was the fact that the carrier and the long range missile shooters like the cruiser have tape recorders going 24/7, listening in on virtually all of the radio circuits.  Then junior aviators wouldn't know about such things.  

During the normal course of the JAG investigation, the officer in charge decided to listen to the tapes from the carrier and the cruiser.  Guess what he found?

Because they attemped to cover it up, all four were grounded, dewinged and sent ashore in Subic for courts martial.  We proceeded home.  Not sure when they made it back.

Fuck the residents of Okinawa (or whatever shitpot country that bitches about our base)

Remember the bombing range in Puerto Rico? Remember all the residents screamed and danced about what a pain it was? Then the US bleeding hearts and hollywood stars went down and made a scene about how awful this bombing range was?

Then Rumsfeld (or whoever) said he was completely pulling out of PR, which would cause the local economy to loose something like 6 billion in jobs and revenue. Same with the whiney fags in Germany.

Sure changed their tune, they came groveling back in a hurry.

I say let 'em suffer. We can do round'the'world bombing missions now, why do we need their bases?

"Nuke 'em from orbit, its the only way to be sure"

Their alive that's the important thing. To bad someones lose their wings.

It's because they lost those bullets!