Looks like some fleets are suffering problems these days.
On Feb. 3, an Hawaii Air National Guard F-15D, departed from Hickam AFB for a training alert mission, crashed in the Pacific, some 60NM to the South of Oahu. The pilot ejected safely and was immediately rescued with minor injuries. The accident had a side effect though: the 13 of 20 aircraft of the state ANG, that had been cleared to fly on Jan. 9, were grounded for the fourth time from November until Feb 7 when the remaining 12 aircraft were cleared again to perform air defence sorties. The rest of the 199th FS fleet (7 more F-15s) is still waiting to resume flying activities. With the AMX fleet still grounded, another short stop was given to an aircraft of the ItAF fleet: the Tornado. Following the crash of a 6th Stormo Tornado serialled MM55011 on Jan. 28, the Italian IDS and ECR models were grounded pending further investigation (dealing with the tank that burnt during take off from Ghedi airbase causing the loss of the aircraft). The Tornado were cleared again to fly on Feb. 5.
There have been other crashes in the past, involving other aircraft, in some cases with bad consequences but it seems that the need to ground the aircraft is a recent fancy (at least in Italy).
Another grounding story
Published on: February 8, 2008 at 10:16 PM
David Cenciotti is a journalist based in Rome, Italy. He is the Founder and Editor of “The Aviationist”, one of the world’s most famous and read military aviation blogs. Since 1996, he has written for major worldwide magazines, including Air Forces Monthly, Combat Aircraft, and many others, covering aviation, defense, war, industry, intelligence, crime and cyberwar. He has reported from the U.S., Europe, Australia and Syria, and flown several combat planes with different air forces. He is a former 2nd Lt. of the Italian Air Force, a private pilot and a graduate in Computer Engineering. He has written five books and contributed to many more ones.
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