When Highway Landings Go Wrong: A-10 Demolishes Road Sign During Exercise In Estonia

Beware of road signs when you land your combat aircraft on a public road!

On Aug. 10, one of the ten A-10C Thunderbolt II aircraft assigned to the 104th Fighter Squadron, Maryland Air National Guard, performing landing and take off training from an extension of Jägala-Käravete Highway, a portion of the longer road known as Piibe Highway, in Northern Estonia, hit and damaged a road sign at roughly 3.15 PM local time.

Although the Warthog, carrying a dummy AGM-85 Maverick missile and a Litening ATP (Advanced Targeting Pod) did not suffer significant damage (the Thunderbolt II is an extremely sturdy plane, able to survive much more than a few scrapes) and was able to take off again later on, the highway remained closed until the following morning.

The incident is under investigation; based on the photographs it seems that the aircraft (AF 79-0108) may have approached the extension a bit too low and hit (with the right hand wing) the road sign along with a plastic barrier that marks the beginning of the highway section used as runway.

You can find several interesting shots here.

Top composite image made by editing shots by Mihkel Maripuu/Postimees.ee and Ardi Hallismaa/mil.ee

About David Cenciotti

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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.