Warbird Information Exchange

Hearing reports of a jet down southwest of Luke AFB. Not much news yet but sounds like the pilot got out OK. No news on ground casualties but I'm sure if the pilot got out he made sure the jet was pointed away from people.

F-16 crashes near Luke; pilot safely ejects

David Madrid, Charles Kelly and Brent Whiting
The Arizona Republic
Apr. 11, 2006 11:25 AM


A Luke Air Force Base F-16 crashed this morning near Cotton Lane and Camelback Road in the West Valley.

The details of the crash are not known, except that the pilot safely ejected and was taken to Banner Estrella Medical Center, 9201 W. Thomas Road. His condition is not yet known.

Surprise resident Candice Maier, 27, said she saw two jets take off from Luke and it was apparent one of the jets had problems. advertisement




Large flames were coming from the jet, and suddenly, the pilot ejected, she said. Then Maier heard a large boom and saw smoke where the plane crashed in a field.

Roger Schneider, 53, of Goodyear, was riding his bicycle when he saw the jets taking off and large flames coming out the rear of one of the jets. He also saw the pilot eject.

Luke is the largest fighter wing in the world, with pilots flying about 170 sorties a day. The crash occurred in Luke's Southern Departure Corridor, the base's route to the Barry M. Goldwater Range for jets carrying live arms.

It is unknown whether the F-16 that crashed had live arms on it or not.

The base stopped flights with live arms from flying to the north due to encroachment from Surprise and El Mirage.

The last crash of an F-16 connected to Luke occurred on May 19, 2004. In that incident, an F-16 Singapore Air Force jet fighter crashed during routine flight training in southern Arizona.

The pilot, 1st Lt. Brandon Loo, 25, was killed in the crash, which occurred while he was taking part in night-vision goggle training south of the Goldwater Range in the Sells Military Operating Area.

Before that, two Luke F-16s crashed on June 10 and June 13, 2003. The first of those crashes was caused by a defective engine part, and the second crash was caused by a large turkey vulture that was sucked into the jet engine.

At the time, those crashes were the 13th and 14th crashes that had occurred in the previous four years. During that period, Luke had a string of nine crashes within 20 months, which led to increased inspections and retrofitting engines in the aging jet fighters. Those actions significantly reduced the number of crashes.

Luke graduates more than 400 pilots and 700 to 900 crew chiefs a year.

FWIW, where the jet is pointed is not located anywhere in my decision-to-eject matrix.

(How'd the guys like their prints?)