7/7/15 1:36 PM

Erik - this is in your neck of the woods. Any details floating around? Hard to imagine something like this happening unless someone was asleep at the controls.

7/7/15 9:00 PM

Fighter was out of Shaw which is Erik's old stomping grounds. F-16 was under positive control for an instrument landing so the pilot was likely not looking out the window. Civilian and military radios work on different bands so they couldn't hear each other. Given that the approach corridor is tightly controlled one or the other aircraft was likely where they shouldn't have been.

Given that the jet was under positive control from the tower my knee-jerk guess is that the Cessna was higher than it should have been.

7/8/15 6:35 AM

Yabutt, unless in IMC you are still required to look out the damn window.

7/8/15 8:41 AM

"higher than it should have been."

If the jet was on approach, are we talking about altitude?

"still required to look out the damn window"

I have had a helicopter surprise me, frontal profile is so minimal. Not to mention the stall speed on that jet is higher than max cruise on the puddle jumper.

So my comment is no looking out window as much as listening to the radio. If no control tower, doesn't the military craft still broadcast on unicom freq?

------

MKS: For the 12-month period ending April 21, 2010, the airport had 29,550 aircraft operations, an average of 80 per day: 96% general aviation, 3% air taxi, and 1% military.

7/8/15 9:18 AM

Folks, lots of speculation on little information.

What has been reported is the accident occurred about 11 miles north of Charleston, SC. That puts it about 75 miles S of Shaw, so probably not an aircraft on "approach".

But we don't really know yet.

7/8/15 9:43 AM

"But we don't really know yet."

As always... ;)

7/8/15 11:22 AM

Lots of questions here that no doubt will go into a classified file but mainly in my mind is why did the TCAS system fail to alert the F-16 pilot...as I understand it, that is the most basic of all collision avoidance methods that interpolates transponder information into a warning.
2 lives lost and $150M+ in wrecked aircraft and we will likely be left "really not knowing" forever.

7/8/15 1:22 PM

but the big thing, the loss-of-life, is tragic.

7/8/15 2:08 PM

Yes, the jet was from my base. The light A/C came out of the civil airport in Moncks Corner, SC where I grew up and the accident occurred about 5 miles from my childhood home.

I can say that one of the A/C was not where it was supposed to be. I don't personally know the pilot but the Wing Commander (Col Jost) and I are friends. His statements are truthful and the Charleston newspaper the Post and Courier (which I delivered as teen) has an accurate story on their webpage.

The WCBD 2 news reporter Raymond Owens who reported live yesterday is my nephew. I sent him a text to warn him about the physical hazards found in the debris and smoke and not to get to close. Breathing carbon fiber smoke will put you in the hospital in hurry along with hydrazine and other nasty stuff on the F16.

My phone just about blew up yesterday while I was out on my lunch ride because the EOC recalled everyone.

My wife taught the Shaw pilot's kid in KG last year but only met his wife.

These kind of things have been part of my life for 30 years, where there are airplanes there will be crashes eventually. I am saddened by the loss of life, but could not care less about the F16, they crash sometimes, it just comes with the territory.

The F16 was in the JB Charleston airspace and had been doing approaches there. There is also a low level military training route in the area. I watched F4s and A10s fly over my childhood home many times at around 300-500 feet, these days they don't go that low.

I have been in a F16 and did approaches into Charleston, I flew over that area enroute so it is understandable that there is confusion. Don't speculate too much, the report will be truthful and available to the public when complete.

Just remember that things happen much faster in aircraft than they do in your car and that they happen extremely fast in fighter jet, even if they are going less than 300MPH. (reported in the news that the F16 was under that speed which is slow)

7/8/15 2:13 PM

E, what's the stall speed of the F16? I've found conflicting info....

7/8/15 2:52 PM

If the F16 was on a tr, the Cessna should not have been there. Its legal to fly thru a tr, but not terribly bright...

7/8/15 3:06 PM

@RCoapman depends on the configuration (i.e. external stores loaded, fuel load and external tanks) and weather conditions, high temps lower the air density and raise the stall speeds. Dude it varies a lot!

As low as 170knts if totally clean.

I have personally flown at 320knts indicated airspeed with me at the stick in the backseat on a fam flight and flown at Mach 1.1 in the same flight. The F16 insulates all the buffeting and such from the cockpit with it's fly by wire system. I could barely tell the difference.

The front low visibility is blocked by the radome and HUD but it is much better than the Cessna 150 series.


I will say that F16 units across the nation practice intercepting light aircraft (Civil Air Patrol often fly as targets) and it is very challenging for the pilots and they have techniques that mitigate some of them but it is tough none the less because the light aircraft fly so slowly.

7/9/15 7:37 AM

A good news military avaiation story...

https://video-lga1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hvideo-xap1/v/t42.1790-2/11648616_10153399298629400_1362321290_n.mp4?efg=eyJybHIiOjQ0NiwicmxhIjo4MDl9&rl=446&vabr=248&oh=a35c8495b05e21bd200e929d16a4295a&oe=559E96C8

7/9/15 2:34 PM

Keep getting a Facebook dead-end. I even tried logging in there too.

7/9/15 2:40 PM

Try the USS Harry S. Truman Facebook page I checked and it is there.

7/9/15 3:11 PM

There are two USS Harry S. Truman pages, the one with 69k+ likes is the one I thought looked more likely.

Thanks for bringing it to our attention.