A Flat Spin?
A F-15 has crashed in Libya; both crew have thankfully been recovered I believe. Judging by the crash site photos it sure looks like the plane belly flopped.
The cost? Oh, probably another $100 million. Chump change, really.
We’re made of money, right?
Military Thingies, Politics | Mr. Bingley | 
March 22, 2011 7:57 am
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Thank God we got them. Both for their sakes and the sakes of the troops we would have sent in after them.
Which would have blown the whole “no troops” thing President Clusterfuck promised twelve “as I’ve always said’s” ago.
(As for the plane, they saved Gates some boneyard bucks. Probably get a “supersaver” medal.)
They sent a Marine V-22 into get the one pilot, so we have sent troops in already. I’m just guessing but don’t be suprised if that plane was hit by ground fire.
I’ll defer to your far greater expertise on this, md; it just looked to me like that wreckage was still pretty intact.
Not sure if F-15s are prone to flat spins like the F-14 was but still it could happen, getting hit by AAA could certainly induce a flat spin if a control surface was hit. Too early to say just what happened but generally they always say mechanical problems to start.
Obviously just a guess on my part, but I would vote for mechanical problems. I wonder if we would let any plane fly low enough to be subjected to ground attacks. You’re in the Pentagon and responsible for logistical and strategic plans. Would you let any pilot(s) be subject to capture by the Libyian government? You want that “crisis” dumpted in the lap of…..this president and his cronies? I’m serious. Probably a systems failure caused by flying too close to the Van Allen Belt.
Planes that crash from high altitudes most often leave just a smoking hole, not the case here, Twin engine jets don’t usually have a mech failure bad enought to crash. Since he was on a strike mission he would not have been manuevering as such to leave controlled flight. We’ll see.
yep, I’m sure that a mechanical issue was involved, and that could have led to perhaps a flat type of spin that he couldn’t pull out of. It just seems to me that looking at the wreckage the plane just sort of dropped; it looks like a broken model dropped on the ground as opposed to a blackened smear from a plane coming in on an angle.
The fact it was on fire in the air also seems to indicate some AAA wa sinvolved in the ‘mechanical’ failure. F-15s don’t light up like that usually. <now if Ford had built them……….
I don’t like to see the first F-15 lost in combat but to be honest I would rather it be ground fire than just airframe failure do to age.
The old girls really are getting to that point.