Date Published: April 19, 2005   

Shaw jet crashes

2 airmen ejected safely

The Associated Press Two military jet pilots walk to a waiting ambulance after ejecting safely from their F-16 jet fighter into a marsh near Charleston on Monday.

By LESLIE CANTU
Item Staff Writer
lesliec@theitem.com

An F-16 jet from Shaw Air Force Base crashed into the Ashley River near Charleston about 5 p.m. Monday while on a training mission.

Maj. Steve Granger and Lt. Col. Maurice Salcedo, both of the 9th Air Force, ejected safely.

Salcedo was observing Granger, who flies with the 77th "Gamblers" Fighter Squadron, on a routine training mission designed to increase pilots' proficiency, Shaw officials said.

A news release from Shaw said that a board of officers will investigate the incident.

Col. Michael Beale, vice commander of the 20th Fighter Wing, said the airmen were just getting started when there was "some sort of malfunction."

The pilot attempted to land at Charleston Air Force Base and "when he realized he couldn't make Charleston Air Force Base, he put it down in an unpopulated area," Beale said.

The Associated Press An F-16 military jet smolders at the edge of the Ashley River across from Dolphin Cove Marina near Charleston on Monday.

Beale said the pilot has flown for more than 12 years, though he wasn't sure how long the pilot has flown F-16s.

The Coast Guard rescued the two and, though both airmen were uninjured, they were taken to Trident Medical Center.

"Huge kudos to the Coast Guard for responding," said Shaw spokesman Capt. Mark Gibson. "They were to safe ground real fast."

Experts from Shaw immediately headed to Charleston to secure and inspect the equipment. Beale said he couldn't speculate about the cause of the crash.

The jet was carrying no munitions, said Lt. Suzanne Ovel, a spokeswoman at Shaw Air Force Base. She did not know whether the jet was carrying anything else.

The crash comes exactly one month after a nonfatal F-16 crash at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada and barely a week before ShawFest 2005, an air show featuring the Thunderbirds, an Air Force demonstration team that performs acrobatic maneuvers in F-16s.

On the same day as the Nellis crash, Shaw took delivery of the last F-16 built for the Air Force. Since 1978, the Air Force has purchased 2,231 of the planes. U.S. allies will continue to purchase the F-16.

The F-16 "Fighting Falcon" is used for both air-to-air and air-to-ground combat. Shaw has 80 of the planes, which cost about $26.9 million in their last incarnation.

Shaw holds 30 percent of the Air Force's SEAD/DEAD assets. SEAD is suppression of enemy air defenses and DEAD, the fighters' newest mission, is destruction of enemy air defenses.

Shaw's three fighter squadrons have deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. They also guard the eastern seaboard as part of Operation Noble Eagle. Shaw pilots patrolled the skies over President George W. Bush on Christmas Day and during the Republican National Convention.

The Gamblers lost a pilot in the last major crash involving a Shaw jet. In that incident, Capt. Mitchell August Bulmann, 27, of Traverse City, Mich., died July 6, 2001, in the Atlantic Ocean after ejecting from the plane.

He had been engaged in an air-to-air combat training exercise about 40 miles off the coast of Charleston. An Air Force investigation found that he lost control of the plane while suffering from gravity-induced loss of consciousness, which typically lasts 24 seconds.

By the time he regained consciousness and was able to eject, his plane was moving too quickly and at an unsafe angle for him to eject properly and he suffered fatal injuries while ejecting.

Two F-16s from the 79th Fighter Squadron collided over the Atlantic Ocean during a training mission last spring. The pilots were able to fly back to Shaw, though their planes sustained $208,000 worth of damage.

An investigation into that incident found that one of the pilots wasn't paying attention and didn't control the distance between the planes.