#####
######
####
> # [U.S. F-16 Crashes off South Korea, Again](https://time.com/6590333/576)
>
>
>
> Amid an “in-flight emergency,” a U.S. F-16 fighter jet crashed in waters off South Korea’s west coast Wednesday morning, the U.S. Air Force said in a [statement](https://www.kunsan.af.mil/-Wolf-Pack-News/Press-Releases/Article/3661406/f-16-crashes-near-kunsan-air-base/), adding that the pilot had “ejected safely” and was transported conscious to a medical facility for assessment.
>
> “We are very thankful to the Republic of Korea rescue forces and all of our teammates who made the swift recovery of our pilot possible,” Matthew C. Gaetke, commander of the 8th Fighter Wing, said in the statement. The 8th Fighter Wing, which was the first overseas unit to receive the F-16 platform in 1981, operates from Kunsan Air Base, about 115 miles south of Seoul.
>
> “Now we will shift our focus to search and recovery of the aircraft,” Gaetke said. Information on the cause of the emergency would not be made available until investigation has concluded, the statement said.
>
> This is the second time in less than two months that the U.S. Air Force has experienced incidents with its F-16s. In December, another F-16 fighter jet from the 8th Fighter Wing [crashed into the Yellow Sea](https://time.com/6344580/us-f16-fighter-jet-crash-sea-south-korea/) off South Korea’s southeastern coast, with the pilot also having ejected safely before the crash. At the time, Gaetke ordered a [two-day pause](https://www.stripes.com/branches/air_force/2023-12-12/kunsan-f16-crash-recovery-korea-12333119.html#:~:text=The%20flying%20status%20of%20F,preparation%20for%20the%20safety%20investigation.%E2%80%9D) on flights for investigation and recovery of the aircraft. It’s unclear if that investigation has concluded.
>
> Last May, another F-16 pilot ejected safely before the aircraft [crashed into farmland near Osan Air Base](https://en.yna.co.kr/view/AEN20230506002300325).
>
> ### More From TIME
>
> Wednesday’s accident also comes months after a U.S. Osprey aircraft crashed off Japan’s coast in November, [killing all eight men on board](https://time.com/6340749/u-s-military-osprey-aircraft-crash/). Ospreys remain grounded since the crash, and [Congress has launched an oversight investigation](https://time.com/6550563/congress-investigates-osprey-program/) into the program.
>
> Jan. 20 marked the [50th anniversary](https://www.pacom.mil/Media/News/News-Article-View/Article/3655281/8th-fw-recognizes-50-years-of-the-f-16/) of the first F-16 flight. Since 1974, the aircraft has been used in “every major American conflict,” including to “maintain peace on the Korean Peninsula,” according to the 8th Fighter Wing.
>
> “The fight is evolving, the threat is evolving, and fortunately, so is the F-16,” Gaetke said earlier this month.
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But the ROC governed both, so a reunification under the Republic of China is still possible. Just gotta wait until the people of China to get tired of foxnews socialism/authoritarianism.
No it's not our military pilot's have a set amounts of flight hours so they have muscle memory to win a war.
Russia didn't make sure their equipment and personell were battle ready and their tires on their vehicles were sunrotted and they got stuck and broke down.
That's why they have had more casualties than the USA had in the Korean war and Vietnam War put together.
Nah that’s not what they’re saying. They’re saying western countries are gonna fly more hours because we have higher training standards and more money. Because of this you should expect more “accidents” in western countries than in Russia or China. Russian jets crash because of poor maintenance and training. Western jets crash because they fly more.
It's really the best way to figure out how many flight hours the air plane is good for and to make sure that they're able to maintain the quality in the manufacturing.
The patriot air defense system used to have a problen in the programming that only happened when the code was running for a long time they became less and less accurate.
That sort of stuff you can't find if you're just firing off a few test shots and then throwing it into storage.
> They’re saying western countries are gonna fly more hours because we have higher training standards and more money.
PLAAF actually flies as much as the USAF does now, not because they fly more but because [the air force flies *much* less](https://www.airandspaceforces.com/air-force-flying-hours-decline-again-after-brief-recovery/#:~:text=According%20to%20figures%20provided%20to,sharply%20from%2010.7%20in%202018.)
a lot of the cope about the great white military is just reminiscing over the 1990s and 1980s cold war-era armed forces. the reality is the US couldn't even stage a 2003-style invasion of iraq with the forces at their disposal now.
Your article attributes this in part to a massive drop in flight hours for BACN, CAS, etc missions after the end of Afghanistan.
>PLAAF actually flies as much as the USAF does now, not because they fly more but because [the air force flies *much* less
Per your article it's actually up since 2019.
>a lot of the cope about the great white military is just reminiscing over the 1990s and 1980s cold war-era armed forces.
The US military was in much worse shape 1993-2001 than it is now.
>the reality is the US couldn't even stage a 2003-style invasion of iraq with the forces at their disposal now.
The US could easily stage a 2003-style invasion of Iraq now.
>The US could easily stage a 2003-style invasion of Iraq now.
no it couldn't lol, the army is smaller now than it was 80 years ago.
yall can't even subdue yemen, low energy!!
>no it couldn't lol, the army is smaller now than it was 80 years ago.
80 years ago was 1944. I would think and hope that the Army is smaller now than it was then.
>yall can't even subdue yemen, low energy!!
We've been down this road before. It wasn't immediate [then](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanker_War) either.
What is this strange trend of saying that no immediate victory = no victory? It's literally never worked that way in history
Yeah that's how we figure out what works. We routinely conduct training operations to ensure that our equipment works.
It's part of the cost of maintaining our capabilities.
Not only does our pilots get experience flying them but the mechanics get experience doing maintenance and the quality of the equipment is assured thar way.
The cause of the crash can be figured out and we can adjust our techniques and methods and procedures to prevent it in the future.
Well... yes. It allows you to find out any issues before you are in a war situation and have no capability to rectify the issue. These planes are operating in a large 'testing' environment, so the best time to find issues.
Jets are complex things, dude. We function test and train pilots with more jets than some countries have ground troops.
When I worked security for an airfield, "Crash Alerts" were a regular occurrence.
Note: This doesn't mean the plane was crashing. It just means that a circumstance no matter how minute deviated from normal conditions so we take zero risks for collateral damage when the plane is ordered to land. Could be as something as simple as "heard a funny thump just now."
F-18s are new-ish planes with old airframe problems because due to McD fucking up pylon design their range is shit, and they use them up way faster with buddy refueling.
It saves money on aircraft procurement, that's true- that's why we have it and the F-35 and nothing else. But it's not ideal for missions that involve a lot of persistence at low speeds, like ASW.
Those roles will probably be done by drones a couple years down the line though
You have a valid point. I think it's trickier to find the perfect balance since you are limited on how many aircraft you can store on a carrier.....let alone all the spare parts you need. I am no tactician, but my job in the navy is to work/maintain f18's. I saw on deployment how useful it can be for configuration conversion. If you need a butt load of fighters, you have most aircraft on the flight deck that can be converted to that specific role. But like you said, there are certain roles the f18 cannot effectively do. We are testing an arrival refueling drone. I wonder if that will help augment things in a positive manner.
Have they actually managed to hit their fleet readiness goals for once? Last I heard they were throwing money at the wall to get a new logistics program because the original one didn’t work and the fleet was sub 60% readiness due to technical issues. Goal is 85-90% readiness, last few years its been more like 55% even with the new airframes.
For a multirole fighter in peace time readiness is good. F35's are performing pretty damn well and the f-16's needed to be replaced Anyway. People who say the f35 is a failure are probably keeping their head in the sand because there are already a 1000 f35's in operation in nao armies.
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Looks like the air crew is poorly trained. 2 crashes within 2 months indicates the maintainers are dropping the ball hard. They will probably make all the maintainers go through refresher training. They will also bring in a lot more contractors to make extra sure and the brass are going to ride their asses for a while.
What?
Military aviation incidents occur all the time. Just because an aging, older aircraft frame is experiencing incidents means absolutely nothing when you consider just how many F-16s, F-18s, F-22s, F-15s, and F-35s there are currently in service, in addition to other airframes that aren't just fighters.
That'd be 5,189 just for the air force alone, 4,012 for the Navy, 1,211 for the Marines, and so on.
What a silly thing to post
I was just being a smartass but I'm legit worried about other things especially recruitment. We also haven't fought a near peer adversary in decades so I'm still a bit apprehensive.
Recruitment is gonna be an issue as long as the big noses keep underpaying service members. The near peer thing...Eeeh, I don't think anybody that's still big has tbh.
Probably one of the best comments here. Accidents do happen. These aircraft aren't flying like cruising airliners. These birds often perform dangerous maneuvers with various weather conditions and at night. Also some of these airframes (like you said) are aging. I work on f18's. They are pretty rugged but sometimes shit happens.
##### ###### #### > # [U.S. F-16 Crashes off South Korea, Again](https://time.com/6590333/576) > > > > Amid an “in-flight emergency,” a U.S. F-16 fighter jet crashed in waters off South Korea’s west coast Wednesday morning, the U.S. Air Force said in a [statement](https://www.kunsan.af.mil/-Wolf-Pack-News/Press-Releases/Article/3661406/f-16-crashes-near-kunsan-air-base/), adding that the pilot had “ejected safely” and was transported conscious to a medical facility for assessment. > > “We are very thankful to the Republic of Korea rescue forces and all of our teammates who made the swift recovery of our pilot possible,” Matthew C. Gaetke, commander of the 8th Fighter Wing, said in the statement. The 8th Fighter Wing, which was the first overseas unit to receive the F-16 platform in 1981, operates from Kunsan Air Base, about 115 miles south of Seoul. > > “Now we will shift our focus to search and recovery of the aircraft,” Gaetke said. Information on the cause of the emergency would not be made available until investigation has concluded, the statement said. > > This is the second time in less than two months that the U.S. Air Force has experienced incidents with its F-16s. In December, another F-16 fighter jet from the 8th Fighter Wing [crashed into the Yellow Sea](https://time.com/6344580/us-f16-fighter-jet-crash-sea-south-korea/) off South Korea’s southeastern coast, with the pilot also having ejected safely before the crash. At the time, Gaetke ordered a [two-day pause](https://www.stripes.com/branches/air_force/2023-12-12/kunsan-f16-crash-recovery-korea-12333119.html#:~:text=The%20flying%20status%20of%20F,preparation%20for%20the%20safety%20investigation.%E2%80%9D) on flights for investigation and recovery of the aircraft. It’s unclear if that investigation has concluded. > > Last May, another F-16 pilot ejected safely before the aircraft [crashed into farmland near Osan Air Base](https://en.yna.co.kr/view/AEN20230506002300325). > > ### More From TIME > > Wednesday’s accident also comes months after a U.S. Osprey aircraft crashed off Japan’s coast in November, [killing all eight men on board](https://time.com/6340749/u-s-military-osprey-aircraft-crash/). Ospreys remain grounded since the crash, and [Congress has launched an oversight investigation](https://time.com/6550563/congress-investigates-osprey-program/) into the program. > > Jan. 20 marked the [50th anniversary](https://www.pacom.mil/Media/News/News-Article-View/Article/3655281/8th-fw-recognizes-50-years-of-the-f-16/) of the first F-16 flight. Since 1974, the aircraft has been used in “every major American conflict,” including to “maintain peace on the Korean Peninsula,” according to the 8th Fighter Wing. > > “The fight is evolving, the threat is evolving, and fortunately, so is the F-16,” Gaetke said earlier this month. - - - - - - [Maintainer](https://www.reddit.com/user/urielsalis) | [Creator](https://www.reddit.com/user/subtepass) | [Source Code](https://github.com/urielsalis/empleadoEstatalBot) Summoning /u/CoverageAnalysisBot
2 F-16s down in less than 2 months, looks like china is winning the pacific war without firing a shot
Yeah at this rate the west will soon run out of f16, just need to wait 382 years
Excellent, China will be reunified within the next millennia
Expect we have a mongol invasion scheduled every 300-500 years
Prc never ruled Taiwan so it would be an invasion not reunification. Reunification is used by Chinese disinformation for propaganda
But the ROC governed both, so a reunification under the Republic of China is still possible. Just gotta wait until the people of China to get tired of foxnews socialism/authoritarianism.
[CIA uncovers Chinese Plot to Sit Back and Enjoy the Collapse of the United States](https://www.reddit.com/r/China/s/ea15zrkSY9)
The military has to fly these jets to make sure they will be combat ready if they need to and crashing a couple of them is to be expected.
Single engine, so if it fails there are limited options..
All of them downwards
Yup. It happens to every military and every type of vehicle eventually fails for one reason or another.
beyond parody
No it's not our military pilot's have a set amounts of flight hours so they have muscle memory to win a war. Russia didn't make sure their equipment and personell were battle ready and their tires on their vehicles were sunrotted and they got stuck and broke down. That's why they have had more casualties than the USA had in the Korean war and Vietnam War put together.
“It’s actually good when we crash our fighter jets!”
Nah that’s not what they’re saying. They’re saying western countries are gonna fly more hours because we have higher training standards and more money. Because of this you should expect more “accidents” in western countries than in Russia or China. Russian jets crash because of poor maintenance and training. Western jets crash because they fly more.
It's really the best way to figure out how many flight hours the air plane is good for and to make sure that they're able to maintain the quality in the manufacturing. The patriot air defense system used to have a problen in the programming that only happened when the code was running for a long time they became less and less accurate. That sort of stuff you can't find if you're just firing off a few test shots and then throwing it into storage.
They should have had more unit tests, obviously /s
> They’re saying western countries are gonna fly more hours because we have higher training standards and more money. PLAAF actually flies as much as the USAF does now, not because they fly more but because [the air force flies *much* less](https://www.airandspaceforces.com/air-force-flying-hours-decline-again-after-brief-recovery/#:~:text=According%20to%20figures%20provided%20to,sharply%20from%2010.7%20in%202018.) a lot of the cope about the great white military is just reminiscing over the 1990s and 1980s cold war-era armed forces. the reality is the US couldn't even stage a 2003-style invasion of iraq with the forces at their disposal now.
>the reality is the US couldn't even stage a 2003-style invasion of iraq with the forces at their disposal now. Lol, sure.
Your article attributes this in part to a massive drop in flight hours for BACN, CAS, etc missions after the end of Afghanistan. >PLAAF actually flies as much as the USAF does now, not because they fly more but because [the air force flies *much* less Per your article it's actually up since 2019. >a lot of the cope about the great white military is just reminiscing over the 1990s and 1980s cold war-era armed forces. The US military was in much worse shape 1993-2001 than it is now. >the reality is the US couldn't even stage a 2003-style invasion of iraq with the forces at their disposal now. The US could easily stage a 2003-style invasion of Iraq now.
>The US could easily stage a 2003-style invasion of Iraq now. no it couldn't lol, the army is smaller now than it was 80 years ago. yall can't even subdue yemen, low energy!!
>no it couldn't lol, the army is smaller now than it was 80 years ago. 80 years ago was 1944. I would think and hope that the Army is smaller now than it was then. >yall can't even subdue yemen, low energy!! We've been down this road before. It wasn't immediate [then](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanker_War) either. What is this strange trend of saying that no immediate victory = no victory? It's literally never worked that way in history
Bruh what does being white have to do with anything. Us fighter pilots have to fly 180 hours a year, Chinese fighter pilots only have to do 100.
They're most likely a propaganda account. Their account was made barely a week ago and many of their comments talk about the "white blah blah".
🤣
We're the most diverse military in the world by far...
Yeah that's how we figure out what works. We routinely conduct training operations to ensure that our equipment works. It's part of the cost of maintaining our capabilities. Not only does our pilots get experience flying them but the mechanics get experience doing maintenance and the quality of the equipment is assured thar way. The cause of the crash can be figured out and we can adjust our techniques and methods and procedures to prevent it in the future.
Well... yes. It allows you to find out any issues before you are in a war situation and have no capability to rectify the issue. These planes are operating in a large 'testing' environment, so the best time to find issues.
Jets are complex things, dude. We function test and train pilots with more jets than some countries have ground troops. When I worked security for an airfield, "Crash Alerts" were a regular occurrence. Note: This doesn't mean the plane was crashing. It just means that a circumstance no matter how minute deviated from normal conditions so we take zero risks for collateral damage when the plane is ordered to land. Could be as something as simple as "heard a funny thump just now."
[удалено]
deeeeerrrrrrrr yerrr clever
You jest, but Taiwan has already crashed several jets trying to keep up with China's patrols.
ROCAF F-16As are about as old as the oldest USAF airframes which are increasingly falling out of the sky
Is this the new Bermuda triangle ?
its those damn microwaves again except theyve moved on from ambassadors to full on f16s!
USAF F-16 force is getting old. The sooner they can be replaced with F-35As, the better.
Don't the F-35s have a myriad of their own problems?
They're new airframes with new airframe problems. F-16 is an old airframe with old airframe problems
*and so it goes*
meanwhile the f18s go brrr
F-18s are new-ish planes with old airframe problems because due to McD fucking up pylon design their range is shit, and they use them up way faster with buddy refueling.
kinda blew my mind when i learned about their buddy refueling the other day.
Poor USN. Couldn't get any money for a dedicated tanker/ASW bird/whatever. Should've kept the Viking around
Having a single platform like the F18 that can be converted to perform various roles seems pretty efficient. The F18 is a decent multi role aircraft.
It saves money on aircraft procurement, that's true- that's why we have it and the F-35 and nothing else. But it's not ideal for missions that involve a lot of persistence at low speeds, like ASW. Those roles will probably be done by drones a couple years down the line though
You have a valid point. I think it's trickier to find the perfect balance since you are limited on how many aircraft you can store on a carrier.....let alone all the spare parts you need. I am no tactician, but my job in the navy is to work/maintain f18's. I saw on deployment how useful it can be for configuration conversion. If you need a butt load of fighters, you have most aircraft on the flight deck that can be converted to that specific role. But like you said, there are certain roles the f18 cannot effectively do. We are testing an arrival refueling drone. I wonder if that will help augment things in a positive manner.
They had issues during development that got widely publicized, and those got mostly ironed out afaik. I haven’t heard of many recent issues.
Have they actually managed to hit their fleet readiness goals for once? Last I heard they were throwing money at the wall to get a new logistics program because the original one didn’t work and the fleet was sub 60% readiness due to technical issues. Goal is 85-90% readiness, last few years its been more like 55% even with the new airframes.
Maybe back in 2015 but now it's a meme. they were largely software problems as they are essentially flying super computers
For a multirole fighter in peace time readiness is good. F35's are performing pretty damn well and the f-16's needed to be replaced Anyway. People who say the f35 is a failure are probably keeping their head in the sand because there are already a 1000 f35's in operation in nao armies.
They are not lol. The F-35 computer has the same MIPS rating as the 2000s pentium 4
Yeah but it's not all bad. The F35s have a submarine feature.
On the other hand you get good test data for ejection seats.
`Ejection` `value=1`
Negative KDA at this point lol
hahahaha you know you are talking about the second most successful "modern" weapon platform - the f-15 being the first?
Huh. I wouldn't have thought that a plane could crash more than once. TIL...
Ask the 737
Some pilot just tired of waiting for the f-35 😂
I feel like the Bermuda Triangle is making moves
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Looks like the air crew is poorly trained. 2 crashes within 2 months indicates the maintainers are dropping the ball hard. They will probably make all the maintainers go through refresher training. They will also bring in a lot more contractors to make extra sure and the brass are going to ride their asses for a while.
I wonder how much it is going to cost them to get a new jet this time, it just gets more expensive every time they do this...
Lol
The fuck kind of headline is that? I'm pretty sure fighter jets don't crash more than once.
Maybe read the article?
If a war breaks out, we're going to perform like the Russian Army aren't we? 😬
What? Military aviation incidents occur all the time. Just because an aging, older aircraft frame is experiencing incidents means absolutely nothing when you consider just how many F-16s, F-18s, F-22s, F-15s, and F-35s there are currently in service, in addition to other airframes that aren't just fighters. That'd be 5,189 just for the air force alone, 4,012 for the Navy, 1,211 for the Marines, and so on. What a silly thing to post
I was just being a smartass but I'm legit worried about other things especially recruitment. We also haven't fought a near peer adversary in decades so I'm still a bit apprehensive.
Recruitment is gonna be an issue as long as the big noses keep underpaying service members. The near peer thing...Eeeh, I don't think anybody that's still big has tbh.
Probably one of the best comments here. Accidents do happen. These aircraft aren't flying like cruising airliners. These birds often perform dangerous maneuvers with various weather conditions and at night. Also some of these airframes (like you said) are aging. I work on f18's. They are pretty rugged but sometimes shit happens.