F-15s Crashed, Two Pilots Survived | TMC Pacific Online Community

Welcome to TMC Pacific!

TMC Pacific aims to gather all war veterans, model aircraft collectors and enthusiasts in one online community. Interact with people who share the same interest as yours.

Be proud of your past and display handmade models of airplanes, helicopters, ships, boats, sail boats, and space shuttles. Join us today!

Feb

F-15s Crashed, Two Pilots Survived

Posted (Nina) in Flight Stories on February-20-2008 | 103 Views

Two F-15C Eagles crashed into the Gulf of Mexico during a training mission. The Air Force reported that the pilots were ejected and later rescued. Eglin Air Force Base spokeswoman Shirley Pigott said that the pilots were rescued after their single-seat F-15C Eagles disappeared Wednesday afternoon off the Florida Panhandle, about 35 miles south of Tyndall Air Force Base. The Air Force has not determined if the planes collided because the weather in the area was clear.

A Coast Guard rescue jet located one pilot and radioed the location to a fishing vessel, which picked him up. A Coast Guard helicopter then hoisted the pilot off the vessel. That pilot told rescuers he saw the other pilot also eject, but lost him in the clouds”, Coast Guard Petty Officer James Harless reported.

“He told them the approximate location for the second pilot, who was found by a Coast Guard helicopter”, Harless added.

After the said incident, the pilots were rushed to Eglin base hospital.The Air Force began using the F-15C in 1979. The planes, built by McDonnell Douglas Corp., were deployed to the Persian Gulf in 1991 in support of Operation Desert Storm and have since been used in Iraq, Turkey and Bosnia.

The planes can fly up to 65,000 feet and each costs about $30 million, according to the Air Force.