News about US Air National Guard F-15C involved in accident on November 2, 2007.
An Air Force investigation of the crash last fall of an F-15C Eagle fighter jet concluded that a defective metal beam in the frame cracked, causing it to disintegrate during flight.
In a report released last week, Air Force investigators said they had found the sole reason for the accident was the faulty support beam, called a longeron, which failed to meet the manufacturer's specifications.
Gen. John Corley, the top officer at Air Combat Command at Langley Air Force Base, Va., called the situation a "crisis" that would be best solved by an infusion of costly new aircraft rather than fixing jets that are 25 years old.
The mechanical troubles, most acute in the F-15 Eagles used to protect the United States, also have led to a patchwork approach to filling critical air missions at home and in Iraq and Afghanistan.
With nearly a third of the F-15 fleet grounded due to a defective support beam in the aircraft's frame, other fighter aircraft, including F-16s and new F-22s, are being shifted from duty in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"It's a rob Peter to pay Paul," Corley said at a Pentagon news conference. "It's unprecedented to have an air superiority fleet that's on average 25 years old."
Read the article from Military.com
Air Force Fighter Fleet In Crisis รทhere
Produced by Boeing Phantom Works as part of the US Air Force accident investigation, this animation reconstructs the in-flight structural failure of a US Air National Guard F-15C on November 2, 2007. The breakup was caused by fatigue cracking of a forward fuselage longeron. IMPORTANT - this is slowed down to one-fifth the actual speed of the event!
