An F-16 pilot escaped serious injury Tuesday when he ejected shortly before his plane crashed into a vacant house in Adams County.
Fire and smoke forced the evacuation of 50 people from homes near the point of impact of the fighter jet from the Madison-based 115th Fighter Wing of the Wisconsin Air National Guard, but it could have been much worse.
The jet came within a few feet of the roof of Norma Pourchot’s house in the town of New Chester before slamming into an unoccupied vacation home across the street at about 1:20 p.m.
“A few more feet and we would have been cinders,” said Pourchot, 79, who was looking out the window when the plane crashed. “When it exploded the flames went up into the sky several hundred feet.”
Pourchot said she heard one boom while the plane was in the air and another when it hit the ground. The owners of the vacation home are believed to be from Sheboygan County.
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The pilot was picked up in Adams County and was being medically evaluated, said Lt. Col. Jackie Guthrie, a spokeswoman for the Wisconsin National Guard. The pilot’s name and condition were not released.
The crash scene was swarmed by law enforcement, area volunteer fire departments and crews from Volk Field, an Air National Guard combat readiness center east of Tomah.
Evacuations were a precaution until the air could be tested to ensure the area was safe, Guthrie said.
“It’s just to make sure that the fire wasn’t giving off any fumes that would be harmful, the same as you would do with any fire,” Guthrie said.
Evacuated in the crash were Arlan and Pat Potter, who live on 2nd Avenue in rural Oxford, about a half-mile from the site of the crash.
At home, they saw smoke, and something that sounded like a sonic boom.
“But it was obviously more than that,” Arlan said. “It shook the windows and everything.”
The jet was based at Truax Field in Madison, but had taken off from Volk Field before the crash, Guthrie said.
She said she didn’t immediately know how many training flights are flown each week by the 115th, but she said that crashes are few and far between.
“This is the first in my 20 years here,” Guthrie said. “Our pilots are trained, and our pilots are safe.”
Jon Anderson, a spokesman for the Air National Guard in Langley, Va., said he didn’t know how many training crashes take place in the U.S. each year.
“It does happen from time to time,” Anderson said. “I don’t have the exact number, but it’s not many.”
The F-16 was one of 18 operated by the 115th in Madison and 311 by the Air National Guard overall, said Maj. Tom Crosson, a spokesman for the National Guard Bureau in Washington, D.C.
From 1975 through the end of last year, F-16s have crashed 737 times in both training in combat zones, according to the Air Force Safety Center at Kirtland Air Force Base, N.M. In 312 cases the aircraft were destroyed, and 84 pilots were killed, the center's web site says.
The center oversees investigations of serious crashes with the aim of correcting problems and preventing future accidents, spokesman Masao Doi said.
A parallel probe will be conducted by the Air Force Air Combat Command over the next roughly 90 days, Crosson said.
The command will designate an officer to oversee an Accident Investigation Board that will preserve evidence for use in possible disciplinary action, litigation and a report to the public.
Experts in air safety, F-16s, maintenance, navigation and medical matters will be assembled and they will examine the aircraft’s maintenance records and talk to the pilot and to any ground crew member who has touched the jet recently, Crosson said. Typically, the plane and its fuel burn, reducing the possibility of contamination of groundwater, Anderson said.
The F-16s operated by the 115th train without armaments, Anderson said.
Martha Clark, 47, who lives nearby the crash site, is accustomed to seeing the fighter jets perform training maneuvers overhead. She said she saw another jet accompanying the F-16 before it went down.
After the crash, guards from a nearby prison rushed to the scene.
“Everybody’s shook up around here,” Clark said. “If (the crash) was one more block to the west and to the north, he would have been in the prison. It was close.”
Shannon Green of the Portage Daily Register contributed to this report.
The Air Force operates several models of F-16 jet fighter-bombers. The one that crashed Tuesday was an F-16C.
- Thrust: 27,000 pounds
- Wingspan, length, height: 32 feet, 8 inches X 49 feet, 5 inches X 16 feet
- Weight: 19,700 pounds without fuel
- Maximum takeoff weight: 37,500 pounds
- Fuel capacity: 7,000 pounds internal; typical capacity, 12,000 pounds with two external tanks
- Speed: 1,500 mph
- Range: More than 2,002 miles
- Ceiling: Above 50,000 feet
- Crew: One
- Unit cost: $18.8 million in fiscal year 1998 constant dollars ($25.49 million in 2011 dollars, based on the Consumer Price Index)
- Initial operating capability: 1981
- Total U.S. inventory: 1,280
Source: U.S. Air Force