Picture of the Day: ROKAF F-5E Fighter Crash
This photo, provided by a reader, shows smoke billowing from a hill in Hwaseong, about 40 kilometers south of Seoul, where an F-5E fighter belonging to the Air Force’s 10th Combat Squadron crashed right after takeoff at 1:44 p.m. on Jan. 11, 2022. (PHOTO NOT FOR SALE) (Yonhap)
Did the pilot get out?
Sadly, the pilot went down with the aircraft.
May he rest in peace.
Well, that’s sad. Sincere condolences to the family, friends, and squadron of the pilot. As I said before, training missions are nearly as dangerous as combat.
The issue here is not that whether the F-35 is inherently more or less safe than the F-5. Incidents during takeoff and landing can kill the best pilots flying the best aircraft. All it takes is a little maintenance thing, a little manufacturing thing, a little pilot error, a flock of birds, or any of a million other details going sideways. That’s why they train so diligently, to be able to recognize and correct for the unexpected.
I’ve been on multiple USAF aircraft that experienced in-flight difficulties (granted that we were flying in old aircraft and sometimes they let the copilot touch the controls). Once, due to an in-flight issue we landed heavy (no time to burn off the extra fuel and no way to dump the excess), the front brakes caught fire. We evacuated the aircraft as the firemen (in those shiny silvery asbestos suits) were applying mechanical foam to the forward wheel well (and yelling at us to clear the area). Please note that there is not a lot of real-estate between front gear and entry hatch. Although I flew in G models and the illustration is a D model, the front end is very similar. And the aircraft could hold up to just under 48,000 gallons of go-juice, so a big bonfire if folks were not careful.
Diagram: https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-1bbfb8c8eb3ba85cfee4c60ba1653449
I would say F-35 is far more problematic, not just simply due to its outrageous costs associated with it.
F-5 is simply an old jet plane from the 1960’s. The age of the planes means they should not be in service, as they are being phased out. That is not the problem.
F-35’s on the other hand, is a brand new plane with the latest gadgets and technology. Why is it constantly breaking? The F-35 that landed without landing gears a couple of weeks ago, the entire electronics systems excluding the engine stopped working. It’s unheard of in a modern plane. Another sore point with the Koreans is the matter of how Lockheed Martin treats their customers. The brand new F-35s are not just breaking down. There are more serious problems with the jet when South Korea is forced to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to already upgrade the planes – whether it likes to or not. WTF? Not only that, the F-35 crash will be investigated by Lockheed Martin, and not the South Korean airforce. We all know what the result of this ‘investigation’ will be, already. It feels like South Korea didn’t buy these jets. They just borrowed the planes from the US for $7 billion, and do not really own these jets.
The Lockheed Martin and US government “gapjil”, once again shows why South Korea made a very wise decision to produce its own KFX-21 fighter jet program.
Meanwhile, the F-5 pilot is dead and the F-35 pilot is alive. Was that the pilot or the plane? (Hint: we know you don’t care, you want the RoK disarmed and denuded of allies.)
And an Indian Mig-21 shot down a Pakistani F-16 in February 2019. Was that the pilot or the plane? (Hint: don’t fly straight and level or use predictable patterns when dog-fighting or trolling.)
Now do B-52s, smart guy… The youngest (delivered in 1963) is older than the oldest regular crew member flying them. And the BUFFs are scheduled to be flying into 2050…
Flying a jet aircraft is just a little bit more difficult than being “stunning and brave” on a website for and about people you despise. Like (primarily US) GIs and South Koreans, in this case.
Why don’t you do better research and/or comment on topics where you have at least elementary knowledge?
BTW, have you had your Safe and Effective Booster Shot yet? You should go right out and see to that before wasting time here.
COVID-19 has affected your tiny old ape brain.
F-5 is a very old jet fighter, it’s not surprising that mechanical failures will happen.
What’s the excuse for the F-35 with electronics failing and landing gear malfunctioning? Go ahead, explain, you delusional half dead cancer brain.
As KM said, the F-5E is an old fighter.
Thailand and Brazil which have upgraded their F-5E fleets to the point that they are in a par with 4th generation fighters.
Same goes for the MiG-21 Bisons of the IAF and the B-52H which will receive new engines, avionics, and electrical systems among others.
The ROKAF on the other hand hasn’t invested much in its F-5E fleet, and haven’t upgraded them.
The reason being is that the thought among the ROKAF brass is that “the F-5E will be retired soon so why spend money on it”. “Rather spend it on buying new figther types”.
And it should have been retired but to keep up the fighter numbers, the ROKAF is still keeping it in its inventory and flying it.
At its height, there were 5 Wings aroung the country and a squadron in Kunsan flying the F-5s, but now all F-5 operations are being consolidated to a single fighter wing in Suwon. The same goes for the F-4E Phantoms which have also been moved to Suwon.
Seems that the ROKAF are pooling the types to be retired into a single airbase.
So yes accidents happen and yes pilot skills are a major factor.
But you can’t ignore the fact that the ROKAF hasn’t put much TLC into one of its fighter types which are way past their prime and should have been retired but which it is keeping on hand for no particular reason than to keep up the total fighter numbers.
Which doesn’t make sense if you consider the modern 4th and 5th generation fighters the ROKAF already has, in addition to the force multipliers.