Posted on 01/18/2005 1:37:16 PM PST by flutters
Air Force training jet collides with crop duster By AP Wire Service 1/18/2005 2:19:00 PM
FREDERICK, Okla. (AP) -- An Air Force training jet collided with a crop-dusting plane in southwest Oklahoma Tuesday and one person died in the crash, authorities reported.
The T-37 training jet from Sheppard Air Force Base in Wichita Falls, Texas, collided with the crop duster southeast of Frederick in a rural area, FAA spokesman John Clabes said.
The pilot of the crop duster was killed in the crash, which was reported at 11:33 a.m. said Jimmie Goodin, a dispatcher for the Oklahoma Highway Patrol in Altus. Another OHP dispatcher, Della Adler, said the two Air Force pilots who were aboard the trainer survived. They apparently ejected from their airplane and parachuted to safety, she said.
The collision occurred in cloudy skies at about 5,000 feet. The wreckage from the planes fell to an open field.
A spokesman at the Air Force base said he had no immediate information about the crash.
In 2002, two military training jets collided near Duncan, about 80 miles east of Frederick after flying in close formation.
In that incident, the planes were also T-37 training jets with two people in each plane. No one was injured. One of the planes landed in a field near an elementary
school with its landing gear up and the other plane flew back to Sheppard. Base officials at the time said that was the first accident involving the Air Force training jets since 1978.
The twin-engine jet is built by Cessna Aircraft Co. It has dual controls, ejection seats and a clamshell-type canopy that can be jettisoned. The student and instructor sit side-by-side in the cockpit of the two-seat jet.
The Air Force trains American and NATO pilots on T-37s at Sheppard.
The T-37s, which first entered service in 1956, have been upgraded and rehabilitated several times over the decades. Each costs about $167,000. The Air Force has more that 400 T-37s.
How does that happen? Jet... fast; crop duster... slow and low.
That's too bad because those crop dusters do a very necessary and good job. And so do Air Force pilots, except when they run into crop dusters.
I would not be surprised if the pilot was hotdogging.
"Constant bearing, decreasing range." Speed & altitude don't have anything to to do with it.
Somebody's dead and I shouldn't be laughing and yet, I am.
Wonder what crop was getting dusted a mile high in January?
Which one?
I guess I'm getting a little paranoid. But, I thought somewhere in the story I was going to read the crop duster pilot's name. I'd be reassured if it was Buck or Clem or even Otis.
But if it's a Yousef or a Mohammed, I'd worry.
You beat me to the question. I have broken out of the clouds on an IFR approach at 500 feet to discover crop dusters on approach between me and the runway but haven't seen to many at altitude.
Which one? The crop duster pilot, or the tweet pilot? USAF instructor pilots generally do not let their students hot dog it. The Air Force sure has been using tweets for a long time.
avweb.com ^ | November 8, 2004
The Transportation Security Administration issued an advisory on Friday that a Piper PA 25 Pawnee crop-dusting aircraft was stolen from Ejido Queretaro, near Mexicali, Mexico, on Nov. 1. "Although there is currently no indication that this has any connection to terrorist activity," the TSA said, "the theft is cause for concern. Past information indicates that members of al-Qa'ida may have planned -- or may still be planning -- to disperse biological or chemical agents from cropdusting aircraft." The stolen aircraft is registered in Mexico and bears the tail number XBCYP. If you see the aircraft, the TSA says you should...
Ping
I'd worry much more about stolen 18 wheelers than stolen planes.
Crash happened at 5000 ft. - higher than the typical altitude crop dusters operate at.
Maybe delivering a plane?
That one fact in the article, ( 5000 ft.) tells me there is something more to this story!
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