Posted on 02/23/2015 11:30:22 PM PST by smokingfrog
The two-person crew of a Marine Corps jet is safe after a crash Sunday near Statenville, Ga.
The F/A-18 Hornet was with Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 224 based out of Beaufort, S.C., and was part of the 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing at Cherry Point, according to Michael Barton, deputy director of the public affairs office at Cherry Point.
The pilot, Maj. Rick Nicka and the weapons officer, 1st Lt. Robert Reynolds, ejected from the jet and were treated for minor injuries at South Georgia Medical Center 19 miles away in Valdosta, Ga., according to a release.
Barton said the plane had conducting low altitude tactics training when it went down. The incident happened in the Moody MOA, a military operations area.
The crash happened about nine miles east of Statenville, Ga., which is about five miles north of the Georgia-Florida state line. No injuries were reported on the ground, according to Deputy Bill Brogdon, of the Echols County Sheriffs Department.
Personnel from Moody Air Force Base along with the Georgia Forestry Commission and the Echols County fire and rescue departments responded to the crash, according to the release.
Brogdon said the jet went down on private land about a mile and a half from 90-year-old Freddie Lou Registers home, mother of the twins Chester and Chandler Register, the first ones to find the downed airmen.
(Excerpt) Read more at newbernsj.com ...
Beyond "homespun."
That there is like my Grandma's quilt.
(Why do I have this picture in my head of Chester and Chandler wearing matching bib overalls? ...and finishing each other's sentences.)
Thank goodness the crew is basically OK.
Low altitude training?
Sounds like they hit something.
page 2 is great!
” The Register brothers, 56, residents of rural Echols County, had been eating dinner at their mothers home after church when the jet went down nearby. Chester said he went to leave to go home, and when he walked out onto the porch, saw parachutes drifting down out of the sky.
I was coming out of the house and I looked across the clear cut and seen the black smoke a boiling and I knew that wasnt a forest fire, Chester Register said. It was too black a smoke and I kept looking and I seen the parachutes coming down.
I said I know about where they was coming down at and I got in the truck and went down there and seen one hanging up in the trees and one was on the ground.
By the time Chester Register got close, the airman in the tree had already released himself and had dropped to the ground from the pine trees.
I said Boys, Yall all right? and they said We think so, just shook up and scratched a little bit, he said. One was pretty muddy. He had mud from his head to his feet from where he landed in that soft dirt. He had a bad gash on his arm. He sort of acted like he was in shock a little bit, but both of them seemed to be alright. Both of them was shook up pretty good, but you know they had a right to be. They were just getting off the ground when I pulled up there and I could tell the one was injured.
Chandler said the two men, whose names have not been released, just missed coming down in Big Arm Swamp.
It probably wasnt a thousand yards to the edge of the swamp, Chandler Register said. If they had drifted any farther east then they would have been in that swamp.
“Thank goodness they didn’t land on mah still”
“Then, we had ‘em load up in the back of the pickup and went down to Aunt Carol’s to eat supper, fried chicken and bisquits. When more government boys showed up Aunt Carol had a fit. Said somebody shoulda told her there would be company tonight”.
Now it turns out you can own your own F/A-18 just the same way..
That’s priceless.
Reminds me of Slim Pickens describing the “survival kit” in Dr. Strangelove. LOL
Yeah. . .like a bird.
At 400kts+ a bird strike can kill you.
Maybe they're not *identical* twins...
Typo?
My CO took a turkey buzzard at 420 knots in a tac-turn that buried itself into the seat directly behind his. The plexiglass in the cockpit of the Prowler is one inch thick and a shard nearly severed the thumb of his right-seater. They made it safely back to Cherry Point but the jet took a while to get cleaned out, and did it ever stink!
Shee it a boy could have a perty good time in Vegas with that kit!
It's actually better journalism that 99% of the swill that is pumped out daily under the name.
The typo took me by surprise because I had read the same story earlier today in the Jacksonville, NC Daily News and they completed cut that whole paragraph.
Homesick now. Have a blessed day!
I know a F-16 pilot who got in trouble for taking his aircraft down to about 20 feet at about 600 kt. In hilly country.
Things can happen fast.
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