F-16 down in Charleston, SC (and I saw the wreckage)

[Cimarron29414]

So, you may or may not hear about this on national news. Details are sketchy as to why it went down. The police reported it as "catastrophic engine failure." The F-16, out of Shaw Air Force Base, went down while doing live fire exercises off the Chas coast. The version of the plane that went down was a trainer and had two crew members. It attempted to "coast" back to the Charleston International Air Port. When the guys realized they weren't going to make it, they got over the Ashley River and punched out. The plane travelled another 1/4 mile down the river, hit the marsh, bounced, exploded, and splashed about 60 feet further down. It happened today around 4:00 p.m. I have a friend that is a Sgt. in the City Police. He called me. I decided to go searching for the wreckage. After about 15 minutes of searching, we found a pub RIGHT across the river from the wreckage. We couldn't believe the luck we had. We were the only two civilians in the entire pub and nobody cared that we were there. Hey, it was a restaurant and we were there to eat (yeah, right!) On the deck of the pub were Air Force Special Security forces, City and State police. There were coast guard helicopters hovering over the wreckage. There were police, coast guard and navy boats preventing other water craft from going down the river near the wreckage.

We brought along our digital camera and asked permission to take a few shots from the Air Force officer in charge. He said it was fine. So, we snapped a few shots. I wouldn't know how to publish them if I wanted, and they aren't much to look at - just a black tail sticking up out of the marsh. But hey, how many crashed Air Force jets did you see today?!

Incidently, we spoke with a guy that saw the crash and who was friends with the civilians that picked up the ejected pilots. The first thing those guys asked for was a cold beer, which they didn't receive for fear someone would get in trouble. Those pilots went out of their way to crash that plane in a place that wouldn't hurt anyone. They probably risked their own lives to pull it off. So, be thankful that we have such brave and resourceful young men and women in our armed forces!

[Damnyankee]

Cool story!

[edmos1]

that is a good story

[sailor]

Damn, that cool. Even more so since I spend a lot of time in Charleston and know all the places you're talking about Glad no one was hurt.

[Gatorade Frost]

Cool story. Unfortunate about the plane that costs more then my life crashing, though.

If you decide to want to post some images e-mail them my way: Jonathan.Gupton-at-Gmail-dot-com and I can host them for a little while.

[MrTuffPaws]

Yeah, a U2 crashed into the Marysville newspaper's building back in the 80's. The workers were told to go home and were paid by the government 2 years worth of pay while the gov hid and cleaned it up over 2 years time. Poor people

[Cimarron29414]

UPDATE:

There were some pictures on the news today taken by a boater during the crash. Really cool stuff. Also, the pub is temporarily closed and is the command and control center for the recovery effort. I would imagine Uncle Sam rented it for the next 30 days. We tried to go there last night for dinner and, although we were not turned away, it was clear we were going to be asked to leave pretty soon. So, we just took a quick gander and were on our way.