F-16 Crashed in Michigan

Taliban? Sorry wrong state.

Never want to see a serviceman killed but we have to find a better way with these jets. There’s no downside for the pilots. If it’s a mechanical failure or something sure, bail out. But if you screw up flying you should hang in there and try to save it.

You don't think they're already doing that, Sherlock?

It only took 3 replies for a pilot and aviation ejection policy expert to post a response

F-16 lol

Truly don’t mean to be rude here but you are waaaaay out of your depth. I flew the F-16 for many years and for someone like you it’s very easy to play armchair quarterback and say “the pilot should just ride it out” or just eject if it’s mechanical. You have no idea the situation the aircraft was in when the issue happened. Maybe he was flying at a lower altitude which cuts your decision making time drastically if something were to go wrong. We are trained to work the problem, this is where checklists make a huge difference when you have something like a flameout. I can promise you any fighter pilot is going to fight to keep his aircraft in the air but it’s also very easy to know when you are fighting a losing battle to where if possible guiding the aircraft away from populated areas or out over water and then it’s about survival and making a good ejection as safely as possible in the timeframe given is the best you can do. The F-16 was built as an inherently unstable airframe to give it the agility that has made it still the backbone of our fleet for 50 years. But there is absolutely downside for the pilots so that is complete bullshite. You think if we lose a multi million dollar aircraft that the military just says “oh well, it happens”?? Negative. Every second, every decision made in that cockpit would have to be painstakingly gone over in debriefing and investigation and even if the pilot was in the right and did the correct thing, careers have been ended for far less.