WT Forums

F-16 drops a flare:
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/05/16/wildfires/index.html

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The A-10s from CT, MA, PA, and MD are there a lot, but this was caused by one the NJ ANG F-16s apparently. I've been over there a few times, very cool to see them doing their work. A few years ago one of the F-16s fired at nite and hit a nearby school, luckily injuring no one. But this not the kind of press that they want to have, nor was that previous event, which the local media keeps bringing up. And that kind of bothers me, because nothing is being said about how many flights go on a day and how safe they are, or how helpful they are. Hopefully this blows over (in more ways then one) and the media or Joe Q. Public doesn't turn this into something completely and rediculously negative. With the amount of work being done at the range, there's going to be a few incidents, but it's no need for anyone to get up in arms about it. However, if it was my house being evacuated, I might be a little more upset.

About 6 months ago one of the jets from Nellis dropped a flare by accident over soem housed and it landed in the middle of the street. The way the news covered it you'd have thought it dropped a BLU-82.

jackb: Yeah, we had a LUU-2 come free as the pilot was coming around on final. I saw the news, and they made a huge deal of it for about 24 hours, then it thankfully blew over pretty quickly. Part of the negative press was the lack of intelligence of some of the folks that were interviewed. They couldn't fathom it being an illumination flare. They thought it was aliens, or a bomb, someone claimed they were afriad it was a nuke. It blew over in the media before we ever cleared the impound on that jet, though...

--Raven