Downed pilot was getting experience in A-10 fighter

Wednesday, Sept. 5, 2001 | 10:43 a.m.

U.S. Air Force Capt. Frederick H. Sellers, who ejected safely as his plane crashed in Arizona was on a mission to gain flight experience, the USAF 4th Fighter Wing said today.

The A-10 Thunderbolt II -- nicknamed the Warthog -- crashed Monday in the Virgin River Gorge, about 95 miles northeast of Las Vegas.

Sellers joined the Air Force on May 31, 1995, and was promoted to captain on May 31, 1999, a spokesman for the 4th Fighter Wing at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base in Goldsboro, N.C. said today.

An official in the 4th Fighter Wing's public affairs office confirmed that the purpose of the mission was "for flying experience and also for flying hours."

The 4th Fighter Wing said it did not immediately know the number of hours Sellers had flown in an A-10 or other aircraft. Sellers, who was taken to the Mike O'Callaghan Federal hospital following the crash, was released Tuesday.

Sellers is assigned to the 23rd Fighter Group at Pope Air Force Base in Fayetteville, N.C., from where the multi-part mission began. The group is under the 4th Fighter Wing.

On the Labor Day leg of the mission, Sellers and two other pilots took off in three single-seat, twin-engine A-10s from Nellis Air Force Base about 12:30 p.m. en route to Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque.

The jet, designed for close air support of ground forces, crashed about 1 p.m. Monday in the Arizona Strip between Mesquite and St. George,Utah.

It was the first A-10 mishap since Jan. 12, the Air Force said.

Forty-seven Air Force pilots have been killed in 94 A-10 crashes, with 30 deaths occurring from the craft's deployment in 1976 through 1987 -- the year there was a record five deaths -- and 17 occurring from 1988 to the present.

The most recent Air Force investigation reports available for A-10s -- Jan. 12 at Osan AFB, Korea, and Nov. 22, 1999, at Spangdhalem AFB, Germany -- found pilot error as the cause of the crashes.

The findings of the Osan crash were that a significant contributing factor "was improper maintenance practices when replacing the oil line" requiring the shutdown of one of the engines in flight. The cause was pilot error because "the pilot failed to maintain control of the aircraft while executing a single-engine go-around," the report says. The pilot ejected safely.

The findings of the Spangdahlem crash were that "the evidence clearly points to pilot error as the cause.