Second Air Force jet in week crashes at Nellis

Friday, March 25, 2005 | 11:10 a.m.

The Air Force was scrambling this morning to respond to an F-15C Eagle crash about 50 miles northeast of Nellis Air Force Base. The $29.9 million jet went down about 8:35 a.m. and the pilot's condition was not immediately known, Nellis officials said.

The single-seat aircraft was assigned to the 422 Test and Evaluation Squadron, a Nellis-based unit that tests new technologies and writes the tactics for several aircraft including the new FA-22 Raptor.

The F-15C crash was the second time in a week that an aircraft based at Nellis has been destroyed. On March 18 an F-16C Fighting Falcon crashed on a Nellis runway.

The pilot of the $18.8 million F-16 suffered minor injuries in the crash, which occurred when the plane landed short of the runway. He ejected safely and was taken to Mike O'Callaghan Federal Hospital.

The F-16 crash remains under investigation by a military safety board. The plane was assigned to the 16th Weapons Squadron at Nellis' Air Force Weapons School.

Another safety board is continuing its investigation into an FA-22 crash on the same runway in December. A software glitch was blamed for the Raptor crash and temporarily grounded all of the advanced stealth fighters.