Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire F-16 jet crashed in Michigan’s UP

Don't they separate from the chair after clear of the plane.

The AN/URT-33 beacon we had in our seat pan was not the most reliable. If the clip that attached to the cockpit floor become detached it wouldn't go off automatically and we had a lot of batteries "test" good but in rework they found that their life in use was much shorter than advertised and I'll bet it's a lot worse in the cold.

He will have a survival radio, if it didn't rip off in the ejection (no idea what the USAF vest is like or if it was a high-speed ejection and he's conscious)

I have high hopes he's wrapped up in his chute waiting to hear someone overhead to shoot off a flare.

The pilot, his chute and the seat pan separate. The rest of the seat is discarded and I assume that's what they found. In the Martin Baker seat I flew that happened @ 13,000' +/- 1500'. You were actually blown clear of the seat by an airbag. Ejection seat are incredibly complicated. Ours had 23 different functions that happened in sequence and incredibly (for a British product!)) we never had a failure used in the approved envelope.

The seat separates from the pilot after ejection, that's what initiates the chute opening. The pilot most likely drifted away from the area where the seat landed. Winds were 10mph out of the wsw last night. Praying he didn't land in the water. MSP helicopter is now onsite, KC-135 is in orbit overhead. Lack of radio contact isn't good.

Rumor has it he had hot guns onboard. Aircraft didn't burn.

This is actually the second time an Air Force jet has crashed in the U.P. I remember in the late 50's or early 60's that
a F86 sabre Jet crashed in the Ensign area of the Stonington Peninsula. That jet crashed on the edge of my uncles property, he was the first one on site before the authorities arrived.

Our seat had a "butt kicker" which was actually a web strap that went from behind your head to the front of the seat pan. When it activated, it simultaneously opened your seat belt and wound up the web strap, thus propelling you from the seat. At low altitude, a tether pulled your parachute. At high altitude, you disconnected the tether so the parachute wouldn't open until you fell down to 10,000 feet.

All operations in our seat were powered pyrotechnically i.e. by explosives. We were boosted out by a cannon shell (the seat was the "bullet") driving a piston out of a tube. Before that, the canopy was blown off. And the butt kicker activated after a short delay to allow the seat to clear the tail of the plane. Rocket-boosted seat like the Martin Baker gave you a less violent ride, but in a tandem aircraft, the front seat rocket could roast the back seat guy. That's why the system was programmed to eject the rear-seater first - and also allowed the front-seater an extra second to fly the plane.

If they found the seat five miles from the impact site, we might assume that the pilot ejected at some reasonable altitude and stands a good chance of making it down okay. Assuming everything after seat separation worked.

Crashed at 8pm EST near Stueben in the Hiawatha NF. Big woods there with many small lakes. Not a lot of roads.

Prayers for the pilot.

Seney NWR is due west ( western winds last night). Not much access and it’s mostly wetland/boggy area.

No or very little cell service there either.

The big swamps of Seney are east of Stueben.

Yep, sorry. Meant to say a west wind may carry the chute westerly to Seney if the altitude was high enough.

Sonuvabitch!

Lolol.

A good sign, I hope you're right!

Search area is south of Shingleton.

Isn't that froze up enough to walk on now?
We're ice fishing in northern Minnesota.

MSP is searching small lakes ☹

Getting access to those lakes is hard much less searching them.

Damn - hope this guy is alive and okay. Could VERY easily be but it's a remote/wild area. I've fished a few of those lakes - rough country to get access to.

Need to get the Michigan SxS fleet out there, get searchers into the areas.

I pray the pilot is OK

TFR: NOTAM 0/1981

Start - December 09, 2020 at 1500 UTC
End- December 16, 2020 at 2359 UTC

AA/AD
Center: On the SAWYER VOR/DME (SAW)
118 degree radial at 37.8 nautical miles.
(Latitude: 46º06'00"N, Longitude: 86º34'14"W)
Radius: 10 nautical miles
Altitude: From the surface up to and including
26000 feet MSL.

Ever heard of helicopters?