DefenseTech Military.com
  • Categories
  • Full Archives
  • Monthly Archives
  • About Defense Tech
Subscribe to RSS

About Defense Tech

Defense Tech exam­ines the inter­sec­tion of tech­nol­ogy and defense from every angle and pro­vides analy­sis on what’s ahead.

Tip Us Off

Tip for Defense Tech?

SEND IT!

It’s Confidential!

Categories

  • 'Canes
  • Afghan Update
  • Ammo and Munitions
  • Armor
  • Around the Globe
  • Av Week Extra
  • Axe in Iraq (and Elsewhere)
  • Bizarro
  • Blimps
  • Blog Bidness
  • Body Armor Blues
  • Bomb Squad
  • Brownshoes in Action
  • Bubbleheads, etc.
  • Cammo Green
  • Catch the "Buzz"
  • Chem-Bio
  • Civilian Apps
  • Cloak and Dagger
  • Commandos
  • Comms
  • Contingency Ops
  • Cops and Robbers
  • Cyber-warfare
  • Data Diving
  • Defense Tech Poll
  • Defense Tech Radio
  • Dissent Tech
  • Door Kickers
  • Drones
  • DT Administrivia
  • Eat DT's Dust
  • Extra! Extra!
  • Eye on China
  • Fast Movers
  • FCS Watch
  • Fire for Effect
  • FOS Files
  • Friday Funnies
  • Gadgets and Gear
  • Going Green
  • Grand Ole Osprey
  • Ground Vehicles
  • Guns
  • Homeland Security
  • In the Weeds with Eric
  • Info War
  • Iraq Diary
  • Jarhead Jazz
  • JSF Watch
  • Just War Theories
  • Lasers and Ray Guns
  • Less-lethal
  • Logistics
  • Los Alamos and Labs
  • M4 Monopoly
  • Medic!
  • Mercs
  • Missiles
  • Money Money Money
  • Most Wanted
  • MRAP Edge
  • Net-Centric
  • Nukes
  • Old Skool
  • Our Shrinking Planet
  • Planes, Copters, Blimps
  • Podcast
  • Politricks
  • Polmar's Perspective
  • Popular Mechanics
  • Rapid Fire
  • Raptor Watch
  • Red Team
  • Retro-Futuro
  • Robots
  • Roll Your Own
  • Sabra Tech
  • Ships and Subs
  • Snipertech
  • Soldier Systems
  • Space
  • Special Ops
  • Star Wars
  • Strategery
  • Stray Trons
  • Tactical Development
  • Terror Tech
  • The Deadlies
  • The Defense Biz
  • The Peoples' Site
  • The Sunday Paper
  • The Tanker Tango
  • The View from Av Week
  • Those Nutty Norks
  • Training and Sims
  • Trimble on the Case
  • Uncategorized
  • Video Lounge
  • War Update
  • Ward'z Wonderz
  • You can run…

Archives

  • November 2009
  • October 2009
  • September 2009
  • August 2009
  • July 2009
  • June 2009
  • May 2009
  • April 2009
  • March 2009
  • February 2009
  • January 2009
  • December 2008
  • November 2008
  • October 2008
  • September 2008
  • August 2008
  • July 2008
  • June 2008
  • May 2008
  • April 2008
  • March 2008
  • February 2008
  • January 2008
  • December 2007
  • November 2007
  • October 2007
  • September 2007
  • August 2007
  • July 2007
  • June 2007
  • May 2007
  • April 2007
  • March 2007
  • February 2007
  • January 2007
  • December 2006
  • November 2006
  • October 2006
  • September 2006
  • August 2006
  • July 2006
  • June 2006
  • May 2006
  • April 2006
  • March 2006
  • February 2006
  • January 2006
  • December 2005
  • November 2005
  • October 2005
  • September 2005
  • August 2005
  • July 2005
  • June 2005
  • May 2005
  • April 2005
  • March 2005
  • February 2005
  • January 2005
  • December 2004
  • November 2004
  • October 2004
  • September 2004
  • August 2004
  • July 2004
  • June 2004
  • May 2004
  • April 2004
  • March 2004
  • February 2004
  • January 2004
  • December 2003
  • November 2003
  • October 2003
  • September 2003
  • August 2003
  • July 2003
  • June 2003
  • May 2003
  • April 2003
  • March 2003
  • February 2003
  • January 2003

Home » Terror Tech » F-​​16 Shoot-​​down Mystery

F-​​16 Shoot-​​down Mystery

F16-dive.jpg

Well it looks like the most recent F-​​16 crash might not have any­thing to do with camel spi­ders, but some­thing much more serious.

Tactical Report blog reports that there are indi­ca­tions the F-​​16 that crashed four days ago was shot down. This is a dis­turb­ing devel­op­ment if true, since the U.S. mil­i­tary had seem­ingly got­ten its arms around the spate of crashes and shoot-​​downs of helicopters.

The indi­ca­tion that the shoot-​​down occurred dur­ing the air­crafts take­off is also alarm­ing because it points to the pos­si­bil­ity that MANPAD teams are able to get close enough to U.S. air bases to launch in the open­ing moments of an air­crafts flight.

The Tactical Report arti­cle follows:

Another US F-​​16 air­craft crashed on 15/​7/​07 dur­ing take­off at Balad air base, 80 kilo­me­ters north of Baghdad. This was the sec­ond F-​​16 air­craft crash in just a month, as a crash had taken place on 15/​6/​07 shortly after tak­ing off from the same base.

While the pilot of the first crash was killed, the pilot of the sec­ond one sur­vived. But what caused both crashes remains under inves­ti­ga­tions by the US Air Force.

Reports from Baghdad sug­gest that hos­tile fire caused both crashes.

According to these reports, it is not just a coin­ci­dence that both air­craft crashed dur­ing takeoff.

Circles close to the Iraqi Defense Ministry sus­pect that a shoulder-​​held anti-​​aircraft mis­sile might have been fired at both air­craft from an area not far from the air base.

These cir­cles add that it is too dif­fi­cult for any air­craft to maneu­ver and avoid a mis­sile dur­ing takeoff.

According to these cir­cles, the Iraqi insur­gency has dif­fer­ent types of anti-​​aircraft mis­siles, includ­ing SAM-​​7, SAM-​​8 and SAM-​​11, which can hit an air­craft dur­ing tak­ing off or fly­ing at low altitude. 

UPDATE: Astute read­ers pointed out that while the SA-​​7 is a MANPAD, the oth­ers listed are not. It would be pretty unlikely for the USAF to not notice a truck-​​mounted sys­tem parked close by its air field, which casts even more doubt on the authen­tic­ity of this report. But it’s still worth keep­ing and eye on what MNF-​​I deter­mines might have been the cause of the crashes.

(Gouge: NC)

– Christian

Share |

July 19th, 2007 | Terror Tech | 362561 Comments »http://defensetech.org/2007/07/19/f-16-shoot-down-mystery/F-16+Shoot-down+Mystery2007-07-19+15%3A43%3A15Ward You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

« « New Tech for Wounded Warriors | War Costs Reach Deeper Into Your Wallet » »

This website uses IntenseDebate comments, but they are not currently loaded because either your browser doesn't support JavaScript, or they didn't load fast enough.

  1. Nelson says:
    July 19, 2007 at 10:40 am

    SA-​​8 and SA-​​11? I highly doubt it. Those are both vehi­cle mounted sys­tems. SA-​​7 yes. SA-​​16 maybe. I don’t know about trust­ing those “cir­les” you are get­ting your info from.

    Reply
  2. esmoore5 says:
    July 19, 2007 at 11:18 am

    SA-​​8 is a vehicle-​​mounted SAM, not a MANPADS. See:
    http://​www​.fas​.org/​m​a​n​/​d​o​d​-​1​0​1​/​s​y​s​/​m​i​s​s​i​l​e​/​r​o​w​/​s​a​-​8​.​htm
    SA-​​11 is an even larger vehicle-​​mounted sys­tem:
    http://​www​.fas​.org/​m​a​n​/​d​o​d​-​1​0​1​/​s​y​s​/​m​i​s​s​i​l​e​/​r​o​w​/​s​a​-​1​1​.​htm
    The SA-​​7, how­ever, is man-​​portable:
    http://​www​.fas​.org/​m​a​n​/​d​o​d​-​1​0​1​/​s​y​s​/​m​i​s​s​i​l​e​/​r​o​w​/​s​a​-​7​.​htm
    as is the SA-​​14:
    http://​www​.fas​.org/​m​a​n​/​d​o​d​-​1​0​1​/​s​y​s​/​m​i​s​s​i​l​e​/​r​o​w​/​s​a​-​1​4​.​htm
    and the SA-​​16:
    http://​www​.fas​.org/​m​a​n​/​d​o​d​-​1​0​1​/​s​y​s​/​m​i​s​s​i​l​e​/​r​o​w​/​s​a​-​1​6​.​htm
    There’s also a more-​​advanced MANPADS sys­tem called
    the SA-​​18:
    http://​www​.fas​.org/​m​a​n​/​d​o​d​-​1​0​1​/​s​y​s​/​m​i​s​s​i​l​e​/​r​o​w​/​s​a​-​1​8​.​htm
    I’m pretty sure the Insurgents/​Guerrillas in Iraq
    and Afghanistan have access to SA-​​7 and SA-​​14,
    But I’m not sure about SA-​​16 or SA-​​18.
    Can any­one out there pro­vide more info?

    Reply
  3. Logan Hartke says:
    July 19, 2007 at 11:46 am

    This site is in dire need of an addi­tional edi­tor to check the facts before stories/​articles get posted. One set of eyes is always going to be insuf­fi­cient, no mat­ter how good they are or how knowl­edge­able the brain behind them is. A lot of these are just silly mis­takes, but the sil­lier the mis­take, the dumber you can look.
    At least this arti­cle is the sub­ject mate­r­ial it should be. No more of the Paris Hilton crap.

    Reply
  4. campbell says:
    July 19, 2007 at 11:54 am

    MANPADS? hmmm, why not a sim­ple .50 sniper rifle?.…from far enough away not to be found easily.…more than just a “golden BB” shot, per­haps many shots attempted, but if only a few take effect… thats all it takes.
    far more likely than advanced manpads.

    Reply
  5. Foreign.Boy says:
    July 19, 2007 at 11:58 am

    Logan Hartke -
    I just read that both pilots were read­ing Stuff just prior to take­off which con­tained an arti­cle related to Paris Hilton… sorry man…

    Reply
  6. Christian Lowe says:
    July 19, 2007 at 3:20 pm

    Thanks dear read­ers for the MANPADS catch…You’re my “extra set of eyes”…

    Reply
  7. Logan Hartke says:
    July 19, 2007 at 3:34 pm

    In response to OceanMinded,
    Just because some­thing is worth read­ing doesn’t mean that isn’t capa­ble of being improved. I have a lot of books in my per­sonal col­lec­tion that are worth own­ing but chock full of errors and typos. As far as me try­ing my own hand at it, I only wish I had the time to.
    Nowhere did I say that Christian is doing a bad job, nor that I or any­one else could do a bet­ter job. I just think that hav­ing another set of eyes to say “that doesn’t look quite right” would ben­e­fit the cred­i­bil­ity of this blog and the read­ers of it.
    Obviously, it’s the editor’s pre­rog­a­tive to take the sug­ges­tion or leave it, but I’ve per­formed the role of edi­tor a few times, and it’s always bet­ter when you’re not the only one per­form­ing qual­ity control.

    Reply
  8. Anon USAF member says:
    July 19, 2007 at 3:52 pm

    You all need to be more care­ful in claim­ing facts or mak­ing sup­po­si­tions that may or not be true in deal­ing with people’s lives, espe­cially those in com­bat. I’ll claim noth­ing more than bet­ting no one here really knows all of the facts–perhaps even any of them, other than a jet went down. The USAF Safety Investigation Board process is a trusted agent sys­tem, and is meant to limit con­jec­ture and rumors–like this. That’s why the USAF has the low­est avi­a­tion mishap rate in the armed forces.
    Manpads bring­ing down Vipers? Not impos­si­ble, but I don’t think so…

    Reply
  9. Grandjester says:
    July 19, 2007 at 3:57 pm

    Can we kill off the MANPADS acronym? Sounds like a mas­cu­line hygene product.

    Reply
  10. diablotakahe says:
    July 19, 2007 at 8:54 pm

    if this is the first it won’t be the last.
    if the usa is gear­ing up to bug out, this would be the right time to pass some SAM’s to the par­ti­sans, make it that much more of a sporty course.
    which means a deal is that much closer with iran.
    gonna git messy.

    Reply
  11. sglover says:
    July 20, 2007 at 12:20 am

    So if I under­stand some of the (appar­ently) more informed com­ments in this thread, our boy Christian is at it again, eh?
    Still, gotta give him a lit­tle credit: At least he isn’t rush­ing to imply that it’s the nefar­i­ous Tehran connection.

    Reply
  12. George says:
    July 20, 2007 at 4:20 am

    It’s obvi­ous that a SAM-​​7 can­not hit an air­craft that takes off since it can only FOLLOW a heat trail. Presumably the launcher is some­where ahead of the air­craft (if it was on the side it wouldn’t have the range)Other mod­els aren’t shoulder-​​launched. You should have at least a basic under­stand­ing of the weapon sys­tems before going around post­ing this kind of stuff.
    It would have to be a more sophis­ti­cated weapon and if it were then we would have heard it by now, maybe seen the footage on youtube. You don’t go around wast­ing good mis­siles on jets, they would shoot large helos car­ry­ing troops to increase the shock value.

    Reply
  13. Ward says:
    July 20, 2007 at 7:19 am

    We’re just post­ing the info, George and sglover. No need for ad hominem BS. If you have some intel, bring it.
    And any­one who knows any­thing about IR guided mis­siles knows you don’t have to be behind the tar­get to “get a tone.“
    Thanks for being part of the DT community.

    Reply
  14. Lugo says:
    July 20, 2007 at 7:28 am

    Why are we not film­ing every sin­gle take-​​off? As with the cam­era in the bank or the 7–11, you only keep the film if some­thing bad hap­pens.
    It is hard to believe that the air traf­fic con­trollers or some­one on the base wouldn’t notice if a mis­sile started climb­ing into the sky right out­side the wire.

    Reply
  15. Foreign.Boy says:
    July 20, 2007 at 10:04 am

    “You don’t go around wast­ing good mis­siles on jets, they would shoot large helos car­ry­ing troops to increase the shock value.…“
    Novemeber 2003 — Iraq
    http://​www​.michael​-for​man​.com/​g​a​l​l​e​r​y​/​d​h​l​.​h​tml
    A DHL Freight Jet was hit by a SAM mis­sile.
    Given, it’s a big­ger tar­get and lacks anti-​​SAM equipt­ment, but they man­aged to clip this bird while apaches cir­cled the Baghdad airport

    Reply
  16. George Skinner says:
    July 20, 2007 at 11:27 am

    A cou­ple of mis­con­cep­tions to cor­rect: an IR-​​guided mis­sile does not fol­low a “heat trail” — it tracks hot metal such as the exhaust noz­zle of a jet engine. I also don’t see why it’s obvi­ous that such a mis­sile couldn’t hit an air­craft tak­ing off, as long as the air­craft over­flies the launcher. Once the air­craft flies past, its engine is now exposed to the seeker on the SAM.

    Reply
  17. esmoore5 says:
    July 21, 2007 at 3:02 am

    Hmm, the arti­cle at:
    http://​nation​alde​fensemagazine​.org/​i​s​s​u​e​s​/​2​0​0​7​/​A​u​g​u​s​t​/​A​r​m​y​H​e​l​o​s​.​htm
    includes the fol­low­ing:
    “A few days later, an SA-​​16 mis­sile took down an
    AH-​​60 Black Hawk, which resulted in the deaths of
    four crewmem­bers and two pas­sen­gers.“
    So it looks like the SA-​​16 HAS been used in Iraq
    against an AH-​​60 helo, and per­haps other tar­gets
    as well.
    In case you’re won­der­ing what an “AH-​​60″ is. See:
    http://​www​.glob​alse​cu​rity​.org/​m​i​l​i​t​a​r​y​/​s​y​s​t​e​m​s​/​a​i​r​c​r​a​f​t​/​a​h​-​6​0​l​.​htm

    Reply
  18. esmoore5 says:
    July 21, 2007 at 9:36 pm

    More on the AH-​​60 at:
    http://​www​.glob​alse​cu​rity​.org/​m​i​l​i​t​a​r​y​/​s​y​s​t​e​m​s​/​a​i​r​c​r​a​f​t​/​m​h​-​6​0​l​-​d​a​p​.​htm

    Reply
  19. Jeff says:
    August 6, 2007 at 2:58 pm

    All i wanna know is who packed the chute that the pilot used when eject­ing. The rea­son for won­der­ing is i am sta­tioned at Misawa and the jet that crashed was a 13th jet. I am in the Survival Equipment shop which used to be part of Fab.

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Click here to cancel reply.

Spam Protection by WP-SpamFree

    Most Popular Posts
    • What Does this Handle Do?
    • Marines Quiet About Brutal New Weapon
    • Starship Troopers Meets G.I. Joe
    • Dowd's Bogus Grief Deficit
    • Semi-auto Grenade Thrower
    • Adapting Women to Subs
    • Fort Hood Rampage
    • Keep it Simple
    • Mystery Drone Revealed
    • REPLACEMENT ARM, GOOD AS NEW
    Recent Comments
    • Fort Hood Rampage
      "And no, the Koran does not say anything about killing...
      bdwilcox
    • Fort Hood Rampage
      When the Lord your God brings you into the land you are entering to...
      DualityOfMan
    • Fort Hood Rampage
      Fascism? Last time I heard, the fascists promoted christianity. Or,...
      DualityOfMan
    • Semi-auto Grenade Thrower
      I see an M16 firing, and I see a 40 mm grenade launcher...
      DualityOfMan
    • Fort Hood Rampage
      "I'd say go read some history on fascist ideology and then compare...
      Sam
    • Semi-auto Grenade Thrower
      No. I am not saying a grenade launcher on a rifle is a hoax. I...
      Zandor
    • Semi-auto Grenade Thrower
      For someone who trashes all the readers of the blog you sure do...
      a1189
    • Market for Acoustic Defense Systems Heats Up
      These devices vibrate tissue and bone not just...
      WJS
    • Semi-auto Grenade Thrower
      So are you saying the grenade launcher is a hoax or the M-16?...
      WJS
    • Fort Hood Rampage
      Dear Cannon Fodder; Only politically correct patriots should be accepted...
      Zandor
    Recent Articles
    • Semi-​​auto Grenade Thrower
    • Market for Acoustic Defense Systems Heats Up
    • Fort Hood Rampage
    • Keep it Simple
    • Airbag Defense
    • Dowd’s Bogus Grief Deficit
    • Did Someone Move the Furniture Around?
    • Lockheed Says Sbirs Still on Track For 2010
    • What Does this Handle Do?
    • Adapting Women to Subs
  • Channels: Military.com | Military Benefits | Military News | Off Duty | Join the Military | Military Education | Veteran Jobs | Military Money | Military Deals | Military Family | Military Community
  • Military.com Network: Military.com | MilBlogging | Defense Tech | DoD Buzz | SpouseBuzz | Fred's Place | GI Bill Express
  • Services: Army | Navy | Air Force | Marine Corps | Coast Guard | National Guard | Military Spouse
  • About Military.com About Us | Advertise With Us | Press | Affiliate Program | Monster Network | Help | Feedback | Privacy Policy | User Agreement | © 2009 Military Advantage