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Belgian Air Force F-16 destroyed by fire during maintenance
21–30 of 130 posts
Re: Belgian Air Force F-16 destroyed by fire during maintenance
#22Re: Belgian Air Force F-16 destroyed by fire during maintenance
#23I might be stating the obvious here, but why is maintenance work being done on a fighter jet that is loaded with sharp ammunition? You wouldn't do maintenance on a gun when it's loaded, why would you do it on a multi million dollar fighter jet?
Re: Belgian Air Force F-16 destroyed by fire during maintenance
#24Why would such a plane even allow firing a gun when not in air?
Because any system which attempted to prevent that would have a nonzero chance of preventing shots while in the air, and it's quite easy to imagine the cost of that being much greater than what is saved by the intended effect. That's not to say that there shouldn't be safety systems that would prevent accidental firing, just that “never shoot if system thinks we're on the ground” is very likely not a good one.
But there _is_ such a system, there's a weight-on-wheels switch they needed to override. Source: https://www.resetera.com/threads/technician-accidentally-fir... and many more.
Re: Belgian Air Force F-16 destroyed by fire during maintenance
#25https://www.resetera.com/threads/technician-accidentally-fir... here's someone claiming to be an F-16 weapons technician posting and -- they needed to do something stupid or the weight-on-wheels switch needed to malfunction.
Re: Belgian Air Force F-16 destroyed by fire during maintenance
#26As a Belgian I find this hilarious. This might be the most Belgian thing ever. By the way they are investigating whether this was an accident or on purpose. The chances of this being an accident are quite small.
What would the possible motive be for doing this on purpose, do you think? Also thanks for the best beer ever
Could always be a personal conflict with other technicians/personnel, of course - or a curious form of sabotage.
However, on the political front, renewing the F16s in Belgium has been a point of some controversy. The other EU countries (and the US, through the NATO) expect us to stay up to date with military hardware, but Belgian politicians are hesitant to actually spend the money, as it puts the budgets under heavy pressure (and because - presumably - large parts of the public will claim that we did not actually need them, so that we spent billions 'for nothing', billions we could have spent on 'more useful' items). The military is not too happy with this hesitation, so if some speculation is allowed: this situation might move some in the military to take (potentially strange kinds of) action.
Re: Belgian Air Force F-16 destroyed by fire during maintenance
#27As a Belgian I find this hilarious. This might be the most Belgian thing ever. By the way they are investigating whether this was an accident or on purpose. The chances of this being an accident are quite small.
You suspect some insurance fraud?
Afaik governments usually don't insure such mishaps. They have pretty much unlimited funds in comparison with insurers. Subcontractors couldn't insure themselves for these kinds of liabilities. No insurer would go that high in liability. Insuring military apparatus itself, well kind of beats the point. Insuring machines of mass destruction against destruction... On the outliers of 'crazy' insurance that I know are things like (private) sattelites and of course the global nuclear pool.
Re: Belgian Air Force F-16 destroyed by fire during maintenance
#28This reminded me of Taffy Holden, UK's RAF technician, who in 1966 accidentally took off in Lightning after making an error. English Electric Lightning was one of the fastest fighter jets of its time.
>The account has been widely published across the internet, but we make no apology for running the story here, as it’s a fascinating tale and it’s good to hear the original account of how Taffy Holden, an RAF Engineering Officer, accidentally selected reheat, then managed to fly several circuits in the Lightning jet fighter, position it for an approach and then land it with only minor damage. The flight in Taffy’s own words is reproduced in full below.
http://www.historicracer.com/aviation/accidental-fighter-pil...
Re: Belgian Air Force F-16 destroyed by fire during maintenance
#29As a Belgian I find this hilarious. This might be the most Belgian thing ever. By the way they are investigating whether this was an accident or on purpose. The chances of this being an accident are quite small.
You suspect some insurance fraud?
As rutgerv said, there is some controversy about what the future of Belgian air force looks like. Do we maintain current planes? Do we buy new ones? If yes, which ones? Does Belgium even need these weapons? Very difficult political questions.
I'm not saying this has anything to do with it. But at least that's the context.
Re: Belgian Air Force F-16 destroyed by fire during maintenance
#30That has got to be the most expensive fuckup by a technician ever.
It's got to be up there with the NOAA N-Prime (un)screwup:
http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/65776main_noaa_np_mishap.pdf
Not sure if knocking over a satellite is more or less expensive than totaling one F-16 and damaging another.