Message posted by Coyote Ugly on March 28, 2005 at 12:25:37 PST:

Nellis has grounded its OT and WA jets that aren't participating in Red Flag.

I don't think the link will work, so I've cut and pasted the article from the San Diego Union Tribune.

'NELLIS AIR FORCE BASE, Nev. – Jets assigned to Nellis Air Force Base have been grounded this weekend as officials investigate the second crash at the airfield in a week.

"Any time you lose two aircraft, any time you lose any aircraft, you're concerned," said Brig. Gen. Gregory J. Ihde, commander of the 57th Wing. "I have total confidence in what we're doing here, but we need to take a second look.

"We'll probably be back in the air on Monday," Ihde said.

The pilot in the latest crash, involving an F-15C Eagle assigned to the 422nd Test and Evaluation Squadron, safely ejected as his jet went down in a remote area 45 miles northeast of the base during a training mission Friday morning.

The cause of the crash was not immediately known. It followed the March 18 crash of an F-16C Fighting Falcon assigned to the 16th Weapons Squadron.

The weekend grounding of Nellis' approximately 140 jets will not affect the 120 planes visiting the base for the annual Joint Red Flag combat training exercise, Ihde said.

The F-15 that crashed Friday was not participating in the exercise.

"They were just doing basic training missions," Ihde said.

A cause has not yet been found for the March 18 crash in which a pilot was trying to land following a malfunction in his jet shortly after takeoff. The pilot ejected safely.

No planes were grounded after that crash, but the nation's entire fleet of F/A-22 Raptors, including seven such jets at Nellis, were grounded for two weeks after another Nellis-based F/A-22 crashed during takeoff Dec. 20.

That pilot also ejected safely. A glitch in software controlling the plane was blamed for the crash.'

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