CF-18 drops unarmed missile on golf course
YELLOWKNIFE
- A live but unarmed missile was accidentally dropped onto a Yellowknife golf course yesterday by a Canadian CF-18 fighter jet flying overhead.
CF-18 drops unarmed missile on golf course
YELLOWKNIFE
- A live but unarmed missile was accidentally dropped onto a Yellowknife golf course yesterday by a Canadian CF-18 fighter jet flying overhead.
Hehe, sometime last autumn an American F15 dropped a live practace bomb on a farm in Yorkshire.
I suppose that's got to be better than a large block of frozen crap falling out of a Jumbo 777......!
LOL...!
Mind you I seem to recall that a Royal Navy submarine managed to put a torpedo on a golf course a few years back![]()
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I think the rum ration should be looked at
Team of investigators to assess weekend military mishap in Yellowknife
Suzanne Beaubien
Canadian Press
Monday, June 21, 2004
EDMONTON (CP) -- A team of 11 investigators arrived in Yellowknife on Sunday to figure out why the pilot of a CF-18 Hornet had to eject during a shaky landing the day before.
"We look at the whole thing,'' Major Jim Armour, senior investigator in charge of flight safety, said in a telephone interview from Yellowknife.
"We'll look at everything from the way the airplane is, what kind of damage is on it. We'll look at the runway marks. We'll look at weather.''
The aircraft's pilot, Capt. Joseph Edward Mullins, was taken to hospital with minor injuries after he lost control of the craft during landing.
In a standard operating procedure, Mullins, 34, ejected himself from the aircraft, which came to rest just off the runway, said officials.
When a pilot is forced to eject, it calls for a serious investigation, said Armour.
"You end up basically riding a rocket motor, and then you separate from the seat, and then your parachute opens. The seat goes one way and the guy and the parachute goes another way.
"It's a big team because in any ejection, one of the things we do is a forensic examination of the ejection system to see what happened. It's a fairly complex process, and you need specialty training to make the seat safe.''
The CF-18 is now being held inside the 440 Squadron Hangar in Yellowknife.
Armour said the damage to the aircraft has not been completely classified yet, but he speculated it may so serious that the jet cannot be transported back to Cold Lake, Alta., on its own.
"That's my gut feeling at this time,'' he said. "Once we get a full look at the damage we'll then get it back to the unit and the weapons system manager, which is the engineering group, and they'll decide how they're going to fix it.''
One of the craft's missiles was damaged after it dislodged during the landing. It was secured and removed early Saturday evening.
While wet conditions have been cited as a contributing factor in the shaky landing, it's still too early to know what went wrong, said Armour.
The team, made up of specialists from Cold Lake, Alta., Ottawa and Toronto, will be examining the seat and its components, the aircraft, as well as the pilot's clothing, helmet and boots. They will also interview the pilot and witnesses and examine markings on the runway.
A report on the incident won't be made public for a year, said Armour.
The incident came just a day after a missile dropped off another CF-18 and landed on a closed Yellowknife golf course driving range. No one was injured.
By Sunday evening the airport was back to normal operations after two days of closures, said Michel Lafrance, manager of the Yellowknife airport.
Close to 300 people were left waiting for 10 hours Saturday as military personnel dealt with the incident.
"People kind of accepted their fate,'' said Lafrance. "Because, you know, up north, a lot of flights get cancelled sometimes because of weather.''
Both jets had been on their way to Inuvik to monitor Canadian air space during exercises by the Russian air force.
The mission continued as planned after the airport reopened, said military spokeswoman Joanna Campbell.
"I know their intent was to continue on with the mission as soon as they possibly could,'' said Campbell.
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