US military plane crashes in Germany

[Turborama]

Source: AP

BY JUERGEN BAETZ

BERLIN -- A U.S. Air Force attack jet crashed Friday in western Germany, injuring the pilot as he ejected to safety, authorities said.

A police spokesman from the city of Trier said the A-10 Thunderbolt went down near the town of Laufeld, between the former West German capital of Bonn and Trier. The spokesman, speaking on a departmental policy of anonymity, said the pilot has been hospitalized but had no further details.

The jet crashed in a field just a few hundred meters (yards) from Laufeld's residential area and the town's mayor, Karl-Josef Junk, told the German news agency DAPD that a catastrophe was "narrowly avoided."

The aircraft, also known as the Warthog, was part of the 81st Fighter Squadron at the Spangdahlem Air Base, in Rhineland Palatinate, said Senior Airman Nathanael Callon, a spokesman for the 52nd Fighter Wing at Spangdahlem.

Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/04/01/2145405/us-military-plane-crashes-in-germany.html

[No Elephants]

1. Glad pilot's alive. Wonder what happened.

[hack89]

2. Bird strike would be my guess

A-10 has two engines and can fly on one - a flock of birds could certainly take out both engines at once.

[LastLiberal in PalmSprings]

3. An A-10 flies so slowly it takes bird strikes from the rear

The Warthog drivers used to hate that one. When I flew tankers we dragged a flight of A-10s across Canada -- and it really was "dragging." We were flying so low and slow that we had to turn the duty over to another tanker halfway to Alaska. I felt sorry for the Thunderbolt pilots who had to fly for so long.

What they lack in speed, however, they make up for in firepower. You don't want to be an enemy on the ground when they're in the area.

[JohnyCanuck]

4. Yeah when that depleted uramium ammo

goes off and starts dispersing those carcinogenic and teratogenic depleted uranium oxide particles into the air you sure don't want to be there to suck them into your lungs, whether you are the enemy or just a civilian trying to keep your head down and survive in the the war zone in your backyard. As for the children, there is a good chance they will likely grow up to be American hating terrorists anyway, so if they get wasted from leukemia and childhood cancers it will be a few less terrorist for Uncle Sam to worry about 15 years down the road. A good job all around. Yay Warthog!

[Name removed]

5. Deleted message

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Old Troop]

6. How often did they need to be refueled? (Knucklehead ground pounder here)

[happyslug]

7. The A-10 was designed to loiter over the battlefield till a target appeared.

This was the job the A-1 Sky raider and B-26 did in Vietnam (both were late WWII prop operated attack planes).

Thus the A-10 has substantial range, but none of them were design to go cross country.

"Combat Radius" i.e. to and from target and over target 2 hours: 280 miles
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairchild_Republic_A-10_Thunderbolt_II

One tactic used is to work with Army Attack Helicopters as a one-two punch, The A-10 goes in hit targets then followed up by attack helicopters to hit anything left (the Soviet Union used the same tactics in Afghanistan in the 1980s, with their versions of the A-10, the SU-25 and the Soviet Attack Helicopters).