A pilot with the Vermont Air National Guard’s 158th Fighter Wing experienced an in-flight emergency Friday morning about 13 minutes into a training flight and needed to jettison his external fuel tanks, burning off most of the fuel first, reports the Burlington Free Press. The pilot dropped the tanks over a planned location in Lake Champlain and landed safely at the wing’s home at Burlington Airport. A subsequent Free Press report said the Coast Guard had found one of the tanks near Willsboro Point, N.Y., and that an environmental team from Albany, N.Y., would retrieve it. The Coast Guard was still searching for the second tank.
Pilot Mixed Up MQ-9 Controls in June 2020 Crash
April 12, 2021
An MQ-9 pilot pulled a wrong lever as the Reaper was taking off in Syracuse, N.Y., causing the remotely piloted aircraft to lose fuel supply and crash in June 2020, according to an Air Force investigation. The MQ-9 was “significantly damaged” at a cost of $6.085 million in the crash…