apologies if this has been posted before. Crash happened on Wednesday.
The aircraft crashed in the region of Melchsee-Frutt in the canton of Obwalden at around 9am.
The pilot was able to eject before the aircraft crashed into the ground and was rescued by Rega, a Swiss air rescue operation.
The aircraft took off from an airbase in Payerne and was involved in sparring training with a pilot flying an F/A-18.
https://lenews.ch/2021/05/26/swiss-fighter-jet-crashed-in-alps-this-morning/
Looks like the F18 won. Good to hear that the pilot was unharmed.
Check out the picture selection here (not the video, but I can’t link the pics directly, scroll down a bit):
It’s quite impressive. First pic shows the airplane with a huge plume of flame behind it and the parashute to the right. The plane then falls onto the snow a bit like a leaf in the wind and came to rest upside down but remarkably intact.
Apparently the airplane was on a training mission with a FA18 and was posing as an intruder. While it has the Patrouille Suisse paint scheme, it was actually not an active airplane of the squadron (J-3089). There are rumours however that the pilot was a PS member. He was not hurt and picked up by a rescue helicopter shortly after the accident.
There have been no updates since the event, as it was overshadowed by political hot news, so we have no idea what caused the failure.
The first Tiger to proudly wear the red-and-white PS color scheme.
T28 wrote:
The first Tiger to proudly wear the red-and-white PS color scheme.
It really amazes me that the airplane is in one piece and not even the fuel tank on the bottom came off. Will be interesting to see how it looks once they turn it around.
At least they have a full airframe to investigate what went wrong. Not what you usually see in an accident like this.
BTW, here there are rumours that the pilot who ejected is the same one who ejected over the Netherlands? Would be amazingly bad and good luck at the same time…
If you’ve done it once, the threshold is probably lower for a next time. Martin Baker Double Club Member?
Are there any Cirrus parachutists with more than one CAPS pull?
“Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action”
— Auric Goldfinger
Yes, quite impressive pics. There’s obviously at least one still-turning engine pouring fuel out of (or near) the exhaust. Spain also has a few of these F-5’s used in fighter pilot training since the 70’s . There have been some historical engine reliability issues, some in the dogfight training mode, like this Swiss accident, but improved maintenance policies and AOA limitations seemed to solve it.
Spain’s aircraft also got a new machined (vs forged) wing spar as part of their life extension, but with such an intact airframe structural problems appear unconnected to the Swiss accident.
The pictures do show the aircraft in a low-speed spin, likely origin or cause of the engine problem.
We have at least one Spanish Air Force fighter pilot in the forum (@coolhand ?) who, like the swiss, fly F-5’s and F-18’s. The story from my air force days went that if you can dogfight a small-wing F-5, then an F-18 will dogfight itself in your hands!
