Skyhawk Down

[camberiu]

One of the last operational combat airplanes of the Argentinian Air Force went down this morning when trying to conduct an emergency landing due to a mechanic malfunction. Both crew members were able to safely eject from the aircraft. This has not been a good year for the Argentinian military so far.

Original Story (in Spanish)

 

[Rich One]

Skyhawk ...!! The Air Force maintenance is not reliable, they maintain the Presidential planes Tango's that often fail.
The President charters private jets instead of using the Tango's, can't blame her!!!

The pilots that ejected were hospitalized due to multiple trauma...????

 

[Joe]

Skyhawk ...!! The Air Force maintenance is not reliable, they maintain the Presidential planes Tango's that often fail.
The President charters private jets instead of using the Tango's, can't blame her!!!

The pilots that ejected were hospitalized due to multiple trauma...????

I thought the reason they didn't fly Tango 1 was because it might be seized by the Evil Vultures impounding it like the Libertad. Does she fly it domestically back to Santa Cruz?

 

[GS_Dirtboy]

That's a pretty shocking photo. Usually, if pilots eject, the ac ends up in a fireball. To have the air frame that intact after an ejection suggests that the pilots had control of the aircraft but might have lost the engine. Hopefully, it would have been trimmed for level flight and when they ejected the aircraft just descended until it hit the ground.

Since the USA sold a bunch of Skyhawk's that we used in the Training Command to Argentina in the early 90's I wouldn't be surprised if I flew this very same TA-4 as a student. Just for the record, it wasn't dented when I returned it.

We had a pilot in our squadron take a vulture strike to the side of his canopy in Florida. Knocked him out. When he came to he saw all of the blood in the cockpit, thought it was his, and he ejected. The aircraft (also a Skyhawk), kept flying around the Florida panhandle for 18 minutes by itself. We called him Premature Ejection (PE for short) after that.

 

[walkingtwig]

I thought the reason they didn't fly Tango 1 was because it might be seized by the Evil Vultures impounding it like the Libertad. Does she fly it domestically back to Santa Cruz?

er no.. she hires a private BRITISH jet

"Despite a bitter war of words with London over the Falkland Islands, Kirchner's government is paying British air charter firm Chapman Freeborn $880,000 for the trip to Cuba, the United Arab Emirates, Indonesia and Vietnam."

http://www.france24.com/en/20130108-argentina-cristina-kirchner-british-plane-debt-seizure