Photo: US F-15 Eagle Fighter Jet Crash-Lands in Oregon Drainage Canal
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McDonnell Douglas may have crafted an interceptor with a perfect kill-to-loss ratio, but that doesn’t mean the F-15 Eagle has never crashed due to reasons other than enemy fire. A total of 175 aircraft have been lost since it first flew in 1972, 123 of them by the US Air Force (USAF), its primary operator.
A USAF F-15D Eagle crash-landed on Monday at Kingsley Field, an Air National Guard base in southern Oregon, and a photo of the plane swamped in a nearby waterway has emerged on social media.
According to a statement by the Air Force, the aircraft “departed the runway during landing … following a routine training mission.”
A photo posted on social media showed the two-seater fighter jet half-submerged in a drainage canal, with parts of its wing, empennage, and nose section resting above the water. The plane’s nose is buried in the earthen embankment, and its cockpit is cranked open, indicating the pilot did not eject during the debacle and climbed out afterward.
I've landed these before. Never like this. Glad pilots safe. pic.twitter.com/dcWtzN08SE
— Jim Hendren (@JimHendren1) May 16, 2023
The USAF statement said that while the Eagle had two seats, just one pilot was inside at the time, who had been transferred to a nearby medical facility for evaluation.
Satellite photos of the airfield show a large canal just beyond the eastern end of the runway, meaning it likely skidded off the end of the runway after landing.
However, the Air Force has given no more details about the incident, just saying that a board of officers would be assigned to investigate it.
20 February 2023, 14:30 GMT
The USAF adopted the F-15 in 1975 after ordering an air superiority fighter to fill the glaring weaknesses in its existing air fleet that had been exposed by the disastrous war in Vietnam, where US pilots flying fast but cumbersome interceptors were routinely outmatched by Vietnamese pilots in Soviet-made fighters. The F-15 was both high-tech and maneuverable and quickly became the USAF’s mainstay air superiority fighter, with more than 1,100 being built and several other nations buying the jets as well.
While an Eagle has never been shot down by enemy fire, 175 of the jets have crashed over the years due to various failures and incidents, including mid-air collisions.
Kingsley Field was selected in 2022 to host the test program for the F-15EX, the latest advanced version of the fighter jet.
