US magazine "Air Force Times", closely associated with the US defence establishment, recently published a study of US Air Force F-16 plane crashes. The study reveals that twenty-one F-16 fighter planes, of the type that Israel is thinking of purchasing in its next aircraft acquisition deal, crashed in the past year. The issue of these crashes, in which six pilots were killed, recently came up for discussion on prime-time programme CBS News with Dan Rather.
According to "Air Force Times", "After a few years in which F-16 accidents decreased, their accident rate is rising, and the USAF does not know why. Worse: it cannot point to a solution for this state of affairs, until official teams identify the problem that needs correcting".
The newspaper quotes a report submitted by the director of USAF’s flight safety division to the Defence Department: "The biggest frustration is that this series of accidents has no common denominator".
"Even (aircraft manufacturer) Lockheed Martin is worried", the newspaper adds. "It mysteriously transpired that 62% of serious accidents did not result from pilot error. This rate remains constant throughout the plane’s lifetime in the USAF. So far, we have not spotted an engine defect that has recurred in accidents in 1997 and 1998, despite the fact that four out of five accidents involved the same type of engine, and the planes took off from the same base in Arizona".
The newspaper states that thirty-four F-16s have crashed since the beginning of 1997. Twenty-one of them occurred since January 1998. Nine aircraft crashed in the five months since the beginning of the US 1999 financial year. Correct to the beginning of 1999, F-16s recorded 6.8 crashes for every 100,000 flight hours.
Published by Israel's Business Arena March 11, 1999