ShareThisSALT LAKE CITY - An F-16 fighter pilot dropped a 500-pound bomb and two external fuel tanks onto an uninhabited area of Hill Air Force Base in Utah this week in response to an in-flight emergency.
The jettisoned items produced a thundering boom and the bomb destroyed a small, tin work shed near an area where ordnance is stored on the base's west side. This was the second time this year a Hill warplane had to ditch its fuel tanks.
The latest incident also damaged a nearby transformer and power lines, causing a base-wide power outage. But base officials say no one was injured in the Thursday afternoon incident, and the pilot landed safely. None of the stored ordnance, which is kept in underground bunkers, was damaged or destroyed.
Col. Scott Zobrist, commanding officer of the 388th Fighter Wing, said the pilot of the F-16 Falcon fighter jet, was alerted to an emergency situation during takeoff and, following safety procedures, ditched the fuel tanks and munitions before making a final pass to land the $25 million, single-engine fighter.
Zobrist called the aviator "a highly experienced pilot who has practiced these kinds of things hundreds if not thousands of times."
Precision was key as the pilot dropped a 500-pound bomb and other munitions less than 2,500 feet to the east of Interstate 15. By Thursday evening, Hill officials said all the munitions and fuel tanks had been accounted for in a remote, uninhabited area of the base. Power was restored to the base by the evening and base gates had resumed normal operations, Hill officials stated.
Abandoning explosive armaments and fuel tanks is rare but part of the standard operating procedure for several potential emergencies, including onboard fires, engine burnouts and landing gear malfunctions. Hill officials did not specify the nature of Thursday's emergency nor explain why the pilot was unable to make it to a less densely populated area.
That was the case in December, when another F-16 from Hill dropped its fuel tanks into the Great Salt Lake, about three miles north of Antelope Island, after the jet's sensors indicated a potential fire. A similar incident occurred last week when a Vermont Air National Guard F-16 jettisoned two fuel tanks into Lake Champlain after declaring an in-flight emergency.
Hill worker Drew Brown, who works on the base's west side not far from the explosion site, said he heard a loud "thud," which was immediately followed by the power outage. "At first, I thought maybe a truck had hit the building," he said. "You could definitely feel it."
Tribune reporter Jason Bergreen contributed to this report.
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
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