Yooper,

The lakes in Northern MN are pretty much frozen solid. Are your inland lakes still open?

Another article I read said that it is not yet certain the pilot punched out. Either way, the longer it goes without locating him, the worse it looks.

Most lakes are not frozen yet. Last two days have had temps in 40s. This weekend will be below freezing.
Not a lot of info on a possible ejection. Early on in the search, GPS numbers were given out to searchers for a "possible" location for the ejection seat. Which was around 5 miles S/W of the crash site.
I believe the ejection seat has an ELT on board that activates automatically.

Am I the only one that is surprised this hasn't been resolved yet?

Prayers for him, it’s not sounding good.

It’s been awhile since I visited the UP, but as YooperSigs said, it is remarkable just how remote it can be up there.

News says pilot has died, not a whole lot beyond that. RIP.

Local news reports the same story with few details.
www.wluctv.com

The Commander of the Fighter Squadron held a press conference today but offered no details into the crash.
What was evident during the presser is how stupid reporters are!
www.wluctv.com

Wouldn't it be fairly obvious if the pilot ejected or not in most cases? And if you knew that why would you not want to release that information up front.

The F-16 was based in Madison with the Wisconsin Air National Guard's 115th fighter wing that take off from Truax Field. It's awesome seeing them fly over the area. I was private security for the Wisconsin Army National Guard in the early 90's when it was called the 128th Tactical Fighter Wing. That was when they had the A-10 Thunderbolt on station, and you knew when they were on the flight line ready to take off.

https://www.wisn.com/article/m...-peninsula/34919201#

Uggg, RIP.

F-16 crashes are highly dangerous due to the hydrazine in the EPU.

Pilot IDed as:
Captain Durwood Jones, 37 from New Mexico. Married with two kids and an Afghan Vet.
R.I.P Capt. Jones.
www.wluctv.com

How abjectly terrible. I pray for peace for his family.

Prayers for his family. RIP Captain.
Sad day for all involved.

I still recall the feeling of being "gut punched" when the Wing Battle Staff, of which I was a part as a senior civilian, was summoned in September 1997 with news that we lost a B-1B with all 4 aboard, including the Deputy Bomb Wing Commander, in Montana's area of the multi-state Powder River Training range.

Just some speculation on my part, but since the initial info said ejection and it took them some time to find the pilot, could this be another seat failure to deploy chutes?

Another F-16 had this happen just this June.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z363_Yjup0U

DaBigBR posted a link to the USAF crash investigations on-line reports and I scanned through them. There were a couple of ejection seat failures and one report made mention that some of the seats had passed their "expiration" dates.

Awful news, I knew it was coming but it still sucks. RIP Capt. Jones

The last 20 or so years, has seen equipment service life used up in the wars we've been involved in. The last 12-years has seen budget cuts and re-allocation of resources that have affected obtaining replacement parts, updates, and training time which puts pilot currency at-risk. During this entire time, commanders and decision makers have continued to maintain an op-tempo that does not jib with the reality of the equipment or, the people. The pressure to be 'ready' and avoid saying 'No', has forced waivers to be used at an alarming rate, 2020 has had a number of high-profile airplane crashes. The biggest and most glaring problem is with our aircraft carriers. 2021 will see 2 carriers, who recently came back from back-breakingly long deployments in 2020, sent out again in 2021 without any maintenance time.

The equipment may survive and function, however the crews and their families may opt out upon returning, in which case, the equipment will sit idle because knowledgeable bodies are not around to operate them.

quote:

Originally posted by Skull Leader:
Just some speculation on my part, but since the initial info said ejection and it took them some time to find the pilot, could this be another seat failure to deploy chutes?

Another F-16 had this happen just this June.

[url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?

v=z363_Yjup0U]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z363_Yjup0U[/url]

Just what I was thinking. I watched that video last week.