Air Force reps probing crash of F-35A; pilot suffered ‘minor scrapes’
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- Fire and smoke are visible at Hill Air Force Base following a plane crash Wednesday evening, Oct. 19, 2022.
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- U.S. Air Force Col. Jeffrey Holland, left, speaks at a media briefing with Col. Craig Andrle on Thursday, Oct. 20, 2022, near the west gate of Hill Air Force Base. They were addressing the Wednesday, Oct. 19, 2022, crash of an F-35A. Holland is 75th Air Base Wing commander and Andrle is 388th Fighter Wing commander.
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- An F-35A Lightning II assigned to the 354th Fighter Wing takes off during an exercise at Eielson Air Force Base, Alaska, July 13, 2021. An F-35A crashed at Hill Air Force Base at the end of a training exercise on Oct. 19, 2022.
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- U.S. Air Force Col. Craig Andrle, left, speaks at a media briefing with Col. Jeffrey Holland, center, on Thursday, Oct. 20, 2022, near the west gate of Hill Air Force Base. They were addressing the Wednesday, Oct. 19, 2022, crash of an F-35A. Holland is 75th Air Base Wing commander and Andrle is 388th Fighter Wing commander.
HILL AIR FORCE BASE — The pilot involved in the crash of an F-35A Lightning II at Hill Air Force Base is fine and U.S. Air Force officials have launched a probe to determine exactly what happened, officials said Thursday.
“We’re still looking into the cause of the incident and we won’t know and certainly won’t be able to release anything until that investigation is complete, which of course can take some time,” U.S. Air Force Col. Jeffrey Holland said at a media briefing Thursday, a day after the crash. He’s commander of the 75th Air Base Wing at Hill.
The crash, which occurred at around 6:15 p.m. Wednesday, was the first of an F-35 at Hill. It was the first of any crash of a military airplane in Utah since an F-16 Fighting Falcon crashed in 2009 at the Utah Test and Training Range, according to Air Force officials.
The pilot, who hasn’t been publicly named, was heading back to Hill AFB from a training mission with five other F-35A aircraft and their pilots when the accident occurred, causing a plume of smoke visible to many in the area. He ejected and the craft crashed on a runway on the north end of the base near South Weber while the five other F-35A jets, part of the 388th Fighter Wing, diverted to Salt Lake City International Airport, landing there.
“As you can imagine, when we’re coming in to land we’re a little bit lower to the ground and that’s when it occurred,” said U.S. Air Force Col. Craig Andrle, the 388th Fighter Wing commander. The F-35A was completely destroyed.
The pilot was treated at a hospital on Wednesday and released and was resting at home on Thursday. “What I can say is he’s OK, so I think he’s going to be a little bit sore today. But other than that, he was seen at the hospital and released. Just minor scrapes,” Andrle said.
Though details of what exactly happened are still being sorted out, Andrle noted that pilots get training on “ejection situations” and that he suspects the pilot involved in Wednesday’s crash was probably trying to steer the craft away from anywhere it could have caused harm. “Any of us in that situation are going to attempt to maneuver the aircraft to avoid any buildings on the ground and I’m sure that he did that prior to ejecting from the aircraft,” he said.
The debris field covers several hundred yards, Holland said, most of it inside the base, though officials are still trying to determine if any fell in adjacent South Weber. The crash caused a brush fire that burned 8 to 10 acres of land, doused by firefighters from the base and area fire departments.
F-35A’s cost around $80 million each to make, according to a 2021 article in Defense News, a defense industry trade publication.
As part of the probe, the Air Force asks anyone who may have found anything related to the crash or with relevant video or other information to reach out. Call the Air Force at 801-777-0911 or send an email to 75abw.pa@us.af.mil, leaving details of your information and contact info.
Investigators have started the inquiry into the crash and video from the public, among other material, “is data that the safety board can use,” Andrle said. Air Force reps will lead the investigation, carrying out a “safety investigation board” and then an “accident investigation board,” after which findings will be released to the public.
“Flying military aircraft is a risky business and we all understand that, so these things do happen. Thankfully they’re fairly rare,” Andrle said. “But when they do occur, obviously we’re going to take the time to figure out why it happened and to see if there’s anything different we need to do in the future.”
Flying in and out of Hill AFB had been halted after the crash but Holland said he expected the airfield to reopen “fairly soon.”