The F-15 pilot took evasive action but was unable to avoid the attack completely. He was not injured, but his jet fighter suffered a significant amount of damage.
Captured on March 19, 1990, this striking image shows a U.S. Air Force (USAF) F-15 Eagle from Elmendorf Air Force Base (AFB) that was accidentally struck by an AIM-9M Sidewinder missile launched from another USAF F-15. The photograph reveals significant damage to the aircraft’s tail section, along with moderate damage to the left wing and engine exhaust.
The F-15 pilot, Lt. Col. Jimmy L. Harris, said he was sure the accident was going to be counted as a Class A. He was almost right. The cost of repairing the aircraft was fixed at $992,058, or $7,942 short of being a Class A.
Major General Francis C. Gideon Jr., who was the commander of the Air Force Safety Center at Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico, stated that he was unable to establish whether the Air Force included the expense of the F-15 tail in the overall repair cost.
The pilot who accidentally launched the missile became aware of the situation shortly after he released the heat-seeking Sidewinder at Harris and quickly communicated with him, according to Sgt. David Haulbrook.
Harris, piloting the second F-15, maneuvered to evade the assault but could not fully escape the attack. Although he was unharmed, his fighter jet suffered a significant amount of damage.
‘It took real good flying to get it back,’ Haulbrook said.
The accident took place on the first day of the Arctic Cover air war game exercises, 150 miles west of Anchorage, over the Stony military operations area. The exercise was canceled after the mishap.
‘It’s not normal procedure to call off an exercise, but we did it in the interest of safety,’ Haulbrook said.
“Ed,” a former USAF weapon loader recalled on the authoritative website F-16.net, “I was stationed at Elmendorf AFB in 1991. I walked into the hangar and saw this damaged F-15. I was told an AIM-9 missile shot at it, and that the aircrew flew the jet back.
‘I was a weapons loader in the Air Force, and I talked to a lot of people first-hand about what happened. I made TSgt and became the weapons expeditor six months after being assigned to the 54th FS. I later made MSgt and was the Assist NCOIC. I retired in 1997.
‘The weapons crew chief (Jeff Lang), who loaded the missile, told me that there was a training AIM-9 and a live AIM-9 on the jet. The live AIM-9 was being flown to King Salmon (alert post). He said he wrote in the aircraft forms that there was a live missile and a training missile on the jet; he also told the pilot himself. The crew chief for the jet also told the pilot, and the people at EOR also told the pilot.
‘After the investigation, the weapons crew was blamed for everything. The F-15 weapons T.O. also failed to say that you can’t load a training missile and a live missile on the same aircraft. I spent 15 years on the F-4C/E/G and the T.O. stated in the general safety requirements that you couldn’t do this.
‘The aircrews for both F-15s were cleared of any wrongdoing, and the pilot who fired the missile was promoted later on to Capt. Life as a weapons load was hell; you had to write everything in the aircraft forms. What you had loaded, what station, live or inert.
‘Jeff Lang was a good crew chief and one of my go-to guys. We went on a TDY to Luke AFB, and Jeff got sick and a few weeks later died of a brain aneurysm. His wife was pregnant and had a baby boy after Jeff had passed away. RIP my friend.’
Photo by U.S. Air Force
