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Air Force Grounds F-15 Fleet

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The Washington Post

Published: November 6, 2007

WASHINGTON - The Air Force has grounded its entire fleet of F-15 fighter jets amid serious safety concerns after a crash in Missouri on Friday. Officials think the aging plane may have disintegrated in the air.

Top Air Force officials said Monday the F-15 jets will be available only for "mission-critical" uses, such as for emergencies in Iraq and Afghanistan. The more than 700 aircraft in the fleet will largely go unused in coming days as the Air Force considers safety inspections for each plane.

Commanders said the aircraft will be on "ground alert" at bases in the Middle East and other planes will be used for regular patrols and bombing runs in support of the wars.

First produced in the mid-1970s and long considered the premier air-to-air fighter jet in the U.S. arsenal, the F-15 has become a target for retirement, with Air Force officials arguing the plane is too old to take the stresses of maneuvers at twice the speed of sound.

Douglas Birkey, deputy director for government relations at the Air Force Association, said the incident Friday in which the pilot ejected from the aircraft and suffered injuries that weren't life-threatening underscores that lives are being put unnecessarily at risk.

"Obviously, that pilot in Missouri didn't get into that aircraft thinking it would come apart on him," Birkey said.

Last week's crash provides the Air Force with another argument for retiring the older models of the $30 million F-15 - the one that went down, an F-15C, was built nearly 30 years ago. Instead, the Air Force would like to produce hundreds more highly advanced F-22 fighter jets at a cost of about $132 million each.

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