F-16 Aircraft Database

Special characteristics:

• Unit Markings: 77 FS

Deployment: Southern Watch

Special characteristics:

• Unit Markings: 77 FS

Struck by lightning during a sand storm while deployed for OSW. Was the lead aircraft of a two ship formation at an altitude of 35,000 to 40,000 feet when the wall of sand surrounded the aircraft and there was nowhere to go but through the storm. When the lightning strike occurred, the airspeed dropped to zero and the aircraft fell into a flat spint in the orange sand sky. Fortunately the pilot recovered but bottomed out at an altitude of only 500 feet.

Chris, the Crew Chief of #377 describes the experience: "We got the squacks saying my jet was code three for a lightning strike and the other was code one. That was strange to me because there really wasn't too much lightning out there and I had never seen a jet get struck by lightning. Anyway when the jet came in 15-20 minutes later, I noticed immediately something wrong, the ECM pod nose cone was gone! I hooked up the comm cord and said to the pilot like I always do "How are you doing Sir' did you have a good flight?" The only words out of his mouth were "I almost died, your jet saved me, if you could get me out as fast as you can." So as normal I shut him down, and it wasn't till I got a closer look that I noticed all kinds of things wrong; all of the leading edge tape was gone, the static dischargers broke off, the electronic nose cones of the cluster bombs he was carrying were gone and because it was our squadron jet, all the probes that I had polished were sandblasted… After that we had nothing but problems, a standby generator problem which ended up being the harness through the 341 bulkhead, a FLCS problem which was a harness in the right strake and a few flights later tension strut bushing problems that are still going on to this day."

Special characteristics:

• Unit Markings: 77 FS

91-0353 became the commanders bird after this one.