Forum: F-16 News

Search widened for missing F-16 pilot off South Carolina coast
By The Associated Press
October 17, 2009, 1:46PM

CHARLESTON, S.C. — The search for an Air Force F-16 fighter pilot from New Jersey whose plane collided with another jet entered a second full day today as aircraft and vessels continued combing an ever wider area off the South Carolina coast.

Coast Guard Petty Officer Bobby Nash said the search for Capt. Nicholas Giglio, a flier from Shaw Air Force Base in Sumter, S.C., had covered about 4,000 square miles. Coast Guard units from the Carolinas, Florida, Georgia and Virginia were involved in the search.

Giglio's plane went down Thursday evening during night training exercises about 40 miles off the South Carolina coast. Two fighters collided but the second F-16, although damaged, was able to make it back to Charleston Air Force Base.

That jet was piloted by Capt. Lee Bryant who was examined but suffered no injuries and was released. Bryant, whose mother still works at the Lacey Township high school from which he graduated, was back at Shaw. The F-16 is a single-seat jet.

Nash said searchers are confident that Giglio could survive at sea if he survived the crash.

"A lot of things have happened where people survived impossible odds — fishermen clinging onto a cooler for several days," he said. "Those people have no training. He certainly has training."

The water temperature in the area of the crash is about 75 degrees, although a cold front has moved through since the crash. Temperatures along the South Carolina coast Saturday were expected to only rise to about 60.

Officials said after the crash that there were reports of debris and an oil slick in the water.

There has also been no signal from beacons that would have been on Giglio's ejection seat and on his flight suit.

Nash said a Coast Guard helicopter from Savannah, Ga., and a C-13 from Elizabeth City, N.C., were assisting in the search. Coast guard vessels from Charleston and Georgetown as well as Portsmouth, Va., were also searching.

Giglio has been a fighter pilot for 18 months and is part of the 77th Fighter Squadron that is training for deployment to Iraq early next year.

source: http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2009/1 ... g_f-1.html

Just announced on the news his remains were recovered this afternoon.

Authorities Call Off Search for Missing F-16 Pilot
Office of the Secretary of Defense Public Affairs
Story by Gerry Gilmore
Date: 10.19.2009
Posted: 10.19.2009 04:56

WASHINGTON - Authorities are still looking for the wreckage of an Air Force F-16 fighter jet that crashed with its pilot into the Atlantic Ocean off South Carolina's coast last week.

An official at Shaw Air Force Base in Sumter, S.C., said today that there is nothing new to report since authorities announced Oct. 17 that Air Force Capt. Nicholas Giglio likely didn't survive a mid-air collision with another F-16.

Shaw is the home of the 20th Fighter Wing, to which the jets belong.

Two F-16 Fighting Falcon aircraft on a routine training exercise collided over the Atlantic Ocean about 40 miles east of Folly Beach, S.C., around 8:30 p.m. Oct. 15. The pilot of one plane, Air Force Capt. Lee Bryant, was able to safely land his damaged jet at Charleston Air Force Base, S.C.

Giglio, the other pilot, was reported missing. Coast Guard officials in Charleston, S.C., announced Oct. 17 that they were suspending the search-and-rescue operation.

"In spite of an intense search conducted by hundreds of professionals from the Coast Guard, Navy and Air Force, we have found no trace of Capt. Nicholas Giglio," Air Force Col. Joe Guastella, 20th Fighter Wing commander, told reporters that day.

Preliminary investigation of the accident, Guastella said, revealed that the mid-air impact probably proved fatal to the pilot, who wasn't seen to have ejected from his stricken aircraft.

Authorities at Shaw pledged to make every effort to recover Giglio's aircraft and his remains.

"The thoughts and prayers of all of us at Shaw are with Nicholas Giglio, his family, and his friends," Guastella said.

Coast Guard searchers found crash debris believed to belong to Giglio's F-16 jet the day after the accident.

"The Coast Guard has found some debris in the ocean that is apparently from our missing F-16," Robert Sexton, chief of public affairs at Shaw Air Force Base said during an Oct. 16 telephone interview with American Forces Press Service.

source: http://www.dvidshub.net/?script=news/ne ... p;id=40352