Forum: F-16 News

http://www.app.com/article/20091108/NEW ... source=rss
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2009/1 ... ecall.html

"Fallen N.J. fighter pilot is recalled as driven, loving family man"

November 08, 2009, 10:36PM
By Brian Whitley/The Star-Ledger

A bugle played taps as a memorial service began today for Air Force Capt. Nicholas Giglio, a husband and father who was killed last month in a midair collision off the South Carolina coast.

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Anybody know if Capt Giglio has been recovered yet?

http://www.app.com/article/20091108/NEW ... 070/NEWS02

"A pilot's devotion to family, flying"

By BOB VOSSELLER • STAFF WRITER • November 8, 2009

The memorial service called a "Celebration of Life" honored Capt. Nicholas Thomas Giglio who died on Oct. 15 when his F-16 jet collided with another fighter pilot's aircraft. The 32-year-old fighter pilot was unable to eject after the collision, which took place about 40 miles northeast of Charleston, S.C.

Jerry Giglio said his son will be buried at Arlington National Cemetery on Dec. 18, which was his son's birthday. Giglio's mother, Helen, is a special education teacher at the Cedar Creek Elementary School. Last year, her son served as a speaker for career day at the school.

A fund has been established for the family. Checks can be made out to: AWCF (Giglio Family) and can be mailed to AWCF P.O. Box 1553 Front Royal, VA 22630-0033. Those wishing to make donations can also visit AirWarriorCourage.org. All donations must be specified for the Giglio family. For information, call (540) 636-9798.

(Before anyone here flames me, I'm only quoting the article, and I've no personal comment, affirmative, neutral, or negative.)

(Another F-16 from Shaw AFB. Photo too blurry to read serial number and tail code.)

http://www.thesunnews.com/news/local/story/1170867.html

"Military plane makes emergency stop in Myrtle Beach"

Tuesday, Nov. 17, 2009
By Janelle Frost - jfrost@thesunnews.com

A military F-16 was forced to make an emergency landing at the Myrtle Beach International Airport on Monday while conducting training exercises, airport officials said.

The jet, based at Shaw Air Force Base, made a safe emergency landing at the airport around 1 p.m. Monday, officials said.

The contours of the tail number makes me think it is 94-0042 - you can see the faint outline of "042"
Tail band is definatelly 77FS

AirForceTimes wrote:

Report: Pilot error caused F-16s to collide

By Bruce Rolfsen - Staff writer
Posted : Monday Jan 11, 2010 14:44:25 EST

Pilot error led to the fatal collision of two F-16 Fighting Falcons on an Oct. 15 training mission off the coast of South Carolina, an Air Combat Command report released Monday concluded.

Killed in the accident was Capt. Nicholas Giglio of the 20th Fighter Wing, Shaw Air Force Base, S.C., who was faulted in the report. The other pilot, Capt. Lee Bryant, also from the 20th, safely landed his damaged jet at Charleston Air Force Base, S.C.

Giglio was flying too fast and not paying attention to the position of the other F-16 when he flew into Bryant’s fighter at 10:24 p.m. as the two were returning to Shaw, the accident investigation board report said.

Giglio’s jet struck Bryant's from behind at a closing speed of about 163 mph. The canopy of Giglio's jet first hit Bryant's left rear horizontal stabilizer and then impacted the underside of Bryant's left wing. Giglio died when his jet struck the wing.

Giglio was an inexperienced F-16 pilot with only 126 hours in F-16 cockpits and 12 hours flying with night-vision goggles. Bryant was an F-16 instructor pilot with 967 F-16 hours.

The investigation found that a malfunctioning radar may have distracted Giglio, but that should not have prevented the captain from safely catching up with Bryant.

Investigation board president Maj. Gen. Stanley Kresge, an F-15 pilot and commander of the Air Force Warfare Center, concluded that Giglio’s "improper power setting, airspeed, flight path … and lack of reaction to an impending crash clearly indicate Giglio was not focused on accomplishing a safe rejoin."

source: http://www.airforcetimes.com/news/2010/ ... t_011110w/

Inexperienced or not , He fallen serving His Country.

In Italy we say" Cieli Blu" Blue Skies.

All my respect

Alex Fullcolored

Last edited by EOR on Jan 15, 2010 - 07:11 AM; edited 1 time in total

do we know the the tail # yet? I know it wasn't 94-0042 as I've seen that one since.

Just caught up with this one, high price to pay for slight lapse in concentration. . .

Unfortunately...this is far from the first time something of this nature has happened. It is sad to see a young, hardcharging fighter pilot leave us so early and a reminder to the rest how fast you can get behind the jet and in serious trouble.

Fly safe...

I wonder, is it really necessary to publicly release this sort of accident report, given that, while obviously unintended, it rather shames the memory of the pilot in question? Does his family really need to know this? Do all of us? Can't it just be kept "within the ranks", so to speak?

(Off-topic alert.)

Sigh. For comparison, the PLAAF and ROCAF are, until very recent years, very secretive about aircraft and pilots' losses.
Not just, for example, clandestine combat losses of ROCAF ELINT planes during missions into Red China, but also non-combat accidents in and about Taiwan. Whenever a P2V-7 was shot down, at least a dozen families living in the village near the air base, would lose a father, husband, or son.
Do the details of these combat and non-combat losses (date, aircraft type, unit, time, location, pilot, cause, &c) matter to, say, me, who's a civilian chickenhawk living in the same world, 30+ years after those losses happened, and researching them as an hobby? No, as I'm not related to any of those crews, AFAIK, and don't personally know any of them or their relatives.
And clearly, they don't matter to anyone who's not interested in aviation, civilian or military, at all. So, as you and I are aviation fans, should we just forget and ignore all these real people, pilots and crews, who really lived?
We live on, and let them fade away, rest in peace, in the ignorance and darkness of real history?

Maybe one of the reasons I help research military aviation accidents, when I can and am willing, is to preserve the names of real people who lived and... burnt out.

Remember that there is a lot of learning for other pilots by these accidents. The only way to prevent similar accidents in the future, is to make the cause known.

Forum: F-16 News

F-16's collide over Atlantic