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F-16 crashes on the Utah Training Range - pilot killed

June 23, 2009 (by Asif Shamim) - An F-16 assigned to the 388th FW has crashed in a remote part of the Utah Test And Training Range on Monday night at 22:25h local time. The pilot did not survive.

Air Force officials announced the crash, but it was later confirmed the pilot involved Captain George Bryan Houghton, 28, of Candler, North Carolina had been killed.

Houghton, a member of the 421st Fighter Squadron, was taking part in a close-air support mission in preparation for his first deployment to Afghanistan.

The crash site, where the fighter jet was destroyed on impact, is located about 35 miles south of Wendover, on Utah's western border, said Rhonda Elmore, a spokeswoman with the 75th Air Base Wing at the base.

"We lost an irreplaceable member of the Air Force team," Col. Scott Dennis, commander of the 388th Fighter Wing, said at new conference Tuesday afternoon.

The cause of the crash is under investigation and board of enquiry has been set up to investigate the incident.