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Tulsa pilot ejects as F-16 crashes

October 12, 2000 (by Lieven Dewitte) - The pilot of an F-16 fighter jet based at the Oklahoma Air National Guard in Tulsa escaped serious injury Thursday when his aircraft crashed in a cow pasture. The pilot, was a lieutenant colonel from Tulsa.
The jet was in a four-plane forma tion when it crashed about 14:30h. The aircraft had left Tulsa earlier Thursday on a routine air-to-air training mission.

Training missions from Tulsa over the Kansas area are routine. The pilot reported engine problems prior to ejecting from the aircraft.

The crash site was about 35 miles southeast of McConnell Air Force Base at Wichita and there were no homes in the area. The pilot was picked up by members of a Kansas volunteer fire department.

A one-mile radius around the crash site was cordoned off and the scene was contaminated by an unspecified chemical -- not fuel -- aboard the jet. The pilot was limping and complained of neck injuries but declined treatment. A McConnell hazardous materials team was sent to the crash scene. The pilot was returned Thursday night to a Tulsa hospital for observation.

The 138th Fighter Wing had experienced one crash in southern Oklahoma in the early 1990s. There also was no one seriously hurt in that incident either. The last crash of an F-16 out of Tulsa was nearly five years ago when the plane plowed into the ground near a school at Skiatook. The pilot was not injured.

Fifteen F-16s fly out of the 138th Fighter Wing facility at Tulsa International Airport. The wing has performed four deployments in the past four years to Turkey to enforce the no-fly zone over Iraq.