Must be nice to eject into a friendly desert for a change!
"Ay bloke, you gotta smoke?"
"Nah bloke, me broke!"
Pilot stable after US jet crashes
September 14, 2004 - 8:55PM
A United States Marine Corps pilot escaped death on Tuesday when he ejected from his F/A-18 fighter jet moments before it crashed in the Northern Territory outback.
The US Marines pilot was on Tuesday night in a stable condition at Tindal Royal Australian Air Force base after he was rescued by a military helicopter late on Tuesday afternoon.
He was found about 16km from the base, about 320km south-east of Darwin, the Australian Defence Force said.
The pilot was the only person on board, and it was believed he ejected from the hornet before the accident.
He is believed to be one of about 300 US servicemen currently deployed to the NT base to take part in the joint US-Australian military training exercise Southern Frontier.
"The US pilot was rescued by a search and rescue helicopter from the RAAF base," the spokesman said.
"He was taken to the medical facility on the base where he was in a stable condition."
An investigation was underway, he said.
Exercise Southern Frontier is an annual defence exercise undertaken with Japan-based US Marine Corp fighter aircraft that began in the early 1990s.
Three squadrons of US marines take part in the exercise, one at a time, over a three month period.
The current exercise is due to finish at the end of the month.
The operation is conducted from the Tindal base, with training strikes on the Delamere Air Weapons range, 130km south-west of Katherine.
The federal government announced in July the Delaware weapons range would become a joint Australian-US training facility, in conjunction with the Shoalwater Bay facility in Queensland, Kirrabilli in NSW and Bradshaw in the NT.
© 2004 AAP