Training Jets Collide Over S. Oklahoma [Archive]

I. M. Esperto

20th Dec 2002, 16:27

http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/nat-gen/2002/dec/20/122002982.html
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Today: December 20, 2002 at 8:35:15 PST

Training Jets Collide Over S. Oklahoma

ASSOCIATED PRESS

DUNCAN, Okla. (AP) - Two Air Force training jets from Shephard Air Force Base collided Friday in a remote area of southern Oklahoma, military officials said.

The conditions of the pilots aboard the T-37 jets wasn't immediately clear.

The Stephens County sheriff's office employee said those on board survived. The Air Force base in Wichita Falls, Texas, issued a statement saying their conditions were not known.

McD

21st Dec 2002, 03:08

From the local newspaper (the Wichita Falls Times Record News):
http://www.trnonline.com/trn/local_news/article/0,1891,TRN_5784_1623121,00.html

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Pilots escape injury in morning collison
By Jeff Hall, Times Record News
December 20, 2002

COMANCHE, Okla. -- Four pilots from Sheppard Air Force Base escaped serious injury Friday morning after their T-37 trainer jets collided near Comanche, Okla.

Two of the pilots parachuted out of their plane following the collison, which occurred at about 9 a.m. Friday, according to Oklahoma Highway Patrol trooper Tim Winton.

The two pilots in the other T-37 were able to fly their plane back to SAFB [Sheppard Air Force Base], where they safely landed the plane despite not being able to lower their landing gear, Col. J.R. Tillery said Friday morning.

Both pilots who ejected from the stricken plane did not have any visible injuries, Winton said. They were taken back to Sheppard in an Air Force helicopter an hour or so after the crash, Winton said.

Tillery said an Air Force crash investigation team would be called in to determine the cause of the crash.

The plane hit the ground in a field less than a mile south of Grandview School, a small rural school in southwestern Stephens County. However, there were no injuries on the ground, according to Comanche Police Chief Jack Shutts, who owned the pasture where the plane crashed.

Some parents did come to the school following the crash to pick up their children, school officials said, but none were in any danger and most children were outside in the school's playground as television reporters from across Oklahoma and north Texas descended on the area.

The Grandview area is about five miles due west of Comanche and one mile south of State Highway 53.

Comanche Fire Chief David Coder said Friday the T-37 had pretty much disintegrated by the time his units arrived on the scene.

"It was a pretty good fireball," he said.

Ronnie Sanders of Comanche, who was working with a tree-clearing crew on SH 53, said he heard an explosion right after seeing one of the planes fly directly overhead.

"I looked up and saw this ball of fire and seen [sic] the two chutes," Sanders said Friday morning. "I came charging up the ditch to see if anyone else (in the crew) had seen it."

Jimmy Lawrence of Marlow, Okla., was running a large chipper machine to grind up the cut limbs and trunks. Otherwise, he would have heard the explosion as well, he said Friday.

"It's a wonder those two guys in that plane aren't dead, the way it was on fire," Lawrence said.