I’m chasing this story about as fast as my little stumpy legs will carry me.

I’ve just spoken with the Eglin Air Force Base public affairs (5:22 p.m.) and have been told BOTH pilots have been found. As the crash involved F-15Cs, unless there was someone taped to a wing these are single seat aircraft, so everyone that was in the air has apparently made it back. I don’t know the condition but will post here and update the story online as soon as I know.

UPDATE 1 -

Some of the big news outlets are already reporting that this was a collision. There are only TWO PEOPLE who know whether or not those planes collided, and I don’t think either of those pilots were thinking to call CNN on the parachute ride down. If and when the Air Force announces that the planes collided I will make the appropriate update. But I am not going to leap to conclusions on this.

UPDATE 2 - One of the pilots  has died, the other is listed as in good condition.

Another F-15 has gone down, this time near Hawaii.

Via the Air Force Times

By Sudhin Thanawala - The Associated Press
Posted : Monday Feb 4, 2008 6:39:04 EST

HONOLULU - A fighter jet among a troubled fleet of F-15s that recently returned to the skies plunged into the ocean Friday, but the pilot ejected in time and was rescued shortly afterward.

A Coast Guard helicopter plucked the Hawaii National Guard pilot from the ocean. He was taken to a hospital and was listed in good condition.

The pilot, whose identity was not released, had extensive flight experience, said Maj. Gen. Robert G.F. Lee, the Hawaii National Guard commander.

By far the most important thing, is that that pilot was alright. This is easily forgotten when we start talking about million dollar losses.

A distant second, is that American lawmakers have some tough issues to face. We can pretend that the F-15 is going to last until the slated retirement of 2025, but pretend may be all that we can do. These birds are getting old and the Air Force maintainers are working like dogs to keep these machines in the air.

The recent defense budget clocks in at a sobering $515.4 billion. The last time our defense spending looked like this the country was in full mobilization for total war. This procurement blitz, which I am very proud to announce I have dubbed the “Splurge,” will fetch the Air Force four additional F-22 Raptors for the year. But the Defense Department is not budging on the F-22 target number of 183, and while no one is disputing that the Raptor is awesome, like angry Ninja awesome, replacing almost 700 F-15s with 183 F-22s does not jibe. At the risk of summoning the angry spirits of communists past, “Quantity has a quality all its own.”

We are going to have to find out what’s important to us and let our lawmakers know. It is senseless to say that we shouldn’t “play politics” with our military, sense deciding funding of what and how much is inherently political. We’ve got a while to wait before the F-35 enters the stage, and relying on 30 year old fighter for our air defense is looking increasingly shaky.

I know it’s pushing two weeks old, but I am still amazed by the simulation of the Nov. 2 F-15 breakup that the Air Force released.

 There’s not any sort of meaningful comparison to draw here, and I’m sure Maj. Stephen Stilwell is probably tired of people asking, “what was it like?” The obvious response being, “It was like breaking apart at 18,000 feet while traveling several hundred miles an hour and having your left arm shattered.”  I can’t begin to  imagine the experience — my sole reference being a flat-tire, which had the good sense to happen at about 30 miles an hour and, oh yeah, on the farging ground. 

 Bear in mind that as his plane literally snapped in half, dislocating and shattering one arm, Maj. Stilwell still had the presence of mind and the strength to safely eject. I assume that once on the ground he wrestled a grizzly bear and then found Bin Laden, but only because those things are slightly less awesome than making it out of that cockpit alive.

This sort of reflexive action in the midst of catastrophe doesn’t happen on accident.  The pilots flying those jets don’t just hop in and take off, and they aren’t the sort of folks content with doing it “pretty good, most of the time.”  There’s a lot of work involved with what those fighter pilots do. When they go rumbling across the sky on our day off, it’s easy to forget that.