US F-16 Jet Fighter Crashes off South Korea, Pilot Rescued

Seyoon Kim and Jon Herskovitz
·1 min read
3

(Bloomberg) -- A US F-16 Fighting Falcon fighter jet crashed Wednesday off the west coast of South Korea after experiencing an “in-flight emergency,” the US military said, adding the pilot was rescued after safely ejecting from the aircraft.

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The pilot “is conscious and was transported to a medical facility for assessment,” Colonel Matthew Gaetke, the 8th Fighter Wing commander, said in the statement.

The incident is under investigation, he said, and he expressed appreciation to South Korean rescue forces and US personnel for the swift recovery of the pilot. “Now we will shift our focus to search and recovery of the aircraft,” he said.

Read more: US F-16 Crashes Into Sea Off South Korea After In-Flight Problem

The incident is the second in about six weeks for the US military in South Korea, following the crash of a US F-16 jet on a training mission into waters off the country’s coast in mid-December. The cause of that incident was also an “in-flight emergency,” the US 8th Fighter Wing said in a statement at the time.

The F-16 from Lockheed Martin Corp. has been in operation since the late 1970s and the US had an inventory of more than 1,000 of the aircraft as of Sept. 2021, the US Air Force said on its web page for the Fighting Falcon.

(Updates and recasts with statement from US military.)

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