WASHINGTON (CNN) — A manufacturing defect blamed for the mid-air breakup of an F-15 Eagle fighter may cause the Air Force to ground a quarter of its fleet of those warplanes.
The F-15 has been the sole fighter at many of the 16 or so “alert” sites around the country, where planes and pilots stand ready to take off at a moment’s notice to intercept hijacked airliners, Cessnas that wander into protected airspace, and other threats.
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Gen. John Corley, the head of the U.S. Air Combat Command, said about 160 of the jets may never return to service after an investigation into the November 2 crash that left the plane’s pilot seriously injured.
The single-seat F-15C broke up in a 500-mph turn during a combat training mission over Missouri, with its fuselage breaking in half behind the cockpit, an Air Force probe of the crash determined.
Investigators concluded that a critical piece of the jet’s airframe broke during the flight because of a manufacturing defect. A defective longeron — a metal strut that runs lengthwise down the fuselage — was cut improperly by the manufacturer, Boeing, and led to a series of cracks over the plane’s lifespan, Corley said. rplanes permanently, a top general said Thursday.
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http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/01/10/f15.groundings/index.html?section=cnn_latest
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F-15 grounding strains U.S. air defenses