The aerobatic display team of the Swiss Air Force had a very, very close call yesterday.
Two aircraft from the Swiss military aerobatic display team, Patrouille Suisse, collided on Thursday with falling debris hitting a house. One person on the ground was slightly injured in the accident.
The two [F-5E Tiger II] planes were part of a formation practicing for a yodelling festival in canton Zug, central Switzerland.
The nose cone of one aircraft broke off and hit a house in the vicinity of the town of Baar, damaging the façade of the building and slightly injuring one person with shattered glass.
The braking parachute of the other aircraft deployed in mid-air but caused no damage and was later recovered.
All the seven aircraft involved in the practice session landed safely and no pilot was injured, according to the defence ministry.
There's more at the link.
Here's video of the accident from the ground. I suspect what we're seeing is the deployment of the braking parachute of the second aircraft in line, causing it to dip suddenly and collide - fortunately very lightly - with the third aircraft, which goes into a steep dive. Its pilot manages to recover, but a piece of his aircraft's nose cone can be seen to break away and fall to the ground.
A close call indeed!
And as for the yodelling festival? Well, I daresay there was quite a bit of yodelling (or the vernacular equivalent) going on over the team's radio channel while all that was happening!
Peter
8 comments:
WOW! So fortunate!
Thank God it wasn't like the Ramstein Air Show disaster. That was a very, very bad day for many people...
- Barry
Wow. You don't get any closer than that without buying a farm!
Woof... THAT was close!
Hats off to the pilots for professional conduct above & beyond.
And pity the poor maintenance folk who will have to re-cover the seats of the affected aircraft . . .
Did the stricken aircraft's pilot turn on afterburner to get out of trouble at 60 ft AGL? Hair-raising ... he could have ejected to safety, but then his plane could have crashed into a dwelling!
Always liked the looks of the F-5/T-38 family, sharp looking aircraft, to my untrained eyes. Our Air Farce turned down the derivative F-20 Tigershark for the light fighter/ export role, never heard if it was airframe limitations or lack of upgrade ability in electronics... so we bought the F-16, which worked but wasn't "light" by any measure...
You can bet a couple airman landed with more in their flight suits than they took off with!!
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