davebaker123

Hazard of the trade, I’m afraid. My first USAF duty station was Williams AFB, AZ. during the early 1970’s. We lost a few aircraft and pilots during the four years of that tour. The most tragic involved an IP who was the brother of a friend. He was performing single-engine go-around training in a T-38 with a foreign student. The aircraft rolled past vertical, and the IP punched…too late. He shot straight into the ground, while the newly-wed student rode the aircraft in, and was decapitated. The scene was not pretty. The IP, who was still barely alive, had to be extricated from a hole. He didn’t make it to the infirmary.

Military pilots are the best, and they literally cheat death on a regular basis.