Air Force Pilot Ejects as F-16 Crashes in South Korea

An Air Force F-16 Fighting Falcon crashed Saturday morning in a field near Osan Air Base in South Korea. The incident is under investigation.

"An F-16 Fighting Falcon assigned to the 8th Fighter Wing crashed in an agricultural area," officials said in a release. "At the time of the accident, the pilot was participating in a routine daytime training sortie."

The pilot safely ejected and was transported to the nearest medical facility, where they were listed in stable condition. The pilot was not identified in the press release.

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"While we don't have any additional information yet, we are relieved the pilot safely ejected and there were no other injuries," Col. Henry R. Jeffress III, the 8th Fighter Wing commander, said in the news release. "The U.S. Air Force will stand up an independent Safety Investigation Board to review all data and evidence related to today's incident and use that information to determine its cause and prescribe any corrective safety measures to ensure the safety of the F-16 fleet."

Yonhap News Agency, a major media outlet in South Korea, reported that the F-16 crashed in Pyeongtaek, 60 kilometers south of Seoul. Citing local police and fire departments, Yonhap said the jet "crashed into a field and caught fire, resulting in the aircraft being mostly destroyed."

The crash comes as the Pentagon has moved more F-16s to the Pacific this year.

In January, the Air Force temporarily moved fighter jets from Germany to Okinawa, Japan, after the Pentagon announced it was pulling older F-15 Eagles from Kadena Air Base in an attempt to bring more modern aircraft to the Pacific.

F-16s from the 52nd Fighter Wing at Spangdahlem Air Base, Germany, arrived at Kadena earlier this year, even as the installation continued to slowly return its fleet of F-15C/D fighters to the United States.

Since the Air Force began flying the F-16 in the 1970s, there have been 383 Class-A mishaps -- the term used by the service to describe its most deadly and costliest crashes -- and a total of 88 pilot deaths, according to data from the Air Force Safety Center.

-- Thomas Novelly can be reached at thomas.novelly@military.com. Follow him on Twitter @TomNovelly.

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