Two Army soldiers, whose combat duties include working to prevent “friendly fire” mishaps, narrowly avoided harm when an F-16 fighter jet from Hill Air Force Base opened fire on their SUV while driving at the Utah Test and Training Range.
The incident occurred during a nighttime training mission April 8 in which the fighter pilot was practicing shooting at ground targets. The soldiers were not hit, but did suffer minor injuries “while exiting the vehicle in rough terrain,” according to a statement from the base. The sport utility vehicle, a rental from Avis, was damaged in the incident, but base officials declined to say whether it was hit by the jet’s 20mm cannon fire or crashed after the soldiers jumped out.
Airmen and base contractors from unrelated commands at Hill have been the subject of several unflattering and high-profile incidents made public over the past month. In early March, Defense Department officials revealed that they were looking into the mistaken shipment of four ballistic missile fuses from a depot at the northern Utah base to Taiwan, which had ordered a set of helicopter batteries. Last week, base officials acknowledged that they had burned several pounds of depleted uranium in a Layton incinerator before realizing that the parts were tainted with the radioactive material.
They military rented the vehicle from AVIS? I hope they took the damage waiver.
Ever drive down a lonely desert road and see a JET IN YOUR REAR VIEW Mirror? I did near Death Valley! They were after me or the gas tanker in front of me..
Then two more jets chased each other thru the mountains to the west..
wow it was loud!!
No doubt, they will have a CANCER CLUSTER around Layton before too long !!! “Depleted” Uranium may not be good enough for bombs, but it is certainly un-healthy for humans !!!
#1: 1971, George AFB, CA (So. Cal High Desert). Vietnam Era.
I was ground crew, F4E Fighters. I had a good pilot friend, Jim, who had graduated 2nd from flight school and went on to fly with the Thunderbirds. He related how it was “great sport” for he and his backseater to view, from an unobserved high pass, an RV set up along one of the long straight dirt roads, camped in a gully. They’d take their F4 in a circle, stealthily go to the deck along the road, come up over the rise to the gully, go to afterburner, and scare the bejesus out of ma & pa in their deck chairs!
Jim also said he enjoyed getting “negative numbers” on the altimeter flying low in Death Valley. He may or may not have said he did this inverted, my memory fails me on this, but I’ll choose to believe he did!
RIP Jim
JimD, depleted uranium is unhealthy,but it is not cancerous. The uranium is DEPLETED.
“I hope they took the damage waiver.”
Wouldn’t help. If you read para 9A(4) of Avis’ Terms and Conditions you’ll find that you are prohibited from operating the vehicle “on unpaved roads.”
So why does Avis even rent SUV’s? What about the guy who sells farming or mining equipment? How can he (legally) even reach his customer’s site?
Ah, but there’s a loophole. While Avis’ Terms of Service explicity prohibit driving on unpaved roads, they say nothing about driving off road. When you come to a stretch of unpaved road in your Avis rental, get off the road and drive through the field next to it.
MAVERICK!!!
And here I thought i was being a rebel for eating and speeding a rental car.
#3,
I can see it now…
A bunch of Paint ballers, Shooting at the Aircraft as it goes over…
It returns to base…DECORATED with paint ball shots..\
commanding officer asks HOW???
Anyone want to set up a Paint ball trap???
#4,
Ok, you believe that…Its only depleted as to ITS USEFULL-NESS. NOT its radioactivity, and IF you breathe that INTO your lungs?? See you dieing in the next 5 years(BADLY)..
Or havent you seen the problems with DEPLETED Uranium Armour piercing shells??
no, it’s depleted as to radioactivity. The health concerns are due to other reasons, mainly that you’re ingesting a metallic element.
From Wikipedia:
“Depleted uranium munitions are controversial because of numerous unanswered questions about the long-term health effects. DU is less toxic than other heavy metals such as arsenic and mercury, and is only very weakly radioactive because of its long half life.[2] While any radiation exposure has risks, no conclusive epidemiological data have correlated DU exposure to specific human health effects such as cancer.”
Is accidentally incinerating 5 lbs of it a concern? Yes. Is it apocalyptic? Not even close. FAR FAR more uranium is unloaded into the air burning coal every day, which contains trace amounts of it. Given how much coal we burn, those trace amounts add up dramatically. And it’s more radioactive than DU.
If you’re that concerned about airborne uranium, build nuclear plants and scrap the coal plants.
There, I’ve said it. 🙂
#1 – Did it look like this?
#10 – when I see one of those in my rear view mirror, I just slow down until they give up and pass me.
Fighter pilot to cop after rear ending a station wagon with his sports car “Just before hitting the wagon I pulled back on the wheel.”
#9, kjackman,
… And it’s more radioactive than DU.
Not quite. Coal has a relatively low amount of uranium to begin with. From 1 to <10 ppm. Regular rocks, on the other hand, range up to 80+ ppm.
When coal is burned, most of the heavy elements, uranium and thorium, remain in the fly ash with concentrations of 10 to 30 ppm.
Fly ash is used to make concrete blocks and other building materials. Their radioactivity is comparable to red brick. Fly ash that is used to fill quarries etc are inert enough to be considered non toxic. Only highly alkaline or acidic water has been shown to influence leaching.
Can I just say, what a great name for an Air Force base.
Anyway, this isn’t a big story here in Utah. The guys in the SUV were in the wrong location, as SUVs are used as targets in the range.
They’re lucky to be alive.
that is a AV-8B harrier jump jet, used by the marines and the brits. you probably would never see the F-16, before it would be by you. the soldiers were lucky it wasn’t the older A-10 Warthog, which flies much slower, giving the pilot more time on target, and has a 30 mm cannon firing depleted uranium rounds. just thought i’d bring discussion full circle.