Legal News for South Carolina Aviation Accident Attorneys. An F-16 fighter jet pilot was faulted in the aircraft collision that tragically killed him.
Pilot error caused fatal aviation accident between two fighter aircrafts in South Carolina.
Charleston, SC—An Air Combat Command (ACC) report allegedly concluded on Monday, January 11, 2010, that a fatal collision between two F-16 Fighting Falcons jet fighter aircrafts occurred due to pilot error, reports the AirForceTimes.com. The fatal plane crash took place on October 15, 2009.
It was reported that on the day of the incident, Capt. Nicholas Giglio of the 20th Fighter Wing, Shaw Air Force Base in South Carolina, was flying an F-16 jet at an excessively high rate of speed. He was also noted for failing to pay attention to the position of the other F-16, which was being flown by Capt. Lee Bryant. The collision allegedly occurred at approximately 10:24 p.m. off the coast of South Carolina, when Giglio’s jet slammed into the rear of Bryant’s jet while traveling at 163 mph. The canopy of Giglio’s jet reportedly struck the left rear horizontal stabilizer of Bryant’s aircraft, and then hit the underside of his wing. Giglio was reportedly killed upon impacting the wing of Bryant’s jet. Bryant allegedly managed to land his damaged aircraft at the Charleston Air Force Base after the violent jet collision.
Reports stated that Giglio had a mere 126 hours of experience in F-16 cockpits and 12 hours of practice using night-vision goggles, where as Bryant was allegedly an F-16 instructor pilot with a total of 967 hours of F-16 cockpit experience. The probe into the fatal collision reportedly revealed that Giglio should have still been able to safely fly the jet and catch up with Bryant even though it was discovered that the radar in Giglio’s jet malfunctioned, which may have distracted the inexperienced pilot. Investigators allegedly stated that many factors revealed that the pilot was not focused on the task at hand when the crash occurred.
Legal News for South Carolina Aviation Accident Lawyers.