Tyndall Air Force Base a ‘Complete Loss’ Amid Questions About Stealth Fighters
Sitting
in the ruined airplane hangars of Tyndall Air Force Base, which was
shredded on Wednesday when Hurricane Michael swept across the Florida
Panhandle, may be some of the Air Force’s most advanced — and most
expensive — stealth fighter jets.
Tyndall
is home to 55 F-22 stealth fighters, which cost a dizzying $339 million
each. Before the storm, the Air Force sent at least 33 of the fighters
to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio.
Air
Force officials have not disclosed the whereabouts of the remaining 22
planes, other than to say that a number of aircraft were left at the
base because of maintenance or safety reasons.
An Air Force spokeswoman, Maj. Malinda Singleton, would not confirm that any of the aircraft left behind were F-22s.
Advertisement
But photos and video from the wreckage of the base
showed the distinctive contours of the F-22’s squared tail fins and
angled vertical stabilizers amid a jumble of rubble in the base’s
largest building, Hangar 5. Another photo shows the distinctive jet in a
smaller hangar that had its doors and a wall ripped off by wind.
All
of the hangars at the base were damaged, Major Singleton said Friday.
“We anticipate the aircraft parked inside may be damaged as well,” she
said, “but we won’t know the extent until our crews can safely enter
those hangars and make an assessment.”
Help us break the next big story.
Subscribe to The Times
Subscribe to The Times
The high-tech F-22 is notoriously finicky and not always flight-worthy. An Air Force report
this year found that on average, only about 49 percent of F-22s were
mission ready at any given time — the lowest rate of any fighter in the
Air Force. The total value of the 22 fighters that may remain at Tyndall
is about $7.5 billion.
Hurricane
Michael hit the base with unexpected force. Winds roaring up to 130
miles per hour broke the base’s wind gauge. Hangars where Air Force jets
have sheltered during past tropical storms began to groan and shudder
before being ripped to ribbons.
The
eye of the storm cut directly over the base, which sits on a narrow spit
of land that juts into the Gulf of Mexico, about a dozen miles south of
Panama City. Trees bent in the howling wind, then splintered.
Stormproof roofs only a few months old peeled like old paint and were
scraped away by the gale. An F-15 fighter jet on display at the base
entrance was ripped from its foundation and pitched onto its back amid
twisted flagpoles and uprooted trees.
Advertisement
When
it was over, the base lay in ruins, amid what the Air Force called
“widespread catastrophic damage.” There were no reported injuries, in
part because nearly all personnel had been ordered to leave in advance
of the Category 4 hurricane’s landfall. Commanders still sifting through
mounds of wreckage Thursday could not say when evacuation orders would
be lifted.
Planes
from nearby Hurlburt Field and Eglin Air Force Base also fled inland in
the days before the storm. Planes that could not make the flight inland
were secured in hangars and a small “ride out element” of airmen stayed
behind during the hurricane.
Its
aftermath was both devastating and remarkable, with helicopter footage
of the base Thursday morning showing hangars that had easily survived
past storms now riddled with gaping holes. At least three twin-engine
propeller planes owned by a contractor and used for training were buried
in debris from the wreckage of the largest hangar, along with what
appeared to be an F-22, and at least five QF-16 jets — retired fighters
that have been stripped down and turned into drones and used as target
practice.
In a Facebook post
late Thursday, base leaders said many of the buildings were “a complete
loss.” The marina, its structures and docks were also destroyed. Power
lines and trees blocked nearly every road, and utilities and electricity
had not been turned back on.
As the sun was setting Thursday, an Air Force special tactics team had cleared the base runway.
The
destruction of an air force base can only be matched in scope by the
pounding that Hurricane Andrew gave Homestead Air Force Base, just south
of Miami, in 1992. That Category 5 storm, with winds estimated at 150
m.p.h., smashed hangars and left battered fighter jets and mammoth cargo
planes in pieces on the runway. Nearly all of the surviving planes and
personnel were reassigned to other bases. Two years later, it reopened
as a smaller, Air Force Reserve base.
The
Air Force was unable to say Thursday when Tyndall might resume
operations. Other Air Force and Navy bases in the area, which were
spared the brunt of the storm, reopened in a limited capacity Thursday.
Tyndall,
where about 3,600 airmen are stationed, sits on 29,000 acres that
include undeveloped woods and beaches, as well as stores, restaurants,
schools, a bowling alley and quiet, tree-lined streets with hundreds of
homes for both active-duty and retired military. Video footage captured
the ruin there, too: The high-powered storm skinned roofs, shattered
windows, and tossed cars and trailers like toys, transforming the
normally pristine base into a trash heap. Multistory barracks buildings
stood open to the sky.
Advertisement
The
Air Force said Thursday that recovery teams conducted an initial
assessment of portions of base housing and found widespread roof damage
to nearly every home.
“At this point,
Tyndall residents and evacuated personnel should remain at their safe
location,” said Col. Brian Laidlaw, 325th Fighter Wing commander. “We
are actively developing plans to reunite families and plan to provide
safe passage back to base housing.”
A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A12 of the New York edition with the headline: An Air Force Base Sustains ‘Catastrophic Damage’. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe
No comments:
Post a Comment