US military: one of two crew recovered off Japan after mid-air collision is dead

[Eugene]

Source: Associated Press

US military: one of two crew recovered off Japan after mid-air collision is dead

Associated Press in Tokyo
Fri 7 Dec 2018 16.13 GMT

One of two crew members recovered after two US warplanes collided and crashed off Japan’s coast is dead and five others remain missing, the US military have said.

The Marine Corps said on Friday the other recovered crew member was in fair condition.

Both were in an F/A-18 Hornet fighter jet that collided with a KC-130 Hercules refueling aircraft during training at about 2am after taking off from their base in Iwakuni, near Hiroshima. The five others were in the KC-130.

The Marine Corps identified the dead crew member on Friday as Capt Jahmar Resilard, 28, of Miramar, Florida, an F/A-18 pilot with Marine All Weather Fighter Attack Squadron 242.

-snip-

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/dec/07/us-military-aircraft-mid-air-collision-japan-crew-recovered

[Deb]

1. Heartbreaking and right before the holidays

[krispos42]

2. Mid-air refueling takes skill and practice.

In this case, the KC-130 unreels a long hose from one of its wings. The end of the hose has what looks like a badminton birdie on the end of it to stabilize the hose. The thirsty plane has a probe (either fixed or retractable) that the pilot has to shove into the birdie. he has to literally fly the probe on his plane into the birdie while both are bouncing around in the wake of the KC-130, and then hold it while fuel is transferred from the tanker into the fighter. They are in very close formation, and it looks like they were doing a night refueling, which I imagine is several times harder than a daylight one.

A terrible tragedy.