Did The Military Crash A Mystery Plane in The Nevada Desert

Did the Military Crash a Mystery Plane in the Nevada Desert?
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Did the Military Crash a Mystery Plane in the

Nevada Desert?
The Air Force isn't revealing any details about a "classifed" aircraft involved in fatal crash.
http://www.popularmechanics.com/military/aviation/news/a28146/mystery-aircraft-crashes-in-nevada-desert/[16/09/2017 13:42:34]

Getty
+ Ethan Miller
By
Kyle Mizokami Sep 11, 2017 1.1k

The
U.S. Air Force has refused to reveal the aircraft involved in a crash last week that claimed the life of the pilot. The incident,
which took place at a training facility in Nevada, has sparked speculation that some kind of previously unknown aircraft was
involved.
The
incident took place on Tuesday, September 5. Unusually, the Air Force waited about three days to make the crash public.
Consider two other crashes the service reported last week, one involving two A-10 Thunderbolt fghters and the other an Iraqi
Air Force ofcer fying an F-16. In both cases the incident was reported the next day.
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The more cryptic accident took place on the Nevada Test and Training Range, about 100 miles northwest of Nellis Air Force
Base. The NTTR bills itself
as the "the largest contiguous air and ground space available for peacetime military operations in
the free world", with 2.9 million acres
of land and 12,000 square miles of airspace to test equipment and train
U.S. military
forces.
F-22A Raptor and F-35 Joint Strike Fighters of the U.S. Air Force over the Nevada Test and Training Range, July 2017.
Getty
+ U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Daryn Murphy
Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Eric Schultz, 44, died from injuries sustained in the crash. Schultz, who had been denied entry
into the pilot training
program three times due to poor eyesight, went into academia, where he earned six degrees including a
doctorate in aerospace engineering from Caltech and an MBA from Penn State. Later, he was a senior scientist and
business
development manager at engine manufacturer Pratt & Whitney, and a rotary wing test engineer at the Naval Air Warfare
Center.
After receiving
corrective eye surgery, Schultz immediately joined the Air Force and became a fghter pilot. He had more than
2,000 fight hours in a variety
of aircraft, including the F-15E Strike Eagle (which he few on 50 close air support missions over
Afghanistan) and Canadian CF-18 Hornet. Schultz was the 28th pilot to fy the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.
His
crash has led aviation watchers to ask: What aircraft was Schultza brilliant aerospace engineer and accomplished pilot
fying when his aircraft went down over Nevada? According to the Air Force, he was fying a training fight with an aircraft
the Air Force has stated, "information about the type of
assigned to Air Force Material Command. According to Military.com,
aircraft involved is classifed and not releasable." Asked this weekend about the
crash, Air Force Chief of Staf David Goldfein

said, "I can defnitely say it was not an F-35."
F-117A Stealth fghter.

Getty
There
are three prevailing theories. The frst is that the plane was a F-117A
stealth fghter. The F-117A was retired in 2008, with

aircraft placed in storage at the Tonopah Test Range in Nevada. In 2014, it emerged that
The
some of the planes were still fying.
stealth fghters are thought to be used as fying test beds for new
technologies that could make their way into future aircraft.

We've been
told, however, that the planes are fown only by Lockheed Martin pilotsa fact that, if true, rules out the F-117A.
second theory is that the crash involved a foreign aircraft, one of the
many Soviet-made Sukhoi and MiG fghters the Air Force

has accumulated over the years through trades, defections, and other typically under-the-table means. During the 1980s, the
U.S. Air Force's 4477th Test & Evaluation Squadron was responsible for this top-secret stable of aircraft under a classifed
program was fnally acknowledged in 2006. (Update: Aviation Week is now reporting
program known as Constant Peg. The
that Schultz was most likely piloting a foreign aircraft.)
RELATED STORY The 4477th squadron was disbanded in 1990, but the Detachment 3 of the 53rd Test Evaluation Group is
Crash believed to carry on the mission of evaluating foreign aircraft. There have been repeated sightings of
Over
Sukhoi Su-27 "Flanker" fghters over Nevada, with the latest sighting in January. Although the Su-27 is
Nevada
Reportedlyan older airplane, it is still similar to its descendants the Shenyang J-11, Su-30, and Su-35 "Flanker-E".
a Foreign
Aircraft

Su-27 Flanker, Soviet Union, 1989.

Getty
It's
also possible that the Air Force may have access to aircraft such as the Su-30, which was sold to countries such as India,
Indonesia, Malaysia, and Vietnam, many of which are friendly to the U.S. The Air Force would love to get its hands on more
modern Russian fghters, as the rise in air-to-air incidents between U.S. and Russian aircraft in the Baltics and over Syria
makes learning about them a priority.
The
third theory is there is a new, previously undisclosed "black" jet out there fying over Nevada. Highly classifed and
developed and built in total secrecy, the aircraft flls some valuable niche in the taxonomy of
warplanes. The SR-71 Blackbird

strategic reconnaissance aircraft and the F-117A stealth fghter are two examples of such aircraft. Both few for years before
being declassifed. A mysterious crash outside Bakersfeld, California
in 1986 stirred up widespread speculation in the
existence of a top-secret stealth fghter, which was fnally revealed by the Air Force in 1988.
If the black jet exists, what is it? It could be one of the mysterious, triangle-shaped aircraft allegedly spotted over Texas in
2014. The aircraft, which appeared similar to the B-2A Spirit stealth bomber, were declared B-2As by the Pentagon.
Still, there
were enough apparent diferences between the B-2A and the Texas aircraft for many to doubt the ofcial explanation.
Getty
If
it were a new plane, it could be a high-altitude precision strike aircraft. Air Force watchers were surprised by the F-117A's
retirement in 2008, believing that the aircraft still had years left in them and that retiring them would leave a hole in the
service's strike capability. That is, unless there was another, better plane waiting to take the F-117A's place. Could that be the
aircraft spotted over Texas in 2014? Does any of this have to do with last week's crash in Nevada?
For
now it's all speculation. It could be a long time before we fnd out the classifed details behind last week's crash and the
actual truth of the matter could turn out to be more mundane than any of the three theories. All we know is that the crash
occurred and that a brilliant pilot lost his life in secret service to his country, and that should be
enough for some real

refection.
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Did the Military Crash a Mystery Plane in the Nevada Desert?

SUBSCRIBE HOW-TO SHOP AWESOME PLANES REVIEWS THE VIDEO ISSUE

Did the Military Crash a Mystery Plane in the

Kyle Mizokami Sep 11, 2017 1.1k

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crash, Air Force Chief of Staf David Goldfein

F-117A Stealth fghter.

stealth fghter. The F-117A was retired in 2008, with

technologies that could make their way into future aircraft.

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many Soviet-made Sukhoi and MiG fghters the Air Force

that Schultz was most likely piloting a foreign aircraft.)

Su-27 Flanker, Soviet Union, 1989.

warplanes. The SR-71 Blackbird

enough for some real

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MILITARY MILITARY AVIATION F35 F117 STEALTH FIGHTER CF18 F15E

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