No injuries after F-16 jettisons bombs during emergency landing at Utah’s Hill Air Force Base

F-16 jettisons bombs at Hill AFB; no injuries

HILL AIR FORCE BASE, Utah — An F-16 pilot jettisoned two 500-pound bombs and two fuel tanks before making an emergency landing at Hill Air Force Base on Thursday, officials said.

No injuries were reported after the incident at the base about 30 miles north of Salt Lake City. Col. Scott J. Zobrist said it appeared one bomb detonated and destroyed an empty tin shack on base in an uninhabited area.

Hill spokesman Rick Essary said Thursday night that explosive ordnance experts at the base were assessing the best method to recover a second bomb that did not explode.

Zobrist said both fuel tanks, weighing about 300 gallons each, were accounted for and the pilot was able to land safely when his fighter jet had trouble after taking off Thursday afternoon.

Zobrist said the F-16 pilot was experienced and followed proper procedures, “which involve jettisoning the stores in order for him to reduce … his gross weight so he can land safely on the base.”

Zobrist said it was unclear what went wrong with the jet.

Power to parts of the base was knocked out. Zobrist said the tin shack flattened by the bomb was near a transformer and power lines, leading to the outage.

A stretch of Interstate 15 near the base was briefly shut down in both directions. But Zobrist said that the incident was contained to the base.

In December 2008 an F-16 pilot jettisoned two fuel tanks over the Great Salt Lake. The pilot dropped the tanks onto a mud flat north of Antelope Island after the plane’s sensors indicated a fire shortly after takeoff. The pilot landed safely.

The 18-foot-long tanks were each capable of carrying 370 gallons of fuel. They were about two-thirds full when they were dropped, Hill Air Force Base officials said at the time.