In 1989, a Belgian Air Force Mechanic Stole an F-16 Fighter and Took It On a Tragic Joyride
The flight ended after two minutes
Belgium has pledged 30 surplus Lockheed Martin F-16 fighters to Ukraine, boosting to at least 85 the number of F-16s the Ukrainian air force eventually should operate. Those 30 jets are among the 60 upgraded F-16A/B Mid-Life Update fighters the Belgian air force retained following a 2003 reorganization and downsizing.
At its peak strength in the late 1980s, the Belgian air force flew an impressive 160 F-16s. Well, 159, once you subtract the one F-16 that an airman stole, then crashed, in a bizarre 1989 incident.
On Sept. 5, 1989, a 28-year-old Belgian air force mechanic climbed into F-16A 87-0049—then less than a year old in Belgian service—at Orland air base in Norway during a NATO exercise.
Incredibly, the enlisted airman—who apparently had no formal pilot-training—managed to take off. He kept the F-16 airborne for just over two minutes. The multi-million-dollar fighter crashed into an unoccupied barn in the village of Brekstad.
“Rescue helicopters found no sign that the Belgian mechanic had ejected,” The Los Angeles Times reported, “but search crews found no trace of him at the crash site.”
As bizarre as the incident was, it wasn’t a one-off. There have been several cases of military ground crew stealing unattended warplanes and taking them for joyrides. On July 4, 1986, U.S. Marine Corps lance corporal Howard Foot, Jr., 21, nabbed a Douglass A-4 attack jet at El Toro Marine Corps Air Station in California and flew aerobatics for 45 minutes before safely landing.
Foot was detained and discharged from the Corps, but received no prison time—and there are clues as to why. Reportedly egged on by retired Marine general William Bloomer, Foote recently had suffered an embolism during a failed attempt to set a glider altitude record.
The injury prevented him from going to officer candidate school and pursuing his dream of becoming a Marine aviator. So he skipped the school, the commission and the flight-training and just … stole that A-4.
The Corps was chagrined—and impressed. A USMC spokesperson described Foote as having a “tremendous amount of skill and great potential.”
Skill and potential that Belgian fighter-thief apparently lacked.
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