“F-5 Crashes Due to Tiny Hole”… Controversy Over Maintenance Negligence

[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Yang Nak-gyu, Military Specialist Reporter] It has been confirmed that the F-5E fighter jet that crashed last January fell due to a 'tiny hole' in the fuel pipe. Criticism is being raised that maintenance on the aging fighter jet, which had exceeded its service life, was neglected.

On the 3rd, the Air Force announced that after investigating the wreckage of the F-5E that crashed into a hill in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi Province on January 11, two holes the size of a "hair's thickness" were found in the right engine's fuel pipe, and fuel leakage through these gaps was confirmed.

However, since routine maintenance before takeoff is conducted only by visual inspection, the holes inside the fuel pipe were not detected. Ultimately, the fighter jet's engine fire warning light went off 54 seconds after takeoff, and the cable operating the horizontal tail wing, which controls the aircraft's pitch maneuvering, was found to be damaged.

At that time, the pitch control became 'unresponsive,' and the aircraft crashed into the hill after 2 minutes and 24 seconds. It is known that no additional maintenance was performed over the past four years as the flight hours had not yet reached the 600-hour maintenance replacement interval.

The Air Force explained that inspections were properly conducted according to the manual, but considering that the F-5E model has been in operation since 1986 and is an aging model, there are criticisms that the maintenance was excessively lax.

All F-5 aircraft will undergo safety status inspections and special checks on the fuel pipes. An Air Force official said, "This is the first case of a hole in the F-5E fuel pipe," adding, "Since there have been no such accidents before, we plan to supplement the inspection methods this time."

The late Major Shim Jeong-min, the pilot flying the fighter jet at the time, knew about the defect and turned back to the Suwon base, but when pitch control failed, he shouted 'ejection' twice to initiate emergency escape. However, he soon spotted a civilian area directly ahead and abandoned the emergency escape to avoid it.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.