Two On Board, One Reported Dead

An Air Force T-38 Talon crashed at 1:15 p.m. May 21, about nine miles north of Edwards Air Force Base.

The Edwards aircraft was on a flight-test training mission at the time of the accident. Kern County fire spokesman Sean Collins reported that the T-38 went down about 1330 Thursday in the Mojave Desert.

Two crewmembers were on board; and according to local media reports, one person was dead at the scene and other airlifted to the hospital. The aircraft and its two-person crew were on a flight-test training mission at the time of the accident. The T-38 Talon has swept wings, a streamlined fuselage and tricycle landing gear with a steerable nose wheel. Two independent hydraulic systems power the ailerons, rudder and other flight control surfaces. Critical aircraft components are waist high and can be easily reached by maintenance crews.

The more recent T-38C incorporates a glass cockpit with integrated avionics displays, head-up display and an electronic "no drop bomb" scoring system. The AT-38B has a gun sight and practice bomb dispenser. The T-38 needs as little as 2,300 feet of runway to take off and can climb from sea level to nearly 30,000 feet in one minute. T-38s modified by the propulsion modernization program have approximately 19 percent more thrust, reducing takeoff distance by 9 percent. The instructor and student sit in tandem on rocket-powered ejection seats in a pressurized, air-conditioned cockpit

A board of officers will investigate the accident.

FMI: www.af.mil