Tanks Broke Apart and Landed Near Spangdahlem Air Base

An F-16 Fighting Falcon from the 52nd Fighter Wing was forced to unload two empty fuel tanks during an in-flight emergency on September 19. The tanks landed and broke apart around 7 miles southwest of Spangdahlem Air Base.

One of the wing’s F-16 fighters experienced an unknown engine malfunction and declared an in-flight emergency on September 19. In an effort to reduce weight, the pilot chose to unload two empty fuel tanks around 5:24 pm local time. The tanks hit the ground and shattered across a dense forest approximately 7 miles southwest of the base, near Kyll River.

Following the incident, a team of base officials opened a search area to locate the tanks. However, since the sun had already set, they decided to postpone the search to Friday.

On September 20, the base dispatched 50 of their first responders and other German officials to recover the two dropped tanks. U.S. and German law enforcement shut down areas of the Eifelkreis Bitburg Prüm and Trier-Saarburg districts for their search. They discovered pieces of the tank scattered around the woods.

No injuries were reported on the ground, and the F-16 fighter was able to return to the base for a safe landing.

The 52nd Fighter Wing, based at the Spangdahlem Air Base in Germany, is comprised of nearly 5,000 civilian and military personnel. It is distributed across nine units and thirteen sites in five different countries. The wing owns and operates a fleet of F-16 fighters and $6 billion worth of US Protection Level 1 assets.

Their main mission is to support the Supreme Allied Commander by “providing credible deterrence, delivering combat capabilities, executing joint reception, staging, onward movement, and integration, facilitating inter-theater airlift, and building partnership capacity.”

Spangdahlem Air Base supports NATO and United States Air Force operations.

FMI: www.spangdahlem.af.mil