Pilot considered ejecting from plane in Tuskegee Air Show

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OSHKOSH - The Air Force said today that a fighter pilot suffered from vertigo as his cockpit fogged up during an air show at the EAA gathering in Oshkosh last July.

An investigative report said the pilot thought about ejecting after he lost visibility but he decided to land the aircraft because he was worried that hundreds of spectators might get hurt. The F16C Falcon plane did land safely with no injuries but it left the runway and veered 300 feet into the grass infield. That caused over $5 dollars in damage to the aircraft, but there was minimal damage to Wittman Airport at Oshkosh.

The pilot was from the Alabama Air National Guard but he was not named in the report. It said the fog in the cockpit was caused by a problem with the plane’s environmental control system – and the pilot could not see the end of the runway approaching. He apparently tried to defog the plane, but couldn’t. Had he seen the instrument references, the Air Force said the pilot would have stopped the plane well ahead of the end of the runway. Instead, the nose wheel broke when it hit the soft infield. The jet was from the 187th Fighter Wing at Dannelly Field in Alabama. It was part of the Tuskegee Airman show at last year’s EAA and investigators said the craft was properly maintained.

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