Irregularities in A-10 Crash Near Phoenix

From: campbell@ufomind.com (Glenn Campbell, Las Vegas)
Date: Sun, 6 Apr 1997 16:13:40 -0800
Subject: Irregularities in A-10 Crash Near Phoenix

From: [withheld by request]
Date: Sat, 5 Apr 1997 21:50:00
Subject: Missing Aircraft Wierdness

On Wednesday, April 2nd, Davis-Monthan AFB in southern Arizona
reported that one of its A-10 aircraft went down on a training
mission, somewhere near Roosevelt Lake and the Superstition mountains
in Arizona. DM AFB said that the plane was part of a flight of three
and left its companions, last being sighted near the lake and
Mountains.

The mission was to the Goldwater gunnery range in south-central
Ariona, near Gila Bend. (Note that the Roosevelt lake is far northeast
of Gila Bend, which is a tad odd, but there are military flight paths
that more or less circle most of Arizona to simulate long missions.)

The weather was bad, but search-and-rescure units were launched.
(However, based on listening to the S&R units on the scanner, they
were behaving--uh, differently--than they normally do, with far fewer
units and much less civilian participation than normal. S&R has
continued since Wednesday, but weather has remained pretty bad.)

It came out on Friday that the A-10 had four 500lbs bombs on board.

On Saturday, it was released that a 10-11 year old kid in Young,
Arizona, who was a aircraft fanatic heard a plane fly over around noon
Wednesday and positively ID'ed it as a A-10, due to the unmistakable
twin rear engines. The military checked its radar tapes an found an
unidentified radar track that matched the child's observation;
additionally, the observation was completely consistent with the
location and speed of the aircraft if it had continued to fly instead
of crashing.

That track lead into southwestern Colorado before the craft
disappeared from radar.

Commentary: Ordinarily, search-and-rescue teams find military aircraft
that crash in these parts within a few hours, and there's
participation of ALL the local news helicopters (sort of a contest to
see who'll get footage first.) The newsies didn't get involved until
very late on this one, and even then, it's been a remarkably limited
participation.

Also, the local media are really, really confused on this one;
normally, a disappeared plane story is just a small item, but it's
been increasing in coverage each day. The story the media has gotten
from the AFB gets new information with each telling; even though the
AFB knew that the plane was armed, it took to days to convey this.

The TV news anchors themselves are openly commenting that the missing
plane story is "bizarre." One channel has already started to speculate
that the plane might have been stolen.

(No one has yet tried to make the connection to the OK city trial in
Colorado yet, however, or the rumors of a mysterious low-flying
aircraft that were reported there in late July and early August flying
over the route that is used when taking the defendants to hearings.)