Crews searched Wednesday for the pilot of a Madison-based F-16 Fighting Falcon jet that crashed Tuesday night in the wilderness of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula during a scheduled training exercise.
It was not known if the pilot, with the Wisconsin Air National Guard’s 115th Fighter Wing at Truax Field, ejected from the aircraft just prior to it crashing about 15 miles northwest of Manistique, Michigan, and 250 miles from Madison at around 8 p.m.
Jet Crash Map
“The status of the pilot is still unknown,” Capt. Leslie Westmont, of the state Department of Military Affairs, told the State Journal on Wednesday.
Westmont said the 115th Fighter Wing participated in a coordinated search effort with local emergency responders, the U.S. Coast Guard and other government agencies shortly after the crash and through Wednesday on the ground, in the air and in the water. The crash site, located in Delta County, Michigan, was initially secured by local emergency responders, but “military personnel and safety and security personnel from the 115th Fighter Wing are now on site,” Westmont said.
Additional personnel were scheduled to be sent to the area to help facilitate the safety and security of the crash site, which Delta County Sheriff Ed Oswald said is in the county’s northeastern corner in a rural area within Hiawatha National Forest. Oswald said the area is “very remote with no cellphone service.”
The closest community to the crash site is the small village of Steuben, in adjacent Schoolcraft County, Oswald said.
The search also included the Civil Air Patrol and, according to reports, a specially equipped Air Force KC-135.
“We are a close knit family and when an incident like this occurs, every member in our organization feels it,” said Col. Bart Van Roo, commander of the 115th Fighter Wing. “The safety of our pilot along with search and rescue efforts are our top priority, and we will continue to pray for the pilot’s safe return.”
Officials have not said if they know what caused the aircraft to crash. The temperature in the area of the crash was in the mid-40s Wednesday with an expected low of 29 degrees by early Thursday morning.
Alice Sabuco lives on the north side of Mahskeekee Lake in a heavily wooded but flat area of the Hiawatha National Forest north of Highway 2 and about 15 miles northwest of Manistique, Michigan. Sabuco said Michigan State Police, the Department of Natural Resources and other search crews were in the area Wednesday morning along with heavy equipment and may have been headed toward Stevens Lake, about five miles to the north. She also spotted a U.S. Coast Guard helicopter flying overhead “doing an almost grid search.”
Sabuco said it’s common for fighter jets to fly overhead but she and her husband did not hear a crash Tuesday evening. However, two neighbors across the lake said they heard a “big boom and rumble,” she said.
Search continues for pilot of Madison-based F-16 jet that crashed in Michigan's Upper Peninsula
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