Two US Navy jet trainers collide in mid-air

BREAKING NEWS

Details are still scarce, but news is coming in of a mid-air collision involving two U.S. Navy T-45 Goshawk jet trainers, near Ricardo, Texas, around nine miles south of their base at Naval Air Station Kingsville. The jets collided at around 11:00 AM Central Time. While one of the jets managed to recover to the base, the other crashed after the instructor and student pilot had safely ejected.

The Navy confirmed that one pilot was taken to CHRISTUS Spohn Hospital Kleberg for minor injuries and that the incident is currently under investigation. The two Goshawks involved in the mishap were from Training Squadron 22 (VT-22), the “Golden Eagles,” part of Training Air Wing Two. The squadron prepares naval aviators for both the Navy and Marine Corps, after which they transition to F/A-18 Hornet and F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, EA-18G Growler, AV-8B Harrier II, E-2 Hawkeye, and C-2A Greyhound communities. According to the squadron, its instructor pilots average 10 training flights per week as part of a syllabus that includes air combat maneuvering, air-to-ground employment, and carrier qualification. The syllabus consists of 131 sorties covering 162.1 hours in the T-45.

The T-45C is the training jet that new pilots use in flight school, before they being training on the aircraft type that they’ll fly in the fleet. Students conduct training in a simulator and in live flights alongside an instructor pilot. Training Squadron 22 flies out of Naval Air Station Kingsville, Texas. Ricardo, where the crash took place, is about a 10-minute drive south of the air station.

The last fatal T-45 incident occurred in October 2017, when pilot Lt. Patrick Lawrence Ruth and student aviator Lt. j.g. Wallace Eugene Burch crashed near Tellico Plains, Tenn. The Navy investigated the incident and found that aggressive and unsafe behaviors, including thrill-seeking maneuvers at low altitudes, were the cause of the crash.