Cause of Last Year's Crash Revealed Through USFK 7th Air Force Website
The F-16 fighter jet crash involving the US Forces Korea last December was confirmed to have occurred due to a failure in the Global Positioning System (GPS) Inertial Navigation System (EGI).
On the 27th, the US 7th Air Force in Korea announced on its website that the cause of the F-16 fighter jet crash, which took off from Gunsan Air Base on December 11 last year and crashed into the West Sea, was "due to the failure of the aircraft's built-in GPS Inertial Navigation System, resulting in the loss of major flight and navigation equipment." The 7th Air Force explained, "The pilot had to rely on flight instruments to control the aircraft in severe weather conditions at the time," adding, "If the GPS Inertial Navigation System had not failed, this accident could have been prevented."
They further stated, "Within 13 minutes after takeoff, while passing through dense clouds, the failure of major flight and navigation equipment forced reliance solely on the emergency attitude indicator. However, this instrument provided information conflicting with other instruments, causing the pilot to lose spatial orientation, which was also a cause of the accident."
The pilot, losing directional sense while descending to exit the dense clouds, ejected at approximately 530 meters altitude, and the fighter jet crashed into the West Sea. There were no casualties from this accident, but the fighter jet was completely destroyed.
The 7th Air Force disclosed these investigation results on their website the day before but did not inform the media separately. US Forces Korea's F-16 fighter jets have crashed three times during flight training over about eight months from May last year to January this year. On May 6 last year, one crashed near farmland in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province, and on January 31 this year, another fell into the sea off Seosan, Chungnam Province.
The 7th Air Force previously announced on May 17 this year, through a press release, that the May last year crash was caused by a partial power failure within the aircraft and weather conditions.
The 7th Air Force stated, "The investigation into the F-16 accident that occurred in January 2024 is currently ongoing," and "The investigation results will be announced immediately once they can be made public." The F-16 is a fighter jet developed in the 1970s and was first deployed to US Forces Korea in 1981.
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