Armed Forces International recently reported on the return to flight of the United States Air Force F-15 combat jets, after a temporary grounding was imposed in the wake of a crash on November 2^nd 2007.

It has now been announced that a large proportion of the fleet has again been banned from taking to the skies, not quite a week after the grounding’s lift. The new measure does not apply to the F-15E Strike Eagle variants. However, it does refer to F-15s from A-D model – 442 aircraft all told.

According to Air Combat Command spokesman Major Thomas Crosson, the renewed grounding was ordered on the 27^th November.

New F-15 Grounding Based on Structural Concerns

The new measure, he added, is related to cracks in the longerons – the metal beams running the length of the F-15’s fuselage.

All F-15s were prohibited from flying under the terms of the original ruling, save operations deemed mission-critical. On November 19^th, however, the ruling was de-imposed and a programme of individual airframe inspections brought in, prior to the aircraft being declared safe to fly.

ACC’s new call comes after metallurgical investigations indicated potential cracking issues with the longerons.

Officials Compiling Document for F-15 Maintenance Workers

Officials are presently putting together an inspection document intended to be distributed across the USAF’s F-15 maintenance workforce. The completion of this list, said Mr Crosson, should occur imminently, but he could not advise on the duration of this latest grounding.

An official statement issued by the USAF confirmed that “All 442 F-15 A through D models in the Air Force inventory were regrounded this week after inspectors looking at the November 2 crash of an F-15C found possible fleet-wide airworthiness problems”.

Source – Armed Forces International’s Aviation Expert

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