Finnish Air Force F-18/A Hornet at an airshow. Source: Flightline UK
Hornet crashes in Rovaniemi, eyewitness: “I didn’t see any fire, but I saw black, terrible smoke”.
Several rescue units arrived at Lentokentäntie. According to the eyewitness, the fighter jet smoked heavily before the accident. Then it turned on its back and started to land heavily.
The Boeing F/A-18 C/D Hornet the main fighter type of the Finnish Air Force since 1992.
The main fighter type of the Finnish Air Force is the American Boeing (formerly McDonnell-Douglas) F-18 Hornet Multirole Fighter. The aircraft was designed in the 1980’s originally for the U.S. Naval Air Force. In 1992 the Hornet was chosen to replace the Swedish Saab 35 Drakens and Soviet MiG 21 bis fighters of the Finnish Air Force. The Hornet won the bidding contest against Swedish, French and American competitors. The Finnish Patria Ltd. has constructed most of the F-18 Hornets used in Finland.
The fleet of the Finnish Air Force consists nowadays of 62 Hornets, 55 single-seat C-variants and seven two-seat D-variants. The aircraft are to be replaced in the 2020’s.
Eyewitness Mika Lehtiniemi tells how he saw the Hornet first flied strangely and then descended rapidly towards the ground. He did not see that the pilot had time to bail out.
A Finnish Air Force Hornet fighter jet crashed in Rovaniemi on Wednesday morning, May 7. The accident occurred in a military area, near Rovaniemi Airport.
According to the Air Force, the pilot escaped in an ejection seat. The pilot was sent to the hospital for further examination. There are no other injuries associated with the accident.
The runway, in the background a rescue service emergency vehicle and scrap metal on the ground. The image presumably shows parts of the destroyed Hornet and a parachute. The image was taken from the airport towards the runway. Source: Yle, Elina Ervasti
The Air Force said at a press conference held this afternoon that the crashed Hornet was practicing a demonstration flight. Demonstration flights are performed by extremely few, experienced pilots in the Air Force.
The Leka 25 flight exercise in Finnish) is currently underway in Rovaniemi. Hawk aircraft are also being flown in the exercise. There is no information yet whether the Hornet accident was related to the flight exercise.
The accident occurred in a military area north of the center of Rovaniemi, near Rovaniemi Airport. Source: Yle, Ruuti Kotkanoja. Mapcreator, Open street map
Mika Lehtiniemi from Rovaniemi saw the fighter jet crash while he was driving along the Suutarinkorva bridge. Lehtiniemi was caught by a plane that was flying exceptionally low over the residential area of Syväsenvaara.
“The plane rose up very strongly and turned over as if on its back. Then a few seconds passed and I saw a cloud of black smoke. I didn’t see fire, but I saw terrible black smoke.”
Lehtiniemi didn’t see the ejection seat in the air before the plane disappeared below the tree line. He was greatly relieved when he heard that the pilot had managed to use the ejection seat.
On the left side of the image, there is possibly a parachute and an ejection seat. Source: Yle, Elina Ervasti
Lehtiniemi estimates that everything he saw lasted no more than ten seconds.
“The plane initially attracted attention precisely because it was flying right over a settlement. First of all, it was in the wrong place, where they don’t usually fly, and it was really, really low.”
Lehtiniemi did not see any other planes in the air at the time of the accident.
Parts of a possibly destroyed Hornet on the ground. Source: Yle, Elina Ervasti
Police Cordoned Off the Accident Site
The rescue service received an alert about a major air traffic accident on Rovaniemi’s Lentokentäntie at around 10:50. Several rescue service units were sent to the scene.
According to Lapland Police Department Criminal Commissioner Jouni Koivunen, the police cordoned off the accident site to secure rescue operations.
According to the Lapland Police Department, an accident investigation has been launched. The Air Force has primary responsibility for the accident investigation, as it involves military aviation. The police are assisting by conducting a technical investigation at the scene.
Yle was unable to film the accident site because the fighter jet fell in an area where F-35 infrastructure is being built.
The accident had no impact on civilian air traffic. The police restricted traffic to the airport during the day, and only those who had already boarded a flight were allowed to drive to the airport.
Yle journalists were on duty near the area when they noticed a lot of smoke in the area near the airport at around 11 am. Ten minutes later, the smoke had already cleared slightly. Source: Yle, Juuso Stoor
Defense Ministers’ Event Cancelled
A Nordic defense ministers’ meeting is also underway in Rovaniemi. The meeting is hosted by Defense Minister Antti Häkkänen.
The Nordic defense ministers were supposed to observe conscript training in Rovaniemi as part of their visit that began yesterday. However, the event was canceled due to the accident.
The Plane Crashed 15 Years After F-18 “Frankenhornet” Crash
The last time a Hornet fighter crashed in Finland was in Juupajoki in January 2010 (read more).
Nicknamed the “Frankenhornet”, the plane had returned to flight status on 3 December 2009, following the completion of a roughly 100,000h programme to bring it back to operational use (read more).
Source:
- Aviation Museum
- Yle (in Finnish)