A U.S. Air Force F-22 Raptor assigned to the 90th Fighter Squadron takes off from Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska, April 7, 2024, for Agile Reaper 24-1. (Senior Airman Patrick Sullivan/Air Force)
This story was updated May 6 at 6:01 p.m. EST with details about the squadron the aircraft is assigned to and a comment from the leader of the Air Dominance Center.
The Air Force is investigating the cause of a mishap involving an F-22 Raptor during an Air National Guard fighter exercise Monday.
The pilot was not injured in the mishap, which occurred around 11:30 a.m. local time at Savannah/Hilton Head International Airport in Georgia, according to the 165th Airlift Wing, which hosts Savannah Sentry, a counterair exercise for fourth- and fifth-generation fighter jets from across the Air National Guard.
The aircraft is assigned to the 71st Fighter Squadron at Joint Base Langley-Eustis, Virginia. Additional details about the incident and the status of the aircraft’s damage was not available Monday evening.
“Thank you to all the first responders who arrived on scene,” Col. Stephen Thomas, commander of the Air Dominance Center at Savannah Air National Guard Base, Georgia, said in a statement. “Sentry Savannah is all about showcasing readiness and today’s mishap affirmed our airmen’s ability to respond at a moment’s notice.”
Sentry Savannah will continue as scheduled, with no impacts to future flying operations, the 165th Airlift Wing said.
The mishap is the second to occur in the last week. On April 30, an F-16 Fighting Falcon assigned to the 49th Wing crashed outside of Holloman Air Force Base, New Mexico. The pilot in that crash received minor injuries and was treated and released from a medical facility the same day.
Designed to take down other aircraft, the Raptor is a single-seat supersonic fighter that joined the service in 2005. It relies on stealth technology, sophisticated maneuvers can carry as many as eight short- and medium-range air-to-air missiles.
The F-22 Raptor fighter led manned aircraft in the Air Force’s most serious noncombat mishaps at nine accidents in fiscal year 2023, according to an analysis of Air Force Safety Center data obtained by Air Force Times. Six of those incidents involved flight operations, including a bird strike that forced an emergency landing and other mishaps that bent blades on an engine and other engine troubles. Another three incidents included mishaps during maintenance, including two while the aircraft were being towed.
Class B incidents involved between $600,000 and $2.5 million in damages, a permanent partial disability, inpatient hospitalization of three or more personnel, or a combination of those factors.
On average, 3 1/2 F-22s have been involved in Class B incidents annually during the past decade, according the latest available data compiled by the Air Force Safety Center in 2021.
The service owns a total 185 Raptors, an inventory it has proposed reducing to 153 in its fiscal year 2025 budget proposal.
Courtney Mabeus-Brown is the senior reporter at Air Force Times. She is an award-winning journalist who previously covered the military for Navy Times and The Virginian-Pilot in Norfolk, Va., where she first set foot on an aircraft carrier. Her work has also appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Foreign Policy and more.
