{"id":16405,"date":"2012-02-21T00:30:02","date_gmt":"2012-02-21T03:30:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/?p=16405"},"modified":"2012-02-21T22:01:31","modified_gmt":"2012-02-22T01:01:31","slug":"ots-rotc-usafa-grads-airman-killed-in-african-u-28-crash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/2012\/02\/21\/ots-rotc-usafa-grads-airman-killed-in-african-u-28-crash\/","title":{"rendered":"OTS, ROTC, USAFA Grads, Airman Killed in African U-28 Crash"},"content":{"rendered":"

Update<\/strong><\/em><\/span>: The military has said enemy action was not involved<\/a> in the U-28 crash.<\/p>\n

\n

A U-28A<\/a> — an AFSOC version of the Pilatus PC-12 — went down over the weekend<\/a> during a mission from Camp Lemonnier, Djibouti (in the horn of Africa, for those unfamiliar).\u00a0 All four aircrew were killed.\u00a0 The least amount of deployments among the crew was 3 (in 5 years).<\/p>\n

Of the three officers, one was from ROTC, one from OTS, and one was a 2009 USAFA graduate.\u00a0 That represents all 3 possible commissioning sources in the Air Force in one loss.\u00a0 While there are often good-natured rivalries among OTS, ROTC, and USAFA, risk and sacrifice know no bias<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Captain Ryan Hall…was a U-28A pilot on his seventh deployment. He entered the Air Force in 2004, receiving his commission through [ROTC] at The Citadel.<\/p>\n

Captain Nicholas Whitlock…was also a U-28A pilot and was on his fifth deployment. He entered the Air Force in 2006, receiving his commission through [OTS].<\/p>\n

Lieutenant Justin Wilkens…was a combat systems officer on his third deployment. He entered the Air Force in 2009, receiving his commission through the Air Force Academy.<\/p>\n

Airman Julian Scholten…was a mission systems operator [who] enlisted in the Air Force in 2007 [and] was on his third deployment.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

While an Air Force Special Operations Command U-28 isn’t normally the first choice of fighter pilot wannabes, it became a fairly common airframe in just the past few years — and not always voluntarily.\u00a0 However, as with all AFSOC aircraft and aircrew, the U-28A and their crews are among the hardest working in the Air Force.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Update: The military has said enemy action was not involved in the U-28 crash. A U-28A — an AFSOC version of the Pilatus PC-12 — went down over the weekend during a mission from Camp Lemonnier, Djibouti (in the horn of Africa, for those unfamiliar).\u00a0 All four aircrew were killed.\u00a0 The least amount of deployments among the crew was 3 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[2038,134,13,2468,2944,2709,2954,2953,2,2952,2943,767,2951,2942,65],"class_list":["post-16405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fighter-pilot","tag-africa","tag-air-force","tag-aircraft","tag-camp-lemonnier","tag-citadel","tag-djibouti","tag-julian-scholten","tag-justin-wilkens","tag-military","tag-nicholas-whitlock","tag-ots","tag-rotc","tag-ryan-hall","tag-u-28","tag-usafa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16405","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16405"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16405\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}