{"id":30371,"date":"2014-11-10T00:30:18","date_gmt":"2014-11-10T03:30:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/?p=30371"},"modified":"2016-11-25T01:06:04","modified_gmt":"2016-11-25T04:06:04","slug":"f-16-crashes-in-gulf-pilot-killed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/2014\/11\/10\/f-16-crashes-in-gulf-pilot-killed\/","title":{"rendered":"F-16 Crashes in Gulf, Pilot Killed"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>An F-16 pilot from Tyndall AFB was killed last Thursday morning when his <a href=\"http:\/\/www.af.mil\/News\/ArticleDisplay\/tabid\/223\/Article\/553989\/tyndall-afb-pilot-found-recovered.aspx\">jet crashed<\/a> into the Gulf of Mexico.<\/p>\n<p>The pilot was <a href=\"http:\/\/www.airforcetimes.com\/story\/military\/pentagon\/2014\/11\/07\/pilot-f-16-crashed-identified\/18674823\/\">civilian Matthew LaCourse<\/a>, a retired USAF Lieutenant Colonel and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/pub\/matt-lacourse\/76\/250\/368\">1978<\/a> US Air Force Academy graduate. LaCourse was a part of the 82nd Aerial Targets Squadron, which is the unit fielding the pilotless QF-16s as full-scale drones.\u00a0 He had previously topped <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tyndall.af.mil\/news\/story.asp?id=123321627\">2,000 hours in the F-4\/QF-4<\/a>, which preceded the QF-16.<\/p>\n<p>As with all mishaps, <!--more-->the Air Force will investigate and report on the incident.<\/p>\n<p>LaCourse&#8217;s death serves as a regrettable reminder of the danger of the pilot profession.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: xx-small;\">Also at the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.stripes.com\/news\/air-force\/retired-air-force-officer-identified-as-pilot-killed-in-f-16-crash-1.313086\">Stars and Stripes<\/a>\u00a0(and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.stripes.com\/news\/us\/body-of-f-16-pilot-from-tyndall-afb-recovered-in-gulf-of-mexico-1.312716\">previous<\/a>\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.stripes.com\/news\/us\/body-of-f-16-pilot-from-tyndall-afb-recovered-in-gulf-of-mexico-1.312716\">reports<\/a>), <a href=\"http:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/us\/2014\/11\/07\/air-force-pilot-remains-recovered-in-gulf\/\">FoxNews<\/a>\u00a0(<a href=\"http:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/us\/2014\/11\/06\/air-force-believes-f-16-fighter-jet-crashed-in-gulf-mexico\/\">previous<\/a>), and the <a href=\"http:\/\/archive.militarytimes.com\/article\/20141106\/NEWS\/311060057\">Air Force Times<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"fb-like\" data-share=\"true\" data-show-faces=\"true\" data-size=\"small\" data-action=\"like\" data-layout=\"standard\"><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: xx-small;\"><strong>ADVERTISEMENT<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js\"><\/script><!-- blogpost --><ins class=\"adsbygoogle\" style=\"display: block;\" data-ad-format=\"auto\" data-ad-slot=\"2728423835\" data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-6450825356098669\"><\/ins><script>\n(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});<\/script><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An F-16 pilot from Tyndall AFB was killed last Thursday morning when his jet crashed into the Gulf of Mexico. The pilot was civilian Matthew LaCourse, a retired USAF Lieutenant Colonel and 1978 US Air Force Academy graduate. LaCourse was a part of the 82nd Aerial Targets Squadron, which is the unit fielding the pilotless QF-16s as full-scale drones.\u00a0 He [&#8230;]<\/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":[134,186,5285,4943,2,281,4886,65],"class_list":["post-30371","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fighter-pilot","tag-air-force","tag-f-16","tag-fighter-pilot","tag-matthew-lacourse","tag-military","tag-qf-16","tag-tyndall-afb","tag-usafa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30371","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=30371"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30371\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}