On the morning of March 6, a contractor-owned Kfir fighter jet missed the runway at Naval Air Station Fallon in Nevada. “The airplane struck the ground in an open field in the northwest corner of the airport property and impacted a concrete building on the field,” the National Transportation Safety
Boardreported. A photo from the scene showed the Israeli-made jet’s nose buried in the structure’s side and scorch marks on the walls.The pilot, 51-year-old Carroll LeFon, died — apparently on impact. In an instant the world lost an experienced warrior and an eerily prescient writer. The NTSB described the conditions at the time of LeFon’s death as “snowing with northerly winds of 23 knots gusting to 34 knots, and visibility between one-half and one and one-half miles.” That’s strong enough to qualify as “gale-force.”
In a long, eloquent blog post in early December, he described in foreboding detail the unique dangers of flying from Naval Air Station Fallon. Dust kicked up by “howling winds … seemed to concentrate on Naval Air Station Fallon like it had nowhere else to go,” he observed. After a morning of simulated dogfights, LeFon found the Fallon runway choked with dust. He diverted to the nearby Reno airport with a dwindling supply of fuel. “You do get second chances,” he mused.
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