STEUBEN, Mich.— Search and rescue crews moved heavy equipment toward Stevens Lake, about five miles to the north of this Upper Peninsula village, according to Alice Sabuco, who lives on the north side of Mahskeekee Lake. Sabuco didn’t see the crash but was aware of lots of aerial activity. “It was about 8 p.m. and all of a sudden all of these jets just started going over maybe 20, 25 times, over our place and the woods right behind us,” Sabuco told the State Journal newspaper in Madison, Wisconsin, home base for the missing plane. “I hope the pilot made it,” she said. “If he ejected behind us, there’s tons of small and large lakes. If you came down with a parachute in all these trees you could be stuck in a 100-foot tree.” Sabuco said a U.S. Coast Guard helicopter has been flying overhead in a grid search. The remote area is commonly used for Air Guard training. Sabuco didn’t hear the crash but said two neighbors across the lake heard a “big boom and rumble.”
Earlier: Did Wisconsin Air Guard pilot eject?
F16’s recent troubles
The accident marks the third F16 crash this year. In June a pilot was killed at Shaw Air Force Base in South Carolina. Another pilot was injured in a July at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico when he ejected before his aircraft crashed. The U.S. military has had more than 6,000 military aviation since 2013 with 224 pilot or aircrew deaths.