WASHINGTON — Air Force inspectors have discovered major structural flaws in eight older-model F-15 fighters, sparking a new round of examinations that could ground all of the older jets into January or beyond, senior Air Force and defense officials said.
The Air Force’s 442 F-15A through F-15D planes, the mainstay of the nation’s air-to-air combat force for 30 years, have been grounded since November, shortly after one of the planes broke into chunks and crashed in Missouri. Since then, Air Force officials have found cracks in the main support beams behind the cockpits of eight other F-15s, and they fear that similar problems could exist in others.
Air Force officials said that the grounding of the F-15 fleet is the longest that U.S. fighter jets have ever been kept out of the air. The F-15A-Ds, on average 25 years old, are responsible for defending the United States, including flying combat air patrol missions over Washington, a job now filled by F-16s.
“This is going to be a major problem, and it’s going to be a difficult one to recover from,” said retired Air Force Gen. Dick Hawley, who led the Air Force’s Air Combat Command from 1996 to 1999.
