A US Air force pilot from the 8th Fighter Wing was injured while landing an F-16 fighter jet at the American air base in the South Korean city of Kunsan, on the west coast of the country, according to Yonhap News Agency, citing South Korean military sources.
The accident occurred at approximately 3:30 p.m., South Korean local time (GMT+9), as the pilot tried to eject from the aircraft while it was approaching the runway at the airbase, located inside the city’s airport.
Reasons that led the US pilot, who suffered minor injuries and was taken to the hospital, to jettison and the condition of the F-16 at the moment are not known.
Although there was no crash or explosion reported at the air base, the commander of the 8th Fighter Wing reportedly stopped all military and civilian flight operations at Gunsan. Investigations into the incident are ongoing.
Incidents related to the General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon aircraft have taken place several times for the past months. On 7 November, a US F-16 dropped a dummy bomb during a training flight in Japan's northern Aomori prefecture. There were no injuries.
In a more serious incident, an F-16 assigned to the 49th Wing out of Holloman Air Force Base in the US crashed during a training flight on 29 October. No injuries were reported.
Another F-16 crash took place at the beginning of October, in which a pilot ejected safely before their aircraft crashed near the Spangdahlem airbase in Germany.
One of the most prominent accidents of the warplane in modern times was reported in January 2015, when an F-16 fighter of Greece's Hellenic Air Force crashed into the flight line at Los Llanos Air Base in Albacete, Spain, killing 11 and injuring 21.
