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The US Department of Defense has posted a video showing major damage at Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida. The base was hit directly by Hurricane Michael, causing damage that a manager called "catastrophic". (October 14)
AP
An aircraft hangar at Tyndall Air Force Base is damaged by Hurricane Michael in Panama City, Florida on Thursday, October 11, 2018. The devastation inflicted by Hurricane Michael appeared on Thursday with Rows on rows of destroyed homes Rescue teams have begun to make their way through the disaster areas in hopes of counting hundreds of people left behind.(Photo: David Goldman, AP)
PENSACOLA, FL – While Florida's Political Leaders The Trump administration on Tuesday urged the priority government to rebuild Tyndall Air Force Base, which was damaged by a hurricane. The fate of billions of dollars of stealth fighters at the base remains unknown.
Experts said 22 of the F-22 Raptors, which would cost about $ 330 million each, could have been left in sheds when Hurricane Michael devastated the area. The base, home to 55 of the most advanced fighter jets in the world, flew 33 storm planes to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio.
"Currently we do not know the extent of the damage to the F-22s for maintenance or safety reasons, but we will have more information as soon as the crews can access the hangars and evaluate the planes. "said the US representative Matt. Gaetz, R-Fla., Whose district of Fort Walton Beach includes the air base near Eglin.
US Senator Bill Nelson, D-Fla., Said he could not disclose the number of devices left in Tyndall. Like Gaetz, Nelson said that the jets had been abandoned because they were under maintenance and were not able to fly.
Retired Colonel John "JV" Venable, Defense Policy Research Fellow at the Heritage Foundation and former Commander of the US Air Force Thunderbirds Flight Demonstration Team, stated that It made sense that the Air Force did not say exactly how many of the jets were left behind.
"The air force does not want to reveal its weakness to anyone else," he said.
Looking at the scenes of destruction at Tyndall and knowing that the F-22s were left behind, "it made my heart leap," Venable said.
But moving jets that could not fly out of Michael's trajectory would not have been a realistic option, he said.
"It would have been too much muscle movement in too short a time," he said.
A 95th FighterSquadron pilot from Tyndall Air Force Base begins to prepare to fly an F-22 Raptor, the latest air force fighter, at the air base in Ämari, in Estonia, in September. (Photo: Sgt Tech Ryan Crane / US Air Force)
Venable said the F-22s were too large for being transported in cargo planes or flat-bottomed trucks. Such an operation would have forced base personnel to stay behind and risk their lives as the monster storm progressed.
"There are some things you can not control and the weather is part of it," said Venable, who told the base leaders the safe evacuation of 11,000 airmen, base personnel and of their families.
Air Force officials said they should be able to recover some parts of the jets, but Venable said the main concern would be whether water from sea had infiltrated inside the airplanes.
"I'm afraid this is where the biggest damage is caused," he said.
Retired Navy Captain Sterling Gilliam, an experienced marine pilot and director of the National Museum of Naval Aviation at Naval Air Station Pensacola, said it was not unusual that some Aircraft are not ready to take off during the evacuation of a hurricane for maintenance reasons. problems.
"In this case, the largest number of non-mission-capable aircraft (22 of the 55 F22 assigned to Tyndall) highlights a larger problem with the readiness of the F-22 Raptor at the aircraft. The scale of the fleet, "he said.
Nelson, US Senator Marco Rubio and US Representative Neal Dunn, representing Florida, sent a letter to Trump inviting him to pledge to rebuild Tyndall. Asset visited the damage at Tyndall on Monday.
Nelson has said previously that he expects Tyndall to remain open. He added that fears that Tyndall was not shut down following the storm, as well as the Homestead Air Force Base in South Florida after Hurricane Andrew of 1992, are unfounded.
"(Tyndall) is a vital component of our national defense," he said while he was grounded Sunday in the hurricane zone.
Residents in the hard-hit region said keeping the base open was critical to the long-term recovery of the area after Hurricane Michael.
If Tyndall Air Force Base were closed, it would be horrible for the Bay County economy, said Edwin Walborksy, a lawyer at the Panama Bar and Pensacola.
"The economic impact would be incalculable," he said.
The felled trees are seen from air at Tyndall Air Force Base as a result of Hurricane Michael near Mexico Beach, Florida on Friday, October 12, 2018. (Photo: Gerald Herbert, AP)
Nicholas Kilcoyne, a sort of jack-of-all-traders from Bay County, said the situation regarding Tyndall's future was bad for many because of its regional economic scale.
Kilcoyne, who lives in Panama City Beach, is a bartender and marketing officer, helped clean up debris Tuesday in Tyndall.
It is not certain that the city of Panama can bear the consequences of the destruction by Hurricane Michael. Add the possibility that Tyndall does not reopen and "I could not imagine," Kilcoyne said.
"It would have such a negative effect," he said. "The city of Panama may well give up."
How to help: How to help people on the way to Hurricane Michael
Business: Some Florida Panhandle Companies May Never Recover from Hurricane Michael
Education: Schools closed at Panhandle and 45,000 children disappeared after Hurricane Michael
Contributor: Wayne T. Price, Florida Today.
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