Tyndall Air Force Base sustains 'catastrophic' damage
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
TYNDALL AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. — Tyndall Air Force Base suffered catastrophic damage when Hurricane Michael tore through the Florida Panhandle, ripping roofs off airplane hangars, tossing vehicles around a parking lot and leaving a fighter jet that had been on display flipped over on the ground.
The home to the nation's 325th Fighter Wing "took a beating," Col. Brian Laidlaw said in a letter posted Thursday night to the 3,600 men and women stationed at the base located 12 miles (19 kilometers) east of Panama City. The Air Force evacuated the base in advance of the storm's arrival Wednesday afternoon.
"I will not recall you and your families until we can guarantee your safety. At this time I can't tell you how long that will take, but I'm on it," Laidlaw wrote. "We need to restore basic utilities, clear our roads of trees and power lines, and assess the structural integrity of our buildings. I know that you are eager to return. I ask you to be patient and try to focus on taking care of your families and each other."
The evacuations were ordered Monday and everyone except the "ride-out" team left the base by Tuesday afternoon. Michael was a strong Category 4 hurricane as it lashed the base, which is between Panama City and Mexico Beach.On Thursday, Air Force officials conducted the first aerial assessment of the base and found extensive damage. A report posted on the base website said the flight line is devastated and every building on the base suffered severe damage, with many considered a complete loss. In addition, the Tyndall marina, the drone runway and Tyndall Elementary School sustained severe damage.
Power and basic utilities have not been restored to the base.
Laidlaw said in the letter to staff that crews will need time to clear trees from roads and repair power lines before anyone returns.
Evacuees who took base transportation to Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, Alabama, were restricted to one large luggage piece per family and one carry on per person. They were asked to make sure they had 72 hours' worth of items.
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Keeping a good thought for all our Brothers and Sisters in Arms down in Panama City. One bag per person, God only knows how much these people will have lost. I hope for the best for thewm and to stay safe in the coming days and during the rebuild of the base.
Looks like they left a LOT of planes in hangers instead of moving them out of harms way. It doesn't look like their 'emergency plan' was well thought out.
From the standpoint of having a little information, maybe. What was the forecasted path? What was the expected impat? There are a lot of factors that go into deciding whetehr to evac everything or not. I was stationed at Kadena, Okinawa and they went through the same process for typhoons. Regardless of your decision, Mother Natue will do what she pleases.
That was my thought as well. Predictions about the path of storms can't be 100% accurate-- and the path can change...
Since the base was close enough to the projected path of the storm, IMO it would've paid to err in the side of caution-- and fly those planes to another base that was definitely out of harm's way.
We have a lot of military bases-- especially throughout the South...
Sounds like the AF did an outstanding job at removing assets from harm's way.
Aerial footage reveals more roof damage than anything else.
Sucks if you left your RV in Tyndall's RV storage lot (although you must show proof of insurance )
One or two WWII style Quonset hangers lost most of their roofs, one was trying to protect runway maintenance vehicles
the other, as Dulay alluded to, had multiple F16 trainers and what appear to be three or four C-12s crowded in among vehicles.
No site of base housing although the one BEQ looks pretty sad.
They certainly didn't leave any F15s, 22s or 35s to harms way, that's for sure
I was the Natural/Cultural Resources Manager there from 2003 - 2008.
Looks like a number of facilities won't be coming back to life. The CE complex is gone, AFCESA badly damaged, new Hospital/O'club by the beach, the new BX and tons of tenet facilities.
Very sadly, I noticed my forestry area almost totally decimated. Unless we can get some crews in from USFS and Tyndall to get in there and conduct super-fast harvesting (26,300 acres of excellent forestry products/hunting preserve). The forestry on the Eastern boundary was gaining some outstanding habitat for Red-Cockaded Woodpeckers and that loss of habitat will probably take years to repopulate. Hell, we even had a mating pair of Florida Panther on the NE boundary. Hate the loss of the forestry products though.
The Expit program by the Tyndall command is excellent and you can bet your bottom dollar all necessary/required and critical equipment, a/c and personnel were evacuated to secure and safe locations.
Check out this video @ 2:00
Many planes were left in that hanger.
What's surprising to me is that it seems that the planes left behind were left because of mechanical issues.
Unfortunately, I can't stream here-our bandwidth sucks, but thank you for the link. I'll speculate-planes left in hangars during an evac are generally Hangar Queens (Long term maintenance, awaiting parts, awaiting depot service for things like airframe stress that bump into safety of flight rules), etc. Generally those planes can't be flown and are left behind. there was an epic picture of Homestead AFB outisde of Miami, many years ago that was destroyed by Hurricane Andrew (the base became a reserve base instead of active duty immeidately after that) and the pic was of an F-16 destrroyed inside a hangar.
Ha! same video, although if you watch mine to the end there are also videos of what is left of Mexico Beach.
Seems like a whole squadron of QF 16s in that hangar.
These are f16s rebuilt enough to be pilot less drones for target practice. The Air Force is running out of Q 04s - the venerable Phantoms we used to use for air to air training
Long film read the first board then move to about 6:24 where Lt. Col. Ronald King explains the F-4 target program and the new QF-16 which will replace it.
As one commentator put it, if a trainee can hit an F16 drone they can hit anything.
The F4 drones didn't turn or handle very well ( in real life or as drones) while the F4 was a world ahead of an F102 it is still a lead sled.
The QF 16 is a quantum leap in drone technology, speed and remote handling.
This was filmed at Tyndall...
Keep in mind that Tyndall no longer has any F16 squadrons, pilots, support personnel, etc., and as these are drones,
there would be no assigned pilots available to fly them off to safety.
Seems like the Base Commander made a decision and they took their chances with the storm.
We'll have to see how much actual damage there is to each drone.
Most of the 16's that were at Luke and Tyndall have/had been transferred to Holloman, replacing the F-22's. Holloman has both - active and drone. The repair facilities were/are slowly being transferred from Luke and Tyndall to Holloman, so the parts/aircraft and equipment was still stored in the facilities.
Giora Epstein, worlds highest scoring Jet Ace, will tell you: "you do not fly the F16, the F16 flies you. You are only 1 input of many to an F16".
BTW, it has been a while, since just prior to Iraq I, but that background scenery looks like Luke???
More background on the orange tipped QF 16s in the damaged hangar.