F 16

A civilian aircraft flew within 10 miles of the White House yesterday, violating restricted airspace and prompting the Secret Service to hustle Vice President Cheney to an undisclosed location. President Bush and his wife, Laura, were away at the time. Federal law enforcement and aviation officials said the single-engine, four-seat Mooney probably ventured into the restricted area by accident. But in the post-9/11 environment, the Secret Service was not taking any chances.

It seemed so unreal that Maj. Robert Dean Ashenfelter - a Sunday school teacher, Eagle Scout and Air National Guard pilot - could have died when his F-16 crashed into the Atlantic Ocean while on a training mission Tuesday. His mother awoke yesterday, on Robert's 37th birthday, and said it was like a bad dream. "I said, 'It isn't a dream,' " recalled her husband, Donald. "It's for real and forever, so let's make the best of it. " On Tuesday, New Jersey Air National Guard officials had notified Ashenfelter's family that his plane had crashed and that he was believed dead.

With threatened jobs in politically sensitive states at stake, President Bush is expected to announce an end to a decade-old ban on the sale of F-16 fighter jets to Taiwan today while on a campaign swing through Texas. Bush's announcement, which could avert massive layoffs by General Dynamics Corp. in Fort Worth, would be the third such action this week. On Monday, Bush delivered tank contracts to the industrial Midwest. Yesterday, he ordered the rebuilding of a hurricane-ravaged Air Force base in Florida that had been a candidate to be closed.

The idea was born simply enough, during a meandering conversation over a few beers at the Red Stallion, a Warminster watering hole. Two engineers, colleagues at the nearby Naval Air Warfare Center, wondered whether it would be possible to arm an F-16 fighter jet with four precision-guided "smart" weapons instead of just two. For Bill Meiklejohn and Edwin McGlynn, founders of M. Technologies Inc., the answer on pursuing the project came late last...

A battered and bruised New Jersey Air National Guard pilot who ejected from his crippled F-16 jet fighter over the ocean here yesterday before stunned beachgoers was in good condition last night after being rescued. The pilot was on a training exercise when his engine quit over land about 3:29 p.m. Officials said he had wanted to land the plane but decided he could not make it to a landing strip. "He was sorry he couldn't do better, but there wasn't much he could do," said Lt. Col. Mike Cosby, operations group commander in the New Jersey Air National Guard.

An Ocean County intermediate school that was mistakenly strafed Wednesday night by a National Guard fighter jet reopened yesterday as the military tried to determine why the pilot's cannon fire had strayed from a Pine Barrens target range. Students and teachers had a normal day of classes and seemed unaffected, said Allan Bossard, principal of the Little Egg Harbor Township Intermediate School. At least five 20mm cannon rounds from the F-16 penetrated the school's roof and the ceilings of two classrooms and a storage area about 9:20 p.m. Wednesday, he said.

I hate to say I told you so, but I warned you that the Bush administration would attack New Jersey. On Jan. 1, I wrote a column giving my predictions for the new year. I predicted that President Bush, upon losing New Jersey in the election Nov. 2, would order federal troops to invade the state Nov. 3 to seize our reserves of cheap gasoline. What actually happened Nov. 3 was that an F-16 fighter jet took off from a military base near Washington, flew to New Jersey, and strafed a school in Ocean County.

The Israeli general staff has proposed abandoning Israel's effort to build the Lavi jet fighter, saying it would be less expensive to buy U.S.-made warplanes, the Jerusalem Post said yesterday. Israel and the United States are at loggerheads over the development of the Lavi, which Washington says Jerusalem cannot afford. Development so far has cost $1.3 billion, most coming from U.S. aid. Israel currently receives about $1.8 billion a year in U.S. military aid. The Post story, quoting "very well-placed sources," said the Israeli Defense Forces' general staff had recommended buying the latest F-16 jet fighter from the United States and using the money saved from the Lavi project to fund other military programs.

The thunderous sound of high-powered aircraft acted as a pied piper to 130 young men and women who participated in an Air Force enlistment ceremony Thursday just after the famed Thunderbirds performed a series of aerial maneuvers. "I had a few second thoughts before I got here today, but after seeing and hearing the planes, I knew this is what I want to do," said Nina Griswold, 18, of Pemberton Township. "Looking up in the sky and seeing this makes me realize what I have to look forward to," she said.

From the same Air Force that has introduced taxpayers to the $9,600 wrench, the $7,600 coffee pot, the $600 toilet seat and the $500 hammer, there comes good news. The 84-cent washer. But with the good news comes bad news. The washers are flawed, and their failure could cause a jet fighter to crash. So the Air Force has recalled some warplanes. Just like all those high-priced items that the Air Force couldn't do without, the 84-cent washer plays a vital role in America's defense.

LOS ANGELES - It's the most expensive fighter jet ever built. Yet the F-22 Raptor has never seen a day of combat, and its future is clouded by a government safety investigation that has grounded the jet for months. The fleet of 158 F-22s has been sidelined since May 3, after more than a dozen incidents in which oxygen was cut off to pilots, making them woozy. The malfunction is suspected of contributing to at least one fatal accident. At an estimated $412 million each, the F-22s amount to about $65 billion sitting on the tarmac.

CHICAGO - Myrtle Rose was just taking a short flight over metro Chicago when the 75-year-old aviation enthusiast looked out her cockpit window to see two F-16 fighter jets. She assumed the military pilots were just slowing down to get a closer look at her antique plane. It wasn't until she landed her 1941 Piper J-3 Cub that friends and police told her the attention was much more serious: She'd strayed into restricted airspace during a visit by President Obama. Rose, who tries to fly every day when weather permits, said she had been itching to get back in the air Wednesday after a number of days on the ground.

CHICAGO - Myrtle Rose was taking a short flight over suburban Chicago when the 75-year-old aviation enthusiast looked out her cockpit window to see two F-16 fighter jets. She said she assumed the military pilots were just slowing down to get a closer look at her antique plane. It wasn't until she landed her 1941 Piper J-3 Cub that friends and the police told her the attention was much more serious - for straying into restricted airspace during a 50th-birthday visit to Chicago by President Obama.

Two Cherry Hill men died yesterday morning when a speeding car crashed on Route 70, killing the driver and an Air Force pilot who was pruning a tree in his yard, authorities said. The driver, Stephen M. Moffa, 41, of the 400 block of East Chapel Avenue, was driving a 2006 Pontiac GTO westbound in the left lane shortly before 10 a.m., police said. Near New Hampshire Avenue, the car crossed the right lane and shoulder, then struck a pole and the homeowner, Lt. Col. Mark C. Jennings, 44, of the 400 block of West Route 70. Jennings was an F-16 pilot assigned to the New Jersey Air National Guard's 177th Fighter Wing in Pomona, said Maj. Yvonne Mays, a public affairs officer with the state Department of Military and Veterans Affairs.

President Obama should ground the genius on his staff who arranged a photo-op of Air Force One flying low around the skyscrapers of lower Manhattan. On Monday, office workers in New York were terrified to see a 747 jet circling the city at low altitudes. The plane rattled windows and prompted panicked calls to 9-1-1 from people who feared another 9/11. Thousands of workers evacuated office buildings. Though the terrorist attacks were more than seven years ago, the memory of the World Trade Center disaster was still fresh in their minds.

A version of the following editorial appeared in some editions Sunday. In the interests of public safety, Gov. Corzine should not have retreated on the question of closing the Warren Grove Gunnery Range. Corzine said last week that he now supported allowing the New Jersey Air National Guard to renew training missions at the bombing range in South Jersey's Pinelands. He said National Guard officials assured him that new safety procedures would prevent further mishaps. But South Jersey residents have heard that promise before.

Sandy Smolski was among about 6,000 people routed from their homes in May when a practice flare dropped during a military flight exercise sparked a fire that scorched 17,000 acres of the Pinelands. "To be told that we had to get out immediately, and that we could lose everything, was the scariest thing anyone ever said to me," Smolski, 43, recalled this week. The Little Egg Harbor mother of two takes little comfort in a defense authorization bill passed yesterday by the U.S. Senate that contains a measure to increase safety and military accountability at Warren Grove Gunnery Range, from where the plane had taken off. The Air National Guard training facility, in Little Egg Harbor Township, has been closed since the blaze.

The sky over the Warren Grove Gunnery Range has been quiet since May, when a massive wildfire sparked during a jet fighter training mission scorched 17,250 acres and routed thousands of people from their homes. But a storm continues brewing. Taxpayers may be stuck with some $200 million in property claims from the Air National Guard mistake, according to an accounting released last week. And now it appears that military heads will roll. The military says 161 claims totaling more than $200 million have been filed so far in a fire that destroyed five houses and significantly damaged 13 others.

A U.S. Air Force report on what caused the massive fire in South Jersey's Pinelands in May has provided clear evidence that the Warren Grove Gunnery Range should be closed. The report verified what most people suspected. An Air National Guard pilot flying an F-16 fighter jet dropped flares during a training run, igniting the tinder-dry Pinelands. The blaze quickly spread out of control, burning 17,250 acres in Ocean and Burlington Counties. It destroyed five homes, severely damaged 13, and forced about 6,000 people to evacuate their homes for more than two days.

A National Guard pilot who dropped low-altitude practice flares into the tinder-dry brush and flagrant miscommunication caused May's wildfire that scorched more than 20 square miles of New Jersey's Pinelands, an Air Force accident investigation concluded. Nobody told the New Jersey Air National Guard pilot before he dropped several practice flares from an F-16 fighter jet that the forest-fire danger rating had been raised to its highest level, according to the report, which says pilot error is the primary cause of the huge blaze.