The South Korean Air Force F-4E Phantom II fighter crashed yesterday around 12.20 local time while flying over the Yellow Sea. Both pilots managed to eject and were not injured, but were taken to Cheongju Hospital for examination. There were no losses in the civil infrastructure.
The unlucky machine belonged to the 10th Suwon Fighter Wing, 35 kilometers south of Seoul. The accident took place after about forty minutes of flight, as the Phantom was on its way back to the home airfield. The plane fell into the water nine kilometers south of Jeongok Harbor.
At around 12:20 KST, the F-4E Phantom of the Korean Air Force’s 10th Fighter Wing crashed. Two pilots used the ejector seat. pic.twitter.com/LyYZn0AWLn
– Hyunmin Park (@HyunminPppp) August 12, 2022
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According to the Yonhap agency, one of the two engines burned in the plane. The pilot steered the plane away from the built-up areas, after which both pilots activated the ejection seats. Phantom flights were suspended pending investigation into the causes of the accident.
South Korea is one of the last four – along with Greece, Turkey and Iran – users of “Rhino”. With the introduction of the F-35A into service, the career of the Phantoms on the Korean Peninsula, however, is inexorably coming to an end after nearly sixty years. Unless there is a sudden change in plans, they will retire in 2024.
South Korean F-4E, serial number 76-0499, February 1979.
(MSgt. Philip J. Lewis, USAF)
The first Phantoms II – belonging to a batch of eighteen F-4D machines from US Air Force surplus equipment – were delivered to South Korea in August 1969 as part of the Peace Spectator program. In 1977, Seoul also ordered brand new F-4Es (thirty-seven), and a few years later a batch of used machines (fifty-seven). The last F-4 manufactured in the United States – bearing the American serial number 78-0744 and being the copy number 5057 – has just made its way to South Korea (the last Phantom was made in Japan).
The last F-4Ds of more than ninety acquired by Seoul were decommissioned in 2010. Four years later, the last of eighteen reconnaissance RF-4Cs was said goodbye. By 2016, all post-American F-4Es were also removed from the state and only those produced for South Korea remain in service – currently around twenty of them are in service. The Koreans tried to comprehensively upgrade their F-4Es, but in the end the money was always needed more urgently for something else.
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Republic of Korea Armed Forces
