Childhood memories
The pilot who ejected from an F-35 fighter jet last Sunday over North Charleston parachuted into a residential backyard near the Charleston Air Force base. The backyard he landed in was at the childhood home of Pelzer resident Sharon (Wiggins) Heller. Pictured in the backyard in 1965 are Heller along with sisters and cousins getting ready to go to the beach. Pictured are Tony Hankins, Sharon Wiggins, Stephanie Hankins, Roni Wiggins, Renee Hankins and Sheri Wiggins.
Ejected pilot lands in childhood backyard of Pelzer resident – In North Charleston
In case you missed, a US Marine Corps F-35 stealth fighter jet went missing and crashed Sunday after a malfunction prompted the pilot to eject over North Charleston.
The pilot parachuted down and landed in a residential backyard not far from the Charleston Air Force base located in the City of North Charleston.
The backyard was the childhood home of Pelzer resident Sharon (Wiggins) Heller.
Heller said when she began hearing reports on the news of the incident and that it was near the air base, she wondered if the pilot may have come down near the home where she lived as a child in North Charleston. She said one report listed the street she lived on so she “Googled” the incident and a picture of her old house appeared. The address was 6938 S. Kenwood Drive.
“That’s our house”, she said, “and the two houses on each side.”
She said when she saw the picture of the house, she broke down and cried.
Heller said her family lived at the house from 1963 to 1966.
“I have good memories of that house,” she said.
A neighbor still lives in the neighborhood.
According to reports, after parachuting into the back yard, the military jet pilot made a 911 call made from a resident’s home, explaining that he had to eject from his plane and that the plane kept flying.
The fighter jet, which the Marine Corps said was at an altitude of only about 1,000 feet (300 meters), was missing for about a day until the wreckage was found 60 miles away in a rural area near Indiantown.
Questions of how it could take a day to find a jet fighter that had flown over populated and rural areas remain.
One report stated that the Marines said the jet is designed to erase secure communications in case of an ejection, a feature designed to protect the pilot’s location and the plane’s classified systems.
“If the jet is stable in level flight, the jet will attempt to stay there. If it was in an established climb or descent, the jet will maintain a 1G state in that climb or descent until commanded to do something else,” the Marine Corps said in a statement. “This is designed to save our pilots if they are incapacitated or lose situational awareness.”
“Normally, aircraft are tracked via radar and transponder codes,” the Marines said. “Upon pilot ejection, the aircraft is designed to erase (or ‘zeroize’) all secure communication.”
According to the Marines, the plane would have kept broadcasting on an open channel to identify itself as friend or foe, but even on an unclassified communications channel, air traffic control may not have been able to pick up the signal depending on how powerful its radar was, the weather at the time, how high the plane was flying and the terrain. They said thunderstorms and low cloud ceilings further hampered the search for the plane.
“When coupled with the F-35’s stealth capabilities, tracking the jet had to be done through non-traditional means,” the statement said.
The incident remains under investigation and could take months.
