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Kunsan airman who tried to toss frog into running jet engine is jailed

Second airman jailed in dorm break-in, theft

By Franklin Fisher, Stars and Stripes
Pacific edition, Thursday, February 8, 2007

Two airmen — including one who pleaded guilty to trying to throw a frog into a running jet engine — were punished in separate courts-martial at Kunsan Air Base, officials there confirmed Tuesday.

The other airman was punished after pleading guilty to breaking into a dorm room and stealing property.

In the incident involving the frog, Senior Airman Welland Wilkerson, an aircraft maintainer, was sentenced to reduction from pay grade E-4 to E-1, 30 days in jail and a reprimand. He’s assigned to the 8th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron, part of Kunsan’s 8th Fighter Wing, also known as the “Wolf Pack.”

The incident occurred sometime last year and was reported to authorities in September.

Officials said Wilkerson tried to throw a frog into the engine but missed, said Master Sgt. Anthony Davis, a wing spokesman.

Another airman subsequently threw a frog into the engine.

“After this incident, our wing checked the engines,” Davis said. “They did a scan … for damage and no damage was found from the incident.”

The incident was videotaped in an area where filming is banned without authorization, Davis said.

In September, Kunsan-based agents of the U.S. Air Force Office of Special Investigations were told by their OSI counterparts at Sheppard Air Force Base, Texas, that a video clip had been posted on a personalized MySpace page showing “an individual throwing a frog into a running F-16 engine intake,” Davis said.

“Subsequent investigations revealed Airman Wilkerson was involved in the incident,” Davis said. “Because of the nature of the incident, Airman Wilkerson was removed from any duties that required him to perform aircraft maintenance.”

“There’s still an ongoing investigation,” he said. “So more details about the event are not something we can talk about right now.”

He could only add that an investigation into “the actions of others involved in the incident is continuing.” He was unable to provide further details.

Wilkerson pleaded guilty to two counts of dereliction of duty.

He was tried by summary court-martial Friday before Maj. Timothy Kodama, summary court officer.

In the larceny case, Airman 1st Class Brent Schneider, of the 8th Maintenance Squadron, was sentenced to reduction from E-3 to E-1; forfeiture of $1,000 per month for six months, and six months in jail.

Col. Steven A. Hatfield, chief military judge for the Pacific Circuit, imposed the sentence Monday after Schneider pleaded guilty to larceny and housebreaking. Schneider was tried under the rules for special court-martial.

He unlawfully entered the dorm room of another airman and stole a computer and other belongings, Davis said.

OSI agents searched Schneider’s dorm room and “discovered the computer and the other belongings that didn’t belong to him,” Davis said.

http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=42345&archive=true
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I have seen a lot of (rats with feathers) starlings, pigeons, and sparrows; go into GE engines with no effects or damage. I think it depends on the size animal, engine size and type, relative speed and luck. I doubt your typical small frog could harm an engine’s blades. However a large bullfrog might be able to cause catastrophic failure to an F-16 engine.

Most of the time small birds go into jet engines, they don’t even bother to check the engine. Most pilots with a lot of hours have hit birds, most of the time they go through jet engines you are not even going to notice.

Birds often roost in test cell intakes. It was so common for birds to be pushed into the test cells on startup that they started putting screens over the ducts of the test cells and sometimes even over the intakes of engines. Roost to roast in seconds lol I have seen birds go into engine in test cells on film, and not be able to even find a feather in the test cell afterwards. A phenomena I have coined the phrase “inhalation annihilation” for.

Still it is irresponsible to intentionally throw things into an engine.

The risk to the engine was small if it was a small frog, however lives and jet engines are not things you should risk for no real reason. This type of behavior can be infective. Even in this case one idiot copied on another idiot, and these things have a tendency to snowball. Each idiot would likely want to outdo the next idiot by throwing a larger animal in, until it became catastrophic. Idiocy begets idiocy.

Not only were they risking the engine, they could possibly got hurt themselves, they are also risking the lives of the pilots, and if a crash was the result from losing an engine. They could be responsible for casualties on the ground. If engine failed on a CAS mission it could have also put our ground troops at risk.

This demonstrates a large engine can handle a fairly large bird.
GE90-115B Gas Turbine Jet Engine Testing & Evaluation
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xlObdXF8VE

This is a test cell failure of a jet. I suspect these clowns didn't take precautions to protect themselves, I doubt they had the protection of a hardened test cell like in the video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5F-I08xLWqM

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