The stealth aircraft was taking part in exercise Sentry Savannah when the incident occurred.
A U.S. Air Force F-22 Raptor was involved in an unspecified “mishap” at the Savannah/Hilton Head International Airport at 11.30 AM LT on May 6, 2024.
WSAV-TV reported that according a spokesperson for the Georgia Air National Guard, the F-22 Raptor was participating in Sentry Savannah around 11:30 a.m. when the incident occurred.
Sentry Savannah is the Air National Guard’s largest fourth and fifth generation counter-air, large-force exercise, held annually at the Air Dominance Center, Savannah Air National Guard Base, Georgia. One of four Combat Readiness Training Centers in the United States, the Air Dominance Center (ADC) conducts Air-to-Air Combat Training Missions for 4th and 5th generation reservist and active-duty fighter pilots.
Sentry Savannah allows fighter units from across the country to train together on integrated tactics such as ground training, offensive/defensive counter air missions, cruise missile defense and weapon drop training on the range. This year’s iteration of the exercise kicked off earlier today.
An image posted on Reddit shows the F-22 apparently sitting on the right hand side of the fuselage with the canopy open suggesting the pilot was able to egress the aircraft without ejecting from the plane.
An image posted to r/aviation on Reddit shows a mishap has occurred with an F-22 at Savannah IAP in Georgia. pic.twitter.com/Ind125Jjbw
— TheIntelFrog (@TheIntelFrog) May 6, 2024
No further details have been disclosed. We will update the story as additional information is released.
Last month, an F-22 suffered a nose gear collapse at Kadena AB, Okinawa, Japan, in the last of series of incidents involving the collapse of its landing gear: in March 2022, an image of an F-22 Raptor with its nose cone buried in the ground at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, was posted online after the aircraft had an apparent landing gear mishap.
One year before, on Mar. 15, 2021, an F-22 Raptor assigned to the 325th Fighter Wing, experienced a ground mishap at on the flightline at Eglin AFB, Florida. The F-22 had an in-flight emergency and landed safely but suffered a nose gear collapse on the runway, the base also confirmed.
Another F-22 suffered a landing gear issue at Joint Base Langley-Eustis in 2020, ending more or less in the same way as the Raptor at Savannah IAP today.
Mishap at JBLE in 2020. F-22 #05-4085. pic.twitter.com/NNjhi4QUKv
— J.J. (@kadonkey) June 18, 2022
Update 21.34 GMT
We have received another image of the mishap aircraft, taken by @Floridianaviator
Here’s a view from the other side.
David Cenciotti is a journalist based in Rome, Italy. He is the Founder and Editor of “The Aviationist”, one of the world’s most famous and read military aviation blogs. Since 1996, he has written for major worldwide magazines, including Air Forces Monthly, Combat Aircraft, and many others, covering aviation, defense, war, industry, intelligence, crime and cyberwar. He has reported from the U.S., Europe, Australia and Syria, and flown several combat planes with different air forces. He is a former 2nd Lt. of the Italian Air Force, a private pilot and a graduate in Computer Engineering. He has written five books and contributed to many more ones.
