Five Air Force F-16s Crashed in July

Aug. 7 -- Five U.S. Air Force F-16 jet fighters, each costing some $20 million, crashed in July, killing three airmen and once again putting a spotlight on the service's workhorse combat plane.

On July 6, one Fighting Falcon, as the plane is also known, went down off the South Carolina coast, killing the pilot. A July 17 crash near Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., claimed the lives of a pilot and passenger. On July 18, the pilot of an F-16 patrolling above northern Iraq had to bail out over southeastern Turkey because of problems the Air Force attributed to engine trouble. He survived. Pilots likewise survived a July 26 crash into an Illinois cornfield and a July 23 wreck near Luke Air Force Base in Arizona.

They were all what the Air Force calls "Class-A" mishaps, in which someone dies or a plane sustains more than $1 million in damage. Usually such "mishaps" are crashes, and all are investigated.

"Obviously, it's unusual that we have that many in one month … and obviously this has gotten the attention of the senior leaders of the Air Force," said Col. Dave Williamson, Air Force chief of safety issues at the Pentagon.

Williamson does not believe, though, that the dramatic spike in July indicates any overall negative trends in F-16 safety, which has been a subject of criticism in recent years.

Williamson says that F-16 crash rates have generally been getting better. And an ABCNEWS.com analysis of Air Force statistics shows, even with last month's accidents, the number of crashes so far this fiscal year, 13, is about on par with the average over the last 19 years.

"[Five crashes] is an anomaly," he said. "The accident trends in the Air Force are going down very, very dramatically over the course of the last 10 years in our aviation mishaps, and it is true also in the F-16 community."

Compared to Other Aircraft

Air Force statistics show that Fighting Falcons have crashed an average of 13 times a year since 1982, when the plane was first flown heavily, costing an average $260 million annually in destroyed aircraft.