In January 2015, Col. Thomas (callsign "Snatch") Jackman (who was married at the time) was slated to join a conference at Andrews Air Force Base near Washington.
Col. Jackman had been exchanging flirtatious emails with an unidentified female Army colonel who worked at the Pentagon for two months, and after learning that he flew to Washington, D.C., in an F-16 jet to combine a work conference with a hotel visit to that female Army colonel, he was ordered home on a commercial flight, another pilot retrieved the jet.
Jackman overcame all manner of adversity to reach his lady love. According to emails he wrote her, his plane broke down as he was scheduled to take off and the ground crew had to prepare another for him to use; a ferocious snowstorm shut down the runway at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, where he had originally planned to land. His last email indicated he would fly to Langley and drive the rest of the way – 200 miles in a snowstorm.
Jackman, the commander of the 158th Fighter Wing, used his authority to fly an F-16 nearly 500 miles from Burlington Vermont to Andrews Air Force Base, located just outside Washington D.C.
The hourly operating cost of the F-16 is about $8,000, according to the Department of Defense. It was not immediately clear if Jackman was required to reimburse the Guard for flying the plane.
In a statement to the website, 1st Lt. Mikel Arcovitch, the Guard’s media spokesman, said it’s “not common practice” for pilots to fly fighter jets to work conferences.
Jackman, whose 32-year military career included two tours each in Iraq and Afghanistan, was pressed to step down and given advanced notice so he could retire with full benefits, the report said.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/colonel-fired-for-flying-f-16-to-see-woman-who-told-him-he-made-her-tingle
https://www.foxnews.com/us/vermont-colonel-was-forced-to-resign-after-flying-f-16-to-meet-woman-in-washington-d-c
https://www.rt.com/usa/445114-airforce-commander-fired-tryst/
The takeaway on this entire story? His callsign is snatch, and he was kicked out for flying a fighter jet to get laid. Ummm, that's the entire reason guys went officer and became pilots! They watched the movie Top Gun and simply figured it out.
Ok he did stupid things BUT! as ex-mech inf. this is exactly what I expect from fighter pilots.
ReplyDeleteReminds me of Diana Bernato Walker, an ATA pilot flying planes from the factories to RAF air bases during WW2:
ReplyDelete"Two years later, on 6 May 1944, she married another pilot, Wing Commander Derek Ronald Walker, and was docked three months’ pay for making an unauthorized honeymoon flight to Brussels four months later in a Spitfire, accompanied by her husband in another".
Go girl!
Eventually she went on to greater things: On 26 August 1963 she flew a Royal Air Force English Electric Lightning T4 to Mach 1.6 (1,262 mph) after convincing the Air Minister to let her fly it with Squadron Leader Ken Goodwin as her check pilot, and so became the first British woman to break the sound barrier. She also established by this flight a world air speed record for women.