By ROGER SCHNEIDER
THE GOSHEN NEWS
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MILLERSBURG — A military exercise in the skies of Elkhart County Wednesday was noisy and noticed.
“We received about a dozen and a half phone calls in about 15 minutes,” said Randy Sharkey, manager of the Goshen Municipal Airport.
He said one call came from a Millersburg factory worker who said it looked like a small airplane was in the wrong place at the wrong time and was being circled by two F-16 fighter jets. And that was exactly the training exercise that was taking place, according to Sharkey.
He said that at about 8:30 a.m. two F-16 fighter jets intercepted a single-engine airplane flown by the Civil Air Patrol over Millersburg. The small Cessna was forced by the jets to land at the Goshen airport during the drill. Once on the ground three Civil Air Patrol members exited the plane with their hands in the air, as if surrendering to local authorities.
“The guy going out to refuel them was told, ‘If you don’t want to be in the picture, you better stand back,”’ Sharkey said.
Apparently one of the F-16s made a pass over the airport to take a picture of the mock surrender.
Sharkey said the practice scenario often occurs in real life when airspace is closed during a presidential visit. He said private pilots often stray into the restricted airspace near where a president is visiting and are intercepted by fighter jets.
“It’s a mandatory 90 to 120 day license suspension,” Sharkey said of the air space violation.
The jets were noisy at the low altitude and the roar of their powerful engines could be heard throughout Millersburg and Goshen.
F-16s are based at the Fort Wayne airport as part of the 122nd Air National Guard Fighter Wing, but a spokeswoman said Wednesday that she didn’t believe the jets involved in the exercise were from the 122nd. F-16s are also based in Michigan and Ohio.
