F-22 Raptor Down: America’s Most Elite Fighter Crashes in Florida - Pilot Safe

On May 15th an F-22 Raptor from the U.S. Air Force crashed in Florida at Eglin Air Force Base’s training range. The pilot successfully ejected but was taken to the 96th Medical Group hospital and was later confirmed to be in a stable condition. The Raptor was part of the 43rd Fighter Squadron, 325th Fighter Wing, and was one of less than 200 of the aircraft ever built. The 325th is nominally located at Tyndall Air Force Base, but due to extensive damage from Hurricane Michael in 2018 in which several Raptors are thought to have been lost it moved some of its operations to Eglin Air Force Base.

The F-22 is the heaviest Western fighter in service and by far the most capable in air to air combat. Developed as a successor to the F-15C Eagle and F-4E Phantom of the Cold War era, the Raptor benefits from advanced fifth generation technologies including a radar evading stealth profile and active electronically scanned array radar. The Raptor first entered service in the U.S. Air Force in 2005, and was the first fifth generation fighter in the world and the second fighter after the Japanese F-2 to integrate an AESA radar. A sixth generation successor to the Raptor is currently under development and is expected to see its first flight by the end fo the decade. Although the F-22 is a formidable design, it has suffered from reliability issues and excessive operational costs and maintenance requirements and has proven very difficult to update with new subsystems and weaponry. Despite this, the Raptor's crash rate has been remarkably low at only a fraction of those of its fourth generation predecessors from a similar weight range the F-15 and F-14.