F-16s in South Korea Continue to Suffer High Crash Rates: Two Lost in Under a Month

A South Korean Air Force F-16C fighter assigned based in Chungju crashed in a mountainous area during a night training flight on February 25, with the pilot ejecting successfully and confirmed safe. The Air Force set up a special task force led by the vice chief of staff to determine the cause of the crash. The F-16 fell on a hillside, igniting a fire, although local firefighters were quickly to respond, and began extinguishing efforts almost immediately. The incident occurred on the same day as a Turkish Air Force F-16C fighter assigned to the crashed during a training flight near the west of the country, killing the pilot at around 1am, local time. The incident was the second crash of an F-16 in South Korea in less than a month, after a U.S. Air Force F-16 crashed on January 31.  

The F-16 has been involved in multiple crashes in recent months, with a Republic of China Air Force F-16V fighter having crashed during a routine training mission on January 6, marking the latest of several fighter losses by the service to accidents in recent years. An F-16 fielded by the Polish Air Force crashed during an airshow rehearsal near Radom, central Poland, in August. Ukrainian Air Force F-16s have suffered a particularly high crash rate, although this has been attributed to the complexity of their anti-drone duties and the lack of experience of local pilots, as the fighters were rushed into service for wartime use. This has reportedly resulted in experienced U.S. and Dutch pilots being dispatched as contractors to fly the aircraft for the service. It is notable, however, that F-16 crashes have been highly concentrated in South Korea. When the U.S. Air Force on January 31 confirmed that an F-16 under the 8th Fighter Wing had fallen into the sea near the western South Korean city of Gunsan, it marked the third crash of a U.S. F-16 in Korea in under nine months.

Previously a U.S. Air Force F-16C crashed into farmland near Osan Air Base, South Korea, during a routine training flight, on May 6, 2023, after which another U.S. F-16 experienced an in-flight emergency and crashed into the Yellow Sea off South Korea’s west coast on December 11 that year. The performance record of F-16 squadrons based in South Korea has been among the poorest in the U.S. Air Force in terms of their safety record. Locally operated F-16s have also suffered from a not insignificant crash rate, with a South Korean F-16D twin seat fighter having crashed on June 11, 2025 during a training exercise in Alaska, while preceding this in November 2022 a South Korean F-16C experienced an engine failure and crashed west of Wonju. A further accident, although not resulting in a crash, saw two South Korean F-16s accidentally released live Mk-82 bombs on a civilian area near Pocheon during an exercise in March 2025. 

An estimated more than 750 F-16s have been lost two crashes since the type first entered service in 1978, although early F-16 years operated in the late 1970s and 1989s had significantly higher accident rates than those currently in service. Losses represent close to 19 percent of all F-16s ever built. The crash rate of the fighter’s successor, the F-35A, has been significantly lower, despite issues with the aircraft’s complex software having directly caused crashes in the past. The South Korean Air Force is currently one of the largest operators of the F-16, and has modernised a portion of its fleet to the F-16V standard integrating fifth generation level avionics and weaponry. The aircraft are expected to begin to be phased out of service and replaced by indigenously developed KF-21 fighters in the mid-late 2030s.