F16 Crashes during intercept

[FlyingPig]

https://www.military.com/daily-news/2022/12/06/f-16-improperly-intercepted-civilian-aircraft-crashing-louisiana-new-report-says.html?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook&fbclid=IwAR0uqAAEhn3BbYzLfFGnalCMWgKX9I7Fg-15lRfQrYY2XAe5f8_RSkDJxgQ&mibextid=83daFh#Echobox=1670357199

This crash happened in March, where an F16 did an unauthorized intercept of an airplane that was in a hold.   It was determined that during a flap retraction, the pilot believed he was losing control and ejected. Thats long story made short.  Feel free to read it.  Why the pilot chose to do this isn't addressed but in the end its irrelevant to the end result.

How does this apply to CAP?  Although we don't train USAF pilots to fly, we do assist them in training for this exact scenario.  I've done one CAP intercept training mission and found it to be pretty boring honestly. But the flying wasn't for me, it was to train pilots to fly in a profile they normally do not fly in.  In the end, we don't know what little take aways a fighter pilot might learn from these missions that maybe only that pilot will ever know.  Training isn't always about profound break throughs.  Sometimes it may be something not even recognized at the time.  A pilot might realize he needs to place his hand a certain way on the throttle, or perhaps the pilot realizes they aren't as comfortable at slow flight as they could be.  In the end, we have no idea what's going on in that pilot's head as they are learning.  But what we can see from this event, a mistake was made in what should be a fairly routine task that caused a pilot to eject and destroy a career and a $30M weapons system.