An F-16 pilot jettisoned two fuel tanks over Michigan on July 31st. One landed in Lake Huron, while the other landed in a Save-A-Lot parking lot where it struck a vehicle. Luckily, no one was injured.
ABC/NBC affiliate UpNorthLive reports that Iosco County sheriff’s office dispatchers received reports of an explosion near Baldwin Resort road, a street that runs along the shore of Lake Huron’s Saginaw Bay. Two Ohio Air National Guard F-16s were in the area for unknown reasons.
“One of those F-16’s declared an emergency and dumped two external fuel tanks full of jet fuel. One of those tanks landed north of Baldwin Resort Road in Lake Huron and exploded,” the sheriff’s office said.”
The other fuel tank landed in the parking lot of a Save-A-Lot store in East Tawas, Michigan, over two and a half miles away. Thankfully that tank didn’t explode. A tweet from UpNorthLive shows one fuel tank floating in the lake, and the damage the other tank did in the parking lot, where it badly damaged the rear right end of a Chevy Silverado pickup. The cops described it as “minor damage to a few vehicles,” and the sheriff’s office says both planes landed safely in Toledo, Ohio.