Air Force base left in ruins after hurricane
Sitting in the ruined airplane hangars of Tyndall Air Force Base, which was shredded on Wednesday when Hurricane Michael swept across the Florida Panhandle, may be some of the Air Force’s most advanced — and most expensive — stealth fighter jets.
Tyndall is home to 55 F-22 stealth fighters, which cost a dizzying $339 million each. Before the storm, the Air Force sent at least 33 of the fighters to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio.
Air Force officials have not disclosed the whereabouts of the remaining 22 planes, other than to say that a number of aircraft were left at the base because of maintenance or safety reasons.
An Air Force spokeswoman, Maj. Malinda Singleton, would not confirm that any of the aircraft left behind were F-22s.
But photos and video from the wreckage of the base showed the distinctive contours of the F-22’s squared tail fins and angled vertical stabilizers amid a jumble of rubble in the base’s largest building, Hangar 5. Another photo shows the distinctive jet in a smaller hangar that had its doors and a wall ripped off by wind.
All of the hangars at the base were damaged, Maj. Singleton said Friday. “We anticipate the aircraft parked inside may be damaged as well,” she said, “but we won’t know the extent until our crews can safely enter those hangars and make an assessment.”
The high-tech F-22 is notoriously finicky and not always flight-worthy. An Air Force report this year found that on average, only about 49 percent of F-22s were mission-ready at any given time — the lowest rate of any fighter in the Air Force. The total value of the 22 fighters that may remain at Tyndall is about $7.5 billion.
Hurricane Michael hit the base with unexpected force. Winds roaring up to 130 mph broke the base’s wind gauge. Hangars where Air Force jets have sheltered during past tropical storms began to groan and shudder before being ripped to ribbons.
The eye of the storm cut directly over the base, which sits on a narrow spit of land that juts into the Gulf of Mexico, about a dozen miles south of Panama City. Trees bent in the howling wind, then splintered. Stormproof roofs only a few months old peeled like old paint and were scraped away by the gale. An F-15 fighter jet on display at the base entrance was ripped from its foundation and pitched onto its back amid twisted flagpoles and uprooted trees.
When it was over, the base lay in ruins, amid what the Air Force called “widespread catastrophic damage.” There were no reported injuries, in part because nearly all personnel had been ordered to leave in advance of the Category 4 hurricane’s landfall. Commanders still sifting through mounds of wreckage Thursday could not say when evacuation orders would be lifted.
Planes from nearby Hurlburt Field and Eglin Air Force Base also fled inland in the days before the storm. Planes that could not make the flight inland were secured in hangars and a small “ride out element” of airmen stayed behind during the hurricane.
Its aftermath was devastating and remarkable, with helicopter footage of the base Thursday showing hangars that had easily survived past storms now riddled with gaping holes. At least three twin-engine propeller planes owned by a contractor and used for training were buried in debris from the wreckage of the largest hangar, along with what appeared to be an F-22, and at least five QF-16 jets — retired fighters that have been stripped down and turned into drones and used as target practice.
In a Facebook post late Thursday, base leaders said many of the buildings were “a complete loss.” The marina, its structures and docks were also destroyed. Power lines and trees blocked nearly every road, and utilities and electricity had not been turned back on.
As the sun was setting Thursday, an Air Force special tactics team had cleared the base runway.
The Air Force was unable to say when Tyndall might resume operations. Other Air Force and Navy bases in the area that were spared the brunt of the storm reopened in a limited capacity Thursday.