The Mother of All Negligent Discharges

[6L105]

If you're gonna have one, might as well have a big one.

https://www.airforcetimes.com/news/your ... nbKp8la3AU

[OneGun]

First rule: the gun is always loaded!!!

[troglodyte]

Just four more and he'll be an Ace.

[RoyGBiv]

Just four more and he'll be an Ace.

Brutal

[TreyHouston]

I WOULD HAVE LOVED TO SEE THE LOOK ON HIS FACE!!!!

[Jusme]

I'm glad no one was hurt, but I found this kinda funny.

Thankfully nobody got killed, only one technician incurred hearing impairment.”

Hey! Did you press the "fire button?"

Huh?

[E.Marquez]

Ahhh, lets see checklist item 43:cycle gun for 3 seconds, check for warning lights....ahh ok Bob, hey Bob Im doing 43, you clear of the gun? ok, and.............................

[ELB]

A pretty amazing story, but...

To my (limited) knowledge the Gatling gun in an F-16 has to have both electrical and hydraulic power to fire, and there is a safety that prevents the gun from firing if there is weight on the nose gear. Plus, of course, ammo.

So a lot would have to happen/go wrong for the gun to fire on the ground.

I've seen a couple subsequent reports that a Belgian F-16 being worked on burned up, but no mention of gun fire. Hope we get to see the final report.

[RogueUSMC]

A 3 second trigger squeeze will empty the ammo magazines...lol

[KLB]

Just four more and he'll be an Ace.

[G26ster]

I'm glad no one was hurt, but I found this kinda funny.

Thankfully nobody got killed, only one technician incurred hearing impairment.”

Hey! Did you press the "fire button?"

Huh?

Can't speak for the F16, but for the 20mm cannons on our Cobra gunships I had a trigger switch on the cyclic, and a separate switch that armed all components (rockets, mini-gun, cannon, and grenade launcher) without those two switches being activated (if the F16 is similar), I can't see how anything would "accidently" fire. The "Arm" switch was never placed in the Arm position until ready to fire the cannon or any other armament. As an example, if we were escorting slicks (Hueys) into an LZ, we never armed the the firing systems until they were on final approach and we were ready to provide supressive fire on the LZ and its immediate area. Strange how this happened.

[JustSomeOldGuy]

I'd hate to have to explain that one to my Risk Management rep.

[mayor]

A pretty amazing story, but...

To my (limited) knowledge the Gatling gun in an F-16 has to have both electrical and hydraulic power to fire, and there is a safety that prevents the gun from firing if there is weight on the nose gear. Plus, of course, ammo.

So a lot would have to happen/go wrong for the gun to fire on the ground.

I've seen a couple subsequent reports that a Belgian F-16 being worked on burned up, but no mention of gun fire. Hope we get to see the final report.

I agree with this assessment. LOTS of safety interlocks had to fail for the gun to fire. When weight is on the wheels, some systems are offline, namely radar and the gun unless it's in maintenance mode.

[C-dub]

I also thought on my Tomcats there was some type of lockout switch if the landing gear was down and there was enough pressure on them.

And a safety pin or two on one of the gun mechanisms that was in place while on deck.

[Grumpy1993]

"It's not that loud in the video game!"