F16 wing sets world record for safe flying

Officers and enlisted members of the 162nd squadron of the 19th fighter wing of the Korean Air Force warmly welcomed the safe return Wednesday of Maj. Lee Chang-Jun, 36, and Capt. Lee Min-Wu, 30, after an hour-long operational mission aboard an F16 fighter that touched down at 12:05 in Chungju, North Chungchong Province. The pair set a new world record of 50,000 hours of accident-free flying in the F16 fighter, 13 years after combat pilots of the wing began flying the model in March 1988. The unit was activated in 1987.

In setting the record, the pilots covered 23.7 million km or more than 30 times the distance from the earth to the moon -- without an accident. F16 fighters are the workhorse combat aircraft in many countries, including the United States, Korea and Taiwan. There have been a number of accidents involving the model, even in the United States, where it was developed and manufactured. The fact that the record was set by the Korean Air Force is regarded as testimony to the exceptional abilities of its servicemen.