Hi, everyone. Hope all is well at your house.

I'll begin by saying I never flew a military jet. Yet, I flew jet powered aircraft for 30 plus years. Bottom line is any jet engine can fail catastrophically. That means all the turbines that are spinning like fans at extreme speeds, can let go and send schrapnel in any direction. Regardless of the surrounding shrouds to protect from such schrapnel becoming deadly it often does not. I had three catastrophic failures in my professional carreer of jet engines. Two of the three sent schrapnel into the passenger compartments. Yes, like a speeding bullet someone could have died from the projectile. Luckily, on those flights no passengers were hit.

However, the cabin or the fuel tanks, when turbine fans let go they go in whatever direction regardless of a shroud. If a fuel tank is what stops the schrapnel, then fire is likely. Basically, turbine fuel is kerosene. I'm not saying what happened to the F-16. I'm saying to jump to conclusions about one being shot down due to outside source like a missle, isn't the best solution to what happened. More information is needed. We may never receive that. The smartest people will withhold judgment. All we really know is the jet went down and the pilot or pilots ejected. If there were two pilots it was likely a training flight. Be calm and wait for more information and doubt everything these days.

CapnGriff