Jet crash kills Glenwood Springs High School grad

Instructor also dies in accident at Sheppard Air Force Base

Click to Enlarge Browse and Buy Post Independent Photos Alec Farquhar Littler

By Pete Fowler
Glenwood Springs, CO Colorado
May 6, 2008

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WICHITA FALLS, Texas - A 23-year-old Glenwood Springs native died in a jet crash at the Sheppard Air Force Base in Texas on Thursday.

A T-38 twin-engine, high-altitude, supersonic jet crashed on approach during a routine training mission around 7:55 a.m. Second Lt. Alec Farquhar Littler, 23, a student pilot in the 80th Flying Training Ward's Euro-NATO Joint Jet Pilot Training program, and Maj. Brad Funk, 35, a 90th Flying Training Squadron instructor pilot, were both killed. Witnesses said they saw one person eject.

The training program produces future combat pilots for NATO.

Littler spent his childhood in Brisbane, Australia, and returned to attend Glenwood Springs High School. He participated in extracurricular activities such as the student council, mock trial and cross country. He attended the Air Force ROTC at the University of Colorado at Boulder before getting accepted into the Euro-NATO training program.

Family members couldn't be immediately reached.

Glenwood Springs High School teacher Bryan Whiting remembered Littler as a motivated, personable and mature student. He said the crash was a tragedy.

"He was always a very dedicated, focused student that knew what he wanted to do and was anxious to get on doing it," he said.

Two others died in a training jet April 23 at Columbus Air Force Base in Mississippi. The Air Force suspended all T-38 flights pending the investigations into what caused the planes to go down. The jet has been linked to 138 fatalities and about 189 crashes since it was first deployed in 1959, according to the Air Force Safety Center. There were 16 fatalities related to crashes at Sheppard Air Force Base since 1967. All but six involved T-38s.

Sheppard Air Force Base is about 135 miles northwest of Dallas.




The Associated Press contributed to this story.

Contact Pete Fowler: 384-9121
pfowler@postindependent.com



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