The F-16, assigned to the Air National Guard, was carrying standard armaments, Holliday said. The pilot, the only person on board, was taken to a hospital for examination, officials said. The jet’s cockpit canopy was on a runway, and a parachute had settled in a nearby field.ĭamage to the warehouse was relatively minor, and there was no major fire, which Holliday called “a miracle.” “He started losing control of the aircraft.” “The pilot was having hydraulic problems,” Holliday said. The crash happened as the pilot was landing following a routine training mission, March Air Reserve Base Deputy Fire Chief Timothy Holliday said. The crash also caused a small fire doused by the warehouse sprinkler system, Herrera said. “I love flying and I feel very lucky to do it.Gallegos said he believed one of his co-workers was struck by something - possibly a falling fire sprinkler - and wasn’t seriously hurt.Ī dozen people were hosed down and taken to hospitals, and there were no major injuries, state fire Capt. “That’s where a lot of the principles that allowed me to be successful were put into place,” he said. That gratitude is as apparent in his choice to talk to elementary school students as it is his choice to fly over his hometown during his last time in command of an F16. Service, though, is an expression of gratitude for Reeman, and that was another value he learned in Eaton, although he didn’t learn it until later. It’s why he was talking to a class of elementary school students Wednesday, taking time out of his new assignment as a squad commander of the Colorado Air National Guard’s 138th Space Squadron. It seemed like a fun way to serve his country, he said, and he wanted to serve. When he learned in the 1990s that he could fly part-time in the Air National Guard – about six or seven missions a month – and still hold down a job as an airline pilot, he decided to take the opportunity. It always seemed like an interesting career choice, he said, and he did choose to study aviation in college. Still, as a child, he had a neighbor who was a pilot for United Airlines. “I wasn’t this kid who grew up dreaming of flying,” he said. For a while, growing up, he thought he wanted to be a teacher and a coach. Reeman said through the town’s summer baseball program, he helped coach younger kids, even while attending college in Florida, he spent summers in Eaton coaching.
“The program became a self-perpetuating success.” “There was a big emphasis on the older kids helping teach those principles to the younger kids,” he said. Early in his childhood, Reeman discovered a passion for baseball, a centerpiece of Eaton’s culture. But in addition to answering questions, Reeman gave a presentation, in which he discussed some of the guiding values of his career, including vision, passion and discipline, many of which, he said, he learned growing up in Eaton.īack then, Eaton Elementary was in a different location in town. On Wednesday, Reeman answered a barrage of student questions about F16s, how fast they travel, how high they fly, whether Reeman had been fired at during his deployments in the Middle East (yes, many times), and whether he’d ever had to eject during a flight (never). Talking to students “is an opportunity for those of us who feel like we’ve been blessed in our careers to give back,” Reeman said. Reeman has talked to a number of schools since he first started flying for the military after graduating college in 1992. Later, when Reeman heard the kids had questions about the flyover and what the life of an Air National Guardsman is like, he decided to make a second trip to the school Wednesday – this time on foot – to talk to them. As he passed over Benjamin Eaton Elementary School, he saw a cluster of students look up and wave. He would’ve flown near the area of his childhood home, a farmhouse his great-grandfather built in 1885. He could’ve picked out Eaton High School, where he graduated in 1988. It was slow enough for him to be able to see, from the air, the streets and buildings where he grew up. “That’s like my foot’s not even on the gas,” he said. It was enough to cause a stir in the town of about 5,000, but for Reeman, that’s leisurely. To celebrate, the Eaton native decided to do a celebratory flyover of the town by screaming over its rooftops 1,500 feet up at 350 mph. James Reeman’s last flight as an Air National Guard F16 fighter pilot was Nov.
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