Mishap ATAC Mirage F1B at Tyndall AFB
Airborne Tactical Advantage Company (ATAC) Dassault Mirage F1B, registration N601AX (ex French Air Force 502), slid off the runway at Tyndall Air Force Base (FL) on 25 February 2021 at around 11:45 hrs LT.
According to Tyndall officials, both pilots suffered non-life-threatening injuries and were taken to hospital. The cause of the accident is not known yet, nor the exact damage to the Mirage fighter. One of the pilots chose to eject from the aicraft.
ATAC comprises the world's largest outsourced civilian, tactical airborne training organization. They provide for already some twenty years high-quality live tactical air training, threat simulation training to the US Navy, US Marine Corps, US Air Force and US Army air-crews, ship-crews, and Combat Controllers in the air-to-ship, air-to-air, and air-to-ground arenas.
ATAC has bought 63 Mirage F1s in various variants from the Armée de l'Air et de l'Espace (French Air and Space Force), of which seven are Mirage F1Bs. The first flight of a Mirage F1B in ATAC service occurred on 22 August 2019, when N601AX took to the skies from the Adversary Center of Excellence (ACE) facility at the Fort Worth Alliance Airport (TX).
From five bases worldwide, including the Continental US, Hawaii and the Pacific, ATAC logged already over 42,000 flight hours of tactical flying support and they are approved to train with Top Gun as well as 5th generation aircraft. Besides the F1s, ATAC fields Hawker Hunter, IAI F-21 Kfir, and Aero Vodochody L-39ZA.
The seven ATAC Mirage F1Bs received the following registrations. Their former French Air Force serial is in brackets and the Certificate Issue Date of all these Mirages is 29 November 2018.
Photo: airwingspotter.com / Image: AirNav@RadarBox