Frog + F-16 = Jail

Airmen: If you happen to be holding a frog while walking past an F-16 engine, do your best to resist the temptation to throw Kermit in. And, if you can't help yourself, for the love of God, don't film the incident, and put it on MySpace. You could wind up demoted, or in jail, or both.

Staff Sgt. Aaron F. Wilson, of the 35th Aircraft Maintenance Unit, was sentenced to "three months in jail and a bad conduct discharge in a Kunsan Air Base courtroom Friday night" after he watched his men chuck a frog inside a running jet engine, Stars & Stripes reports.
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The incident was filmed using Wilson’s camera and posted on his public myspace.com Web site [warning: broke both my browsers], where it remained for nine days....

Kunsan’s fleet of 41 jets was grounded so every engine could be checked for potential problems following the frog toss, said wing vice commander Col. Preston Thompson, a former F-16 pilot instructor who testified Friday....

More than 400 maintainers worked over the weekend to check the engines and dispel the possibility that other engines were similarly mistreated, Thompson said.

“I cannot fathom someone intentionally putting something down the intake of an aircraft,” Thompson added...

One of the first things maintenance airmen are taught is not to bring any foreign objects into the hush house [maintenance facility], including cameras or debris...

Last month, Sr. Airman Welland Wilkerson was sentenced to 30 days in jail and reduction in rank to E-1 for throwing the frog at the engine, although he missed... A trial date has not yet been set for Staff Sgt. Herman Elizee, who ultimately tossed the frog in the engine.

(High five: RC, Fark)