US Air Force cancels air exhibitions in RP

CLARK FIELD, Pampanga — The US Air Force (USAF) has canceled all air exhibitions of its Thunderbird squadron slated in the Philippines and other parts of Asia in the coming weeks.

The exhibitions would have featured six F-16C Fighting Falcons which conducted more raids than any other fighter aircraft in "Operation Desert Storm" at the Persian Gulf in 1991.

Maj. Allan Ballesteros, spokesman of the 600th Air Base Wing of the Philippine Air Force (PAF) here, said they received last Friday an e-mail from Joyce Langston of the USAF’s civilian public affairs office, saying that the air demonstrations slated here from Sept. 30 to Oct. 3 have been scrapped.

Other scheduled exhibitions in Korea, Thailand and Australia were also canceled.

The USAF made the move following the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center’s twin towers in New York City and the Pentagon in Washington last Sept. 11.

The US government is bracing for retaliation against those who carried out the attacks and the countries which are coddling them. — Ding Cervantes