“We knew we could do it, but it would take a long time. We basically rebuilt the entire front of the A-10 without aided engineering and un-procurable parts that had to be local manufactured.”-Daniel Wise, 571st Aircraft Maintenance Squadron (AMXS)

By 22OCT2021, repair crews at Hill Air Force Base, Utah, finished more than three years of work returning a crashed A-10 Thunderbolt-2 to life.

On 20JUL2017, a Michigan Air National Guard Red Devil’s A-10C suffered a 30mm gun misfire, which caused the canopy and several panels to blow off, two of the radios died. It was also discovered by the wingman that the landing gear wouldn’t drop, notifying Captain Brett DeVries, on a third radio set, that he had to belly land tail number 80-0264.

The Michigan Air National Guard thought the warthog could be repaired and contacted the 309th AMXG (aircraft maintenance group) on Hill AFB.  80-0264 arrived on Hill in July 2018.

The reason why it was sent to Hill AFB is that the A-10 is such a unique, and old aircraft, that parts are hard to find, but many can be locally made on Hill AFB: “A lot of the parts are unavailable so we have to run them through our local manufacturing process and make them ourselves. With any of the other weapons systems, if they have a bad part, they order it through supply and replace it. On the A-10’s, we’re kind of in a different world.”-Scott Oster, 571st AMXS

When the 30mm Gatling gun decides to malfunction it causes extensive structural damage inside the nose of the A-10, including the nose wheel well and landing gear: “It was just a whole lot of structural work, like 90%.”-Scott Oster, 571st AMXS

Then, at the beginning of April 2020, another A-10C, this time in Georgia, also made a belly landing on Moody Air Force Base.

In November 2020, Captain Brett DeVries actually got the ‘DFC’ award for belly landing his A-10C. But that wasn’t his first award for belly landing an A-10C, the first award came in March 2018. Michigan Air National Guard video report about  the Joe Foss Award for Excellence:

In May 2021, Captain Taylor Bye also got an award for belly landing her A-10C on Moody AFB.

Way back in March 2008, an A-10 taking part in a Green Flag operation out of Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada, had to make a belly landing, and did so on Edwards AFB, California.

Upon closer inspection of the photo, it appears there was a problem with the 30mm gun?

December 2021: A-10C RED & GREEN IDAHO SHOW?

August 2021: Michigan Air National Guard uses state highway to launch A-10Cs (chock full of videos of A-10Cs and C-146A Wolfhound)