The Real Story Behind the F-15 Stand-down.

The trouble started on Nov. 2, when a Missouri Air National Guard F-15C crashed during an exercise. The incident quickly blossomed into a temporary, global shutdown of all F-15 flights, so that the planes — including those owned by overseas customers in countries such as Israel, Saudi Arabia and Japan — could be examined. This was the fourth crash involving an F-15 model this year. "First, only noncritical flights in the U.S. were grounded," says Guy Ben-Ari, a research fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "Then it was broadened to include all noncritical flights in combat operations. Then it was broadened to all flights. That doesn't happen very often." Equally rare is the fact that international customers of the airplane followed the United States' lead in grounding their F-15s. "Makes you wonder what information they are receiving," he says.

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