Actually the first time a manual reversion landing was done was when Jim Rose of the 706th Fighter Squadron (Cajuns), got hit by ground fire while tank busting low altitude during Desert Storm. Active duty never likes admitting Guard and Reserves can do things first and many times much better due to much higher experience levels. Then Bob Swain of same squadron blew a Iraqi chopper from the sky using just the gun.
Cool. My point was simply that A-10s can take as much abuse as they give. Very few modern fighter craft can make that claim. I recall a story about an Israeli F15 having an entire wing lost and the pilot landed successfully. That guy must have coconut size balls...
They will probably never know for sure. Small planes like that don't carry a flight recorder like the black box that is on all commercial airliners.
He could have ejected safely at anytime. Decided he could fly her back in and save the taxpayers a few mil.
