Author: Sharon Kurtz

The airman who died in a rappelling demonstration gone wrong on Saturday night was a Tactical Air Control Party instructor with 15 years of service in the Air Force.

The Air Force identified the airman Monday as Tech. Sgt. Ian Patterson, a Tactical Air Control Party instructor assigned to a training detachment of the 6th Combat Training Squadron at Joint Base San Antonio, Texas.

Patterson was part of a four-person demonstration before a football game between the University of Texas at San Antonio and the U.S. Naval Academy at the city’s Alamodome. Patterson’s team planned to drop from the rafters in the 160-foot-high stadium onto the playing field. Videos posted online of the incident appear to show him sliding down the rope far too fast before he hits the ground.

Emergency responders rushed to him on the field and tended to him for several minutes before he was taken away on a stretcher. The San Antonio Fire Department transported him to an area hospital with life-threatening injuries; he died at the hospital. Air Force officials said the incident is under investigation. 

“This tragedy is felt deeply across the 57th Wing,” Air Force Brig. Gen. Scott C. Mills, 57th Wing commander, said in a release Monday. “Tech. Sgt. Patterson and his service mattered immensely to our wing, and to the family, friends, and teammates who had the privilege of knowing and serving alongside him. Our team is now focused on standing beside Ian’s family, loved ones, and fellow airmen as we navigate this profound loss together.”

Patterson, from Fort Stewart, Georgia, had served for 15 years. In 2022, he was named the Air Force Special Warfare Enlisted Instructor of the Year at the Headquarters Air Force level, according to the service. His awards include the  Air and Space Commendation Medal, the Air and Space Achievement Medal and the Army Achievement Medal, among others.

An Air Force TACP is a special operations airman who embeds with ground forces, typically from other service branches, to coordinate close air support to strike enemy targets during operations. 

The 6th Combat Training Squadron, headquartered at Nellis Air Force Base, trains troops from different branches to be forward air controllers, which includes TACPs. Detachment 2 operates at Joint Base San Antonio, near the stadium where the incident took place.

The rappelling demonstration was part of pre-game events at the Alamodome, done as part of UTSA’s annual Salute to Armed Forces & Veterans game. Thousands of people were inside the stadium and watched the accident. The football game was delayed for approximately 10 minutes.

The services have showcased similar rappelling demos at sporting events for decades. In 2012, pararescue troops with the Kentucky Air National Guard rappelled down the side of the University of Louisville stadium and in 2016, soldiers rappelled from the ceiling at a Major League Baseball game in Florida.

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A National Guardsman was shot in the leg when three soldiers exchanged gunfire with the alleged suspect while trying to break up a fight on a Washington, D.C. street Sunday night. A police official said the soldier is being treated at a local hospital for “non-life threatening injuries.”

At a press conference held at the scene, Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Police Department interim Police Chief Jeffrey Carrol said that seven or eight guardsmen were parked in a van in Southeast Washington when they saw a fight break out among “some individuals” on a nearby sidewalk and intervened.

“An individual that had been involved in the fight had pulled out a firearm and began shooting,” Carroll said. “Members of the National Guard immediately gave commands to that individual to put down the gun. That individual then pointed the weapon towards National Guard members, who returned fire to that individual.”

“Three members of the National Guard discharged firearms,” Carroll said. “Which one specifically struck the suspect in this case, we don’t know at this point.”

Carroll said both the National Guardsman and the civilian were transported to local hospitals for treatment. The other man, whom police referred to as the suspect in the incident, was shot in the abdomen, the chief confirmed.

A Joint Task Force – District of Columbia spokesperson told Task & Purpose Monday morning that the guardsman who was treated at a hospital for gunshot wounds had been released. The official said that the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department is leading the investigation into the incident. They did not respond to inquiries about the soldier’s service record, but said they would share more information “when it is confirmed and appropriate for release.” 

The Guardsmen were in Washington, D.C. as part of President Donald Trump’s mobilization of National Guard from across the U.S. to help local law enforcement fight crime in the nation’s capital. As of Saturday, more than 2,960 troops are supporting the mission, according to the Task Force. According to an ABC reporter, another 2,000 Guardsmen will deploy to Washington this spring for the NFL draft.

Less than a year ago, two National Guardsmen were shot in downtown Washington in what officials referred to as an “ambush” of the soldiers and an “offense against the U.S.” One soldier died, and the other was seriously wounded. Both received Purple Heart awards, one posthumously.

UPDATE: 10/19/2026; This article has been updated with a statement from the Joint Task Force – District of Columbia officials that the Guardsman was released from the hospital and that D.C. police are leading the investigation.

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A specialized Army artillery battery focused on the European theater carried out its first test fire of a Tomahawk Land Attack Missile from a Typhon missile system in recent weeks.

Soldiers with 3rd Battalion, 12th Field Artillery Regiment, a long-range fires battalion, test fired the Typhon missile system almost a year after it was formally established. It was the first time the unit, one of a handful of Army batteries assigned the Typhon, had fired a Tomahawk.

The test took place on Sept. 28 at Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake, California but the Army did not announce it until this past week. The live-fire event was part of a five-week training program at the naval station to familiarize soldiers with the Typhon, also known as the Mid-Range Capability system.

The Typhon is able to fire two types of long-range munitions fielded by the Navy: the Standard Missile-6 and the Tomahawk Land Attack Missile, giving the Army the ability to carry out long-range land-attack missiles at targets as far as 1,000 miles away. The M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, or HIMARS, that the battalion also uses, has a shorter range of up to roughly 186 miles. 

Lt. Col. Derek Bartlett, the commander of the battalion, said in the Army’s announcement that the Typhon system lets the unit “get that range for that combatant commander to give them options and capabilities where they really haven’t had it before from the land force.” It opens up greater firepower for soldiers, instead of having to call in support from other parts of the joint force, he said.

The battalion is part of the Army’s 2nd Multi-Domain Task Force, which is based in Germany.  The unit was supposed to deploy to Europe this year, but that scheduled deployment was canceled in May, part of a wider curtailing of Army movements to Europe.  The U.S. and NATO had previously described the battalion’s deployment as part of “episodic deployments of the long-range fires capabilities.” 3rd Battalion, 12th Field Artillery Regiment was formally stood up in late 2025, although plans for sending it to Europe preceded it by several months.

Multi-domain task forces are meant to operate within range of enemy forces, with the mission of quickly detecting and disrupting adversaries’ surveillance and targeting capabilities. It does so through a mix of cyber and electronic warfare capabilities and long-range missile strikes, carried out by units like 3rd Battalion, 12th Field Artillery Regiment. 

Multi-Domain Command-Europe describes the battalion as United States Army Europe and Africa’s “primary kinetic long‑range precision fires unit” and says that it “extends U.S. operational reach and lethality, reinforces commitments to NATO allies, and contributes to deterrence and regional stability.”

The test is notable as its the first time an Army force focused on Europe has fired the Mid-Range Capability system, even if it happened stateside. The Army has fielded the weapons platform in the Pacific over the last two years, including sending it to the Philippines and Japan. Speaking at the Association of the United States Army conference this past week, Maj. Gen. Bernard Harrington, commanding general of 7th Infantry Division / Multi-Domain Command – Pacific, noted that the Army has learned from a 30-month deployment of the Typhon system in the Pacific, including from its recent participation in the Balikatan exercise in the Philippines.

The Army stood up its fourth multi-domain task force at Fort Carson, Colorado, earlier in October.

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A service member with an Air Force special warfare training unit died Saturday when they fell while rappelling from the rafters of a football stadium in San Antonio, Texas. The airman was part of a pregame demonstration of military skills at the city’s 64,000-seat Alamodome before a game in which the U.S. Naval Academy was the visiting team.

A spokesperson for Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada, confirmed that a service member assigned to the 6th Combat Training Squadron, Detachment 2, died from injuries sustained in the fall prior to the game between the University of Texas at San Antonio and the Naval Academy.

The 6th Combat Training Squadron trains service members from across the military as terminal air controllers, troops trained in both ground combat operations and the technical skills of directing strike aircraft over a battlefield. The unit’s Detachment 2 is based at Lackland Air Force Base, about 12 miles from the Alamodome, where it runs the selection and initial training courses for airmen hoping to qualify as Tactical Air Control Party, or TACPs, a terminal air control job within the service’s special warfare corps.

The incident happened during a pregame rappelling demonstration ahead of UTSA’s annual Salute to Armed Forces & Veterans game. Four military members were to rappel from the rafters of the Alamodome to the playing field. Catwalks in the stadium’s rafters are about 160 feet above the playing field, according to the stadium’s technical manual.

According to an account from a reporter with the San Antonio Express-News, the airman was halfway through the descent when they began to slide in “an uncontrolled manner” and hit the ground hard. Football staff and medical personnel rushed to the injured man and the injured airman was taken away on a stretcher in a cart.

The San Antonio Fire Department told Task & Purpose that it transported a person with a life-threatening injury to a hospital. The Air Force later confirmed that the airman had died.

“The incident is under investigation. More information will be released as it becomes available,” the Nellis spokesperson said.

The Air Force did not identify the deceased.

Prior to the Air Force’s announcement that the service member had died, a spokesperson for UTSA athletics confirmed that the rappel team was made up of members of 6th Combat Training Squadron, Detachment 2.

The 6th Combat Training Squadron is based at Nellis Air Force Base. Detachment 2 operates from Joint Base San Antonio-Camp Bullis, a field training range about 20 miles north of the city. 

This is a developing story.

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