The missiles were fired instead of dropped for a number of factors. First, the underwing missiles cannot be jettisoned without also dropping the pylons and the aircraft's wing tanks. Second, hitting the water at high mach speeds damages the missiles severely, if not destroying them altogether. But dumping the Eagle's weapons load came at a very high cost.

Depending on how many missiles were carried and of what type, the price of sending that F-15C's entire arsenal to Davy Jones's locker added up to millions of dollars. Usually, alert F-15s will go out with six or eight missiles. Traditionally, such a configuration will include four AIM-120C AMRAAMs and a pair of AIM-9X Sidewinders. Alternatively, they will fly with a full loadout of six AIM-120 AMRAAMs and two AIM-9X Sidewinders.

Here is an exact unit cost of each missile and the sub-variants that are in production and/or are presently carried by F-15C Eagles. The numbers are taken directly from various fiscal year Pentagon budgets:

AIM-9X Block II (as of FY19 budget): ~$408,000



AIM-9X Block I (as of FY09 budget): ~$250,000 (~$292,000 in 2019 dollars)



AIM-120D (as of FY19 budget): ~$1.5 million



AIM-120C-7 (as of FY09 budget): ~1.0 million (~$1.16 in 2019 dollars)

So at the very least, we are talking about $4.5M worth of missiles here, but that figure is likely somewhat higher.