Comments on: Pilot Error Caused SD Hornet Crash

By: tk

tk — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 03:26:22 +0000

if you can’t turn left, turn 270 right.

By: Wild Bill

Wild Bill — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 14:08:38 +0000

Krag,
Let me not overstate my qualifications. I know practically nothing about how an F-18 works. But shooter55 was given instructions by ATC to turn 060 a few seconds later ATC asked shooter to stay on that heading and shooter responded he was having trouble turning to that heading because of only one engine. ATC acknowledges his problem.

By: mike j

mike j — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 05:57:19 +0000

So, when the military pilot drops his busted military jet on a civie house and burns a civie family, when the military rules say he should have put down at the first available base, how does that figure in, KragCulloden?
Sh*t DOES happen, it shouldn’t happen twice, and that’s the only thing I’ve said.
Have a good one.

By: KragCulloden

KragCulloden — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 05:35:02 +0000

Excellent post Wild Bill, except I believe this part to be inaccurate:
“6. He was fighting a plane that is designed to fly with two engines but was now pulling hard to one side with only one engine. He had to have either his right or left foot hard into his foot pedal while compensating with the stick. Not something you practice every day.“
Unless there was an issue with the flight control software, the hornet would have compensated for that automatically (or is that only in the superhornet?)

By: KragCulloden

KragCulloden — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 05:21:04 +0000

Real example of military priorities as relayed by a participant some years ago…USN carrier wing was conducting a combined training excercise with foreign forces. Right after takeoff, an F-14 suffers hydraulic casualty and begins losing fluid rapidly — which means muscle has to take over for hydraulic assisted control surfaces, and raises problems with lower the nose gear.
The aircrew, a nuggest pilot and a veteran RIO/GIB, request to divert to the nearest land base which luckily is not too far away. They don’t get permission…so they request an emergency return to the carrier to land…also denied because the carrier is still launching for the upcoming excercise.
So the aircrew, now severely pissed, are forced to loiter in an ever-worsening F-14. Navy two-seaters don’t have dual flight controls, so the nugget is carrying the whole load and the RIO can do nothing but keep the pep-talk up and handle comms.
End result is that eventually they were walked through how to jury-jig a process to get the nose gear down, and the nugget successfully landed the crippled tomcat back on the carrier once the launches were completed.
Point — this isn’t taxi cabs of the sky — this is the military where some things are more important than safety first. The combined exercise still took place, the rest of the squadron still participated, and the tomcat was home where it could be repaired and turned around faster, and where the aircrew were immediately available for use with another craft, than if they had diverted ashore. And the nugget had some bona-fide bragging rights for the ready-room.
Just because a tragedy occurs, doesn’t necessarily mean somebody was wrong, or that something HAS to be changed. Sometimes sh*t happens and you deal with it and move on. That used to be common sense.…

By: KragCulloden

KragCulloden — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 05:02:55 +0000

For the geniuses that still don’t have this figured out — commercial airlines DO NOT equal US military.
Quit the moronic attempts to draw parallels. The military is not a safety-first culture, its a mission complete culture. Military pilots are responsible for their mission, their aircrew, and their aircraft, in that order. Civvie bus drivers and commercial entities are an entirely different ball of wax. That should not be hard to understand.…

By: mike j

mike j — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 03:54:16 +0000

That’s pretty funny, KragCulloden. “Sh*t Happens.” Aviator says it right up front, “possibly a problem with the other engine.” He knew that all the way.
Different scenario– airliner loses one of his two engines on departure: Do they find the nearest suitable runway, or do they fly it over to the nearest company maintenance base, because it’s cheaper?

By: KragCulloden

KragCulloden — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 01:18:39 +0000

After listening to the ATC recording, the thing that keeps popping up in my head is “Sh*t happens”.
One of many things that separates “do-ers” from everyone else is an understanding of that simple truth — sh*t happens.
The pilot had the situation under control — he was flying the injured a/c, it was stable and controllable, and there were good reasons to take him to Miramar. That ultimately the aircraft crashed and killed folks on the ground doesn’t make those sound decisions wrong — it just means sh*t happens sometimes and it sucks.
Losing an engine in a two-engine fighter is not the same as losing two engines in a two-engine commercial airliner, and any attempt to compare them is plain stupid.
The aviator had the a/c under control, he had power, and he had reasons to attempt Miramar. Yes it sucks that the fuel flow problem was not recognized, yet it sucks that he lost the second engine as he was lined up with the runway and headed in…but I fail to see how this can be cause to destroy careers up and down the chain of command. It only makes sense to somebody that does nothing but review the lives of those that are actually living one.
God forbid these hindsight geniuses EVER have to make a real-world decision with the standard less-than-perfect mortal lack of complete information.

By: KragCulloden

KragCulloden — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 00:37:00 +0000

“Pilot Error Caused SD Hornet Crash“
Defend this title please…how did the pilot cause the engine failure and fuel flow failure? Isn’t that the cause of the crash? The location of the crash is the issue causing heads to roll, but to say the *cause* was pilot error seems ridiculous to me.

By: dani

dani — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 23:16:00 +0000

Has anyone read http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/025685.html ?