Apparently, Air Force accident investigators weren’t even aware that there was a flight data recorder aboard the CV-22 that crashed in Afghanistan last April. This pretty big accidental oversight may be partially to blame for the conflicting reports that the crash may or may not have been caused by a combination of engine power loss and pilot error.
While Air Force’s lead investigator into the crash, now-retired Brig. Gen. Donald Harvel, said in the summary of his accident investigation that he belied the cause of the crash could well have been engine trouble, the Air Force nixed this as an official cause of the crash, in part because the Flight Information Recorder was destroyed.
However, Harvel tells Steve Trimble that no one was able to review the information from the aircraft’s Flight Incident Recorder because it was never looked for.
Several rescue and salvage crews failed to grab the critical device because the incident recorder was not among the items listed for recovery at the crash site, according to Harvel. This was apparently due to a translation problem between U.S. Marine Corps and U.S. Air Force manuals for the V-22.
AFSOC inherited instructional manuals — called “Dash-1s” — for the CV-22 from the Marine Corps’ MV-22B units. It was necessary to translate the manuals from Marine piloting and maintenance jargon to USAF terminology, but the translators made a few mistakes, Harvel says.
“Somehow in that translation there was nothing in [the AFSOC manual] that showed this aircraft had a FIR,” he says. “They had absolutely no idea.”
As a result, he adds, the FIR “was never on the list to get that off the airplane” after a crash.
While the aircraft was destroyed with a bomb right after the survivors were rescued, the data recorder was designed to survive such a blast.
However, the Air Force’s statement on the matter said the recorder was destroyed, preventing a complete examination of the incident. It doesn’t say how it was FIR destroyed.
Yet Trimble’s article goes on to say that, a day after the crash, an Army team went to the site to document it and retrieve more sensitive gear. The team took a picture of what might have been the recorder and then left the site with the intention of recovering more items the next day. When they went back however, the device was gone. Sounds like someone other than the U.S. military now has the black box.
This means it’s all the more difficult to definitively say what caused the first ever combat loss of a V-22.
The absence of the FIR means several theories about the cause of the CV-22 crash are possible, he says.
“I could understand how there could be people looking at the same evidence and come to different conclusions,” Harvel says.
For something important like this, shouldn’t we focus on standardizing as much information as possible. I know services have their own traditions. That’s fine. But why can’t U.S. flight manuals feature as much common language as possible; only using distinct terms when discussing parts that are unique to an individual service’s version of an aircraft?
Here’s his article.
{ 27 comments… read them below or add one }
So basically we have two branchs of the service that don't speak the same language and can't read each others airplane manuals?? Isn't English the common language of the AF and the USMC? Maybe the DOD needs to hire a manual writter that can write in English and not a unique jargon. A wing flap should be called a wing flap for both AF, Army, Navy and Marines.
I have read service manuals in three different services (Navy, Air Force and Army) and yes they are differently written. The way each service works on their planes is also different (environment comes to mind, like the Navy doesn't usually land on ice, the Air Force doesn't land on ships and the Army ain't got no wings. Throw into this mix the fact that oh about every ten years someone on high decides to rewrite how the work is done and written about and / or each manufacturer wants to change things to fit their computer models on maintenance time between failures, flight, mission capability..etc and of course when the boss ain't looking, common sense rears it's ugly head because the troops get tired of going to another meeting to decide how they are going to fix a problem without hiring extra folks or paying overtime. This will not change and it never will.
Standardization would definitely be nice. For instance, if I were writing an article about the issue, I would try to make things more clear by avoiding the usage of "Flight Info Recorder", "flight data recorder", "Flight Information Recorder", "Flight Incident Recorder", "data recorder", "FIR", "black box", etc., all in the same article. Especially since there is already confusion amongst the general public about the different types of recorders which fly on airplanes.
The incompetence of the air force astounds me!
Needing someone to translate the flight manual-come on? Don't they speak English in the air force?
Didn't think there was a flight recorder-come on? Shouldn't the air force investigators be able
to think without a script in front of them?
It was probably another group of folks that didn't have that on their list (Army thought Air Force already got it and Air force was too busy saving lives to worry about it.
Is this the fault of the AF or the Marine Corps? The snippets make it sound like that the AF translated the manuals from Marine jargon, but doesn't that place the error at the hands of whoever wrote the manuals for the MC, and made them obtuse enough that FIR information wasn't obvious?
Additionally, if you are on the ground salvaging, if you are using /common equipment/ shouldn't a FIR be recognizable? Are they stashed in different places? It sounds like either your salvage recovery people aren't using common sense or that procurement is screwed up such that a FIR is unrecognizable for people in different branches using essentially the same hardware.
"When they went back however, the device was gone. Sounds like someone other than the U.S. military now has the black box. "
Or, the U.S. military intentionally didn't want the black box getting out there.
I don't think accidents like this happen. Data recorder is all anybody was looking for at the crash site. Data recorder and survivors. Why take pictures if you're not going to grab the data recorder? Seems unbelievable to think anything but that the U.S. military doesn't want the details of this accident getting out.
Agreed…it's unreal to think people who read this site actually swallow this garbage. Next they'll tell us Pat Tillman burned his own body armor in a moment of patriotic glory…
The data is missing because it's embarrassing or just potentially embarrassing.
There is no conspiracy behind this. There is just incompetence. We're lucky there are ONLY two V-22 manuals in circulation.
Remember why space lingo is now all metric?
who can say "cover up"….?
Paranoid nut jobs.
I'm surprised they didn't park a UAV over the remains, and then kill whoever came to scavenge off the wreck.
Let's say the Taliban have the recorder. Could they even hook it up to anything to read the data? What could they possibly do with the data inside? Hypothetically, is it possible that the equipment to read flight data recorders would've been transported into the country by truck, and lost to the Taliban via capture or theft from Khyber pass convoys?
its called Military Intelligence. the oxymoron for ____ ?
Sounds fishy.
I would not blame the entire Air Force or Marine Corp on these tasteless comments. Today's military does not have dedicated career personnel on these jobs anymore. The flight engineer probably had no clue if it had one or not/or what it looks like. Training key factor. No other helicopters have a black box. Investigators with not enough experience? And was there one in this aircraft ? All assumptions.
Retired USAF 40 years on Helicopters
Have you considered the possibility of nefarious motives on the part of those who stand to lose the most? It seems much more likely to be a case of CYA than the absurd explanation given above.
Carlton, you seem to have made quite the career attempting to lambast the V22 at every turn. Av week, here, other blogs….youve got quite the free time on your hands,
Anti-USAF bias rears its head on this website once again. The sweeping generalizations and jumping to unfounded conclusions amazes me. As someone who was involved from the mishap aircraft's operating location, some of you are making dangerous suppositions that are factually and contextually untrue–and I know this from first-hand participation/observation.
Think about the effect these falsehoods can have on surviving family and friends before you post and start unjustly slamming a service branch. If you know anything about safety investigations, you'd know that the details are kept close hold for good reason (to prevent damaging conjecture like is going on here). With a solid journalism perspective, check the facts (not heresy) again; the problem wasn't that no one knew the FIR existed or could not read a USMC-designed manual.
Unless you've been to the AOR and walked a mile in those shoes, don't Monday morning armchair quarterback it. "Nefarious motives" , really?
I don't buy that for one minute. Anyone who has ever crewed an aircraft of any type would, by default, believe there is a flight data recorder and possibly a cockpit voice recorder unless they were told otherwise.
I must jump in on this. I've been on recovery operations adn there are two types: first is the type which occurs after a training mission when there is a lot of time to sift through the wreckage. the second (like this one) is during combat operations when time is better spent on survivors than boxes – after all people do come first and the clasified on the aircraft is more important than the actual crash at that point. (word max)
Part 2:
A key thing to remember is while the USAF and USCMC speak/read english the CV version is a totaly different configuration BUT the FIR is part of each…and not discussed in the flight manual becase it's an autonomous system – turn the aircraft on and it too is on -hands off. so My theory is since the crashed aircraft was due to be demolished the person looking for the FIR was either not a maintenance person or anyone with knowledge of the part. The recovery person may have had a manufactures picture but after those parts get burned…pictures are usless. I think someone grabbed the incorrect part and this wasn't discuvered until after teh aircarft was bombed (I don't think they wait to get the parts in hand before destroying aircraft downed behind enemy lines). SO not a cover-up a minor mistake and this is aviation….one of the only remaining professions using blood as ink – part of the job.
If you read the actual reports, with interviews with everyone involved, this seems to be an issue where the lead chalk came in over 100% too fast, as far out as 1nm.
If it was really an issue of the CV22 landing above its rated altitude (as suggested by Career V22 Critic Carlton on numerous blogs), then the other 2 members of the flight would not have hover landed immediately thereafter without issues, and proceeded with the evac.
Hey Ralph you got the 'black box'? "Yeah, Joe i got a black box." Ralph, that's not the 'black box' we're looking for. It's colored, High viability orange". "Then why do the call it a 'Black box' Joe?" "Awwww don't ask questions. You know where they are on this thing?", "It says it's located on the 'Veritcal Stabilizer, Is that the 'Rudder? Is that the one we just blew up?"
Keep calm! you just blew away only one. There's spare of it for V-22 (beside the blown up one)!
Ya know with a little bit of work, we could the old “who's on first, what's on second, I don't know is on third” routine… LOL
What would make more sense is the manufacturer writing some sort of Common Manual that the services use as their basis for appendices describing things based on specialized variants, or in their lingua service branch. However, a common manual that covers as much as possible in a fashion everyone understands would be the best way to go, unless you want every branch doing its own recovery missions (Marines sent to MV-22's, AF to CV-22s, etc.)