Well, I don't know how long this has been out but I just found it. "Lex" Lefron's accident report is out.
Talk about swiss cheese. I can't say I would have done differently.
http://www.ntsb.gov/aviationquery/brief2.aspx?ev_id=20120307X13644&ntsbno=DCA12PA049&akey=1
For the record, I noticed that they spelled TOPGUN ("one word, all caps") as both Topgun and as Top Gun in the report. Someone could have done a better job checking that.
I read his blog daily and met him twice. Both times at the Fallon O'Club. Every time there is a discussion in Naval Aviation, I wish I could see what he would write about it.
It is interesting comparing this accident against some of his recent posts.
Talk about swiss cheese. I can't say I would have done differently.
http://www.ntsb.gov/aviationquery/brief2.aspx?ev_id=20120307X13644&ntsbno=DCA12PA049&akey=1
For the record, I noticed that they spelled TOPGUN ("one word, all caps") as both Topgun and as Top Gun in the report. Someone could have done a better job checking that.
I read his blog daily and met him twice. Both times at the Fallon O'Club. Every time there is a discussion in Naval Aviation, I wish I could see what he would write about it.
It is interesting comparing this accident against some of his recent posts.
Lex 5 days before said:I’m on the early page it seems, with the 0515 brief burned into my forehead. And the late go as well, so long as your definition of “late” is expansive enough to admit a 1215 brief, 1400 take-off, and 1500 land. With the debrief to follow. Well within the limits of crew day, mind. But a 0415 wake-up, day after day, is rough country for old men.
Especially when, as it was today, the whole thing seems to be for naught.
Used to be that Navy had an on-site meteorology staff at every major deployment site to do their weather guessing for them. People that had spent five, ten – even fifteen or twenty years – learning what secrets old Gaea had hidden up her sleeves to trap the unwary or ill-informed. For it’s a dead solid truth that you’d rather be on the ground, wishing you were in the air, than on the air wishing you were on the ground. The corollary to which is that every airplane which takes off will land eventually, in one fashion or another. Sometimes they taxi back to the line. Sometimes they are swept up.
The Sandy Eggo-based weather guessers were full of bad omens and fearful visions. A ninety-degree crosswind at 25 gusting to 35 knots, we were foretold. A situation utterly beyond our capabilities, for the drag chute loves to fair itself into the wind regardless of whether that wind is down the runway, and you only have so much rudder to keep her tracking true once the rubber meets the prepared surface.
And yet, when it came time to walk to our machines, the flags hung limply, with no hint of later vengeance. So too, after we started and taxied to the hold short. Sometimes weather phenomena do not materialize as they have been forecast. And sometimes they do, but only after you have committed to going flying. Mr. Murphy still gets his vote. As does Mr. Finagle.
There are old pilots and bold pilots, but the overlap is minimal. Yet were we aware that our customers would take off if ever a plausible reason presented itself, and it would not be well thought of if the oldest among us proved chary while the youngest checked the X in the block. So at the hold short my lead called the local metro agent, who has been here since Darius stood in ranks, and asked him what he thought: You should be good to go, quotha. The weather not coming in until after 0900.
And so go we did.
Of the mission itself, not much to report. We joined up, held until committed, pushed out bravely and died unmourned. We were rewarded by the fates for our intrepidity by good conditions upon return to base. Gave thanks for our deliverance, and headed over to debrief our observations.
Heading into the debrief, a strapping young lieutenant I did not know passed me at the door, saying, “Seriously? I read your blog every day.” And that was at a distance mind, too far to read my name patch. Some other man, I replied gamely, knowing it was a lost cause. And wanting to add, “and where are your comments, at all?”
Weather guessers are often accurate, but only occasionally precise. Crosswinds did indeed manifest themselves, albeit after their predicted window. We lost the middle sortie.
The afternoon go also had predicted weather. Down the runway, or very nearly, but at 35 knots gusting to 40. In the bandit brief afterwards, the question was asked of our Navy friends what winds they would suffer. Twenty-five sustained knots, the answer came. On account of the ejection risks.
We did a little hangar flying then. When I was leaving the squadron I had the honor to command, a Marine Harrier pilot had the misfortune to lose his only engine on a gusty day in the Owens Valley east of the Sierras. He successfully ejected and was dragged to his death by the surface winds. I was for a time warned that I would lead his Judge Advocat General Manual investigation. I was happy to have the burden lifted, for JAGMAN investigations – somewhat perversely written by line officers, rather than JAGs themselves – are publicly releasable, unlike mishap investigations. What evern I determined in the course of that investigation could have brought no solace to the man’s family. And there was other work for me to do.
Another pilot remarked that a former TOPGUN instructor and his wingman had suffered a similar fate a few years back after a midair collision over Kuwait. It made for a somewhat subdued conversation afterward, but this is how we remind ourselves that for all the larks that are in it, there are tigers in the grass as well.
It seems a strange irony that the egress system which would save your life in an emergency could snatch it away from you based on something so intangible as surface winds. But just imagine being dragged behind a pickup truck at 25-35 miles per hour while grappling with your harness release and you’ll get some sense of our trepidation. The odds of losing an engine on a gusty day are no better or worse than on any other day. The odds of survival, given the conditions, are much reduced. And there would be other days to fly.
We all of us volunteered for this business, but all of us want a chance, should some bad thing arise, especially in a peacetime training environment: You’ll probably never have to eject. But if you have a bad day and are forced to, you’d a whole lot rather have an even chance to explain why you did so later.
Not long after we’d made our decision the snow was falling sideways and the wind howled through every nook and cranny, piercing though our flight suits and forcing us to shoulder through the gusts. I made my way to the O’Club for a pint of Guinness (for strength) followed by a shot of Jameson’s (for courage). Grateful for the day I’d had.
Looking forward to the next.
Lex 1 day prior said:I supposed it had to happen eventually, everybody has one in time. And I had mine yesterday. It was a good hop, really. Raging around down low, hiding in the mountains, waiting for a chance to pounce on the unwary. Although this is graduation week at the (prestigious) Navy Fighter Weapons School, and there are very few unwary students left. Still, good clean fun, and your host can say “Copy kill” with the best of them.
Cruised on back to the field for the recovery with few cares, being very nearly the first to land. The students being further away from the field at the knock-it-off, and the instructors taking advantage of whatever fuel they had left to whirl and flail at one another in the best traditions of the service. A tolerably precise landing, there’s the seven thousand feet to go board, and at 150 knots indicated I pulled the drag chute lever aft, bunting the nose slightly out of the aero-braking attitude to ensure a tangle-free deployment.
Which is precisely when nothing happened.
Ordinarily you feel a pretty good tug on the shoulder harness as the drag chute deploys. Not like an arrested landing aboard ship, mind. But the sensation is unmistakeable, as is the effect, particularly at higher speeds. Which I was still traveling at, the chute having either failed to deploy or parted behind me, there was no way to know. Look, there goes the six board. Still about 150 knots indicated. I’ve mentioned to you before how much runway the jet takes up during the take-off roll with the afterburner howling behind you. It takes up a surprising amount of pavement at idle, too. Especially with no drag chute. Time to go.
The procedure calls for full grunt, and drag chute lever forward to cut the chute if it’s a streamer. It takes a little while for the engine to make full thrust from idle, time spent nervously watching the departure end come up. At least I was still going pretty fast, so there wasn’t that far to go to get to fly-away speed. And I was light.
Tower cleared me to land on the left runway, which is a few thousand feet longer. Much to the dismay of a student whose need to land was at least as great as my own, the right runway being fouled by a drag chute, and hizzoner being low fuel state as he subsequently admitted under protest when he was asked to go-around and make room for me. But based on the timing he was now second in line for special handling. There’s a good man, wait your turn and ‘fess up first in the future. I hope you’ve learned something from this.
I was already pretty low on fuel myself, so I didn’t need to burn down gross weight. Flew about as slow as I could without risking a tail strike or hard landing, she does not like to fly slow. Still about 185 knots in the round-out. With no drag chute the book calls for aerobraking until 130 knots, and judicious use of the wheel brakes from that point on, balanced across the length of the runway remaining. You’re a long time holding the aero-braking attitude with no chute. You go by a lot of runway. Depending upon headwinds or tailwinds and runway length, one might even shut the engine down to reduce residual thrust.
I didn’t in the event, but the brakes – and anti-skid – got a pretty good workout. When I taxied back to the line the maintenance guys told me to go away for 10 minutes. Just in case the brakes might, you know: Catch fire. Which they didn’t, so no harm done.
It’s funny how quickly you can go from “comfort zone” to “wrestling snakes” in this business. But even snake wrestling beats life in the cube, for me at least. In measured doses.
