Proof.....ie link to proof.
Well, you ain' gonna find it on the internet, that is for sure, but any USAF fighter pilot from that era is going to give you the same answer.
This is about as close as I can get...it's a post from Ed Rasimus (author of
When Thunder Rolled and
Palace Cobra -- and, of course, a Vietnam F-105 and F-4 driver) from rec.aviation.military back in the mid 90s. It explains relatively close to the same things that I've heard from other pilots about the incident.
The accident report was very controversial. As the only TAC unit other than the 'Birds flying the T-38, the 479th TFW at Holloman was tasked to supply both the Flying Safety Officer member and Pilot member to the accident investigation board. Both pilots were out of my unit, the 435th TFTS.
The initial report of the board was a finding of pilot error. The lead aircraft had topped out on the loop at an altitude below the minimum required to insure a safe recovery. Failure to recognize the altitude and continuation of the maneuver to the pull through meant that after reaching about 60 degrees nose low inverted, the formation was in a position from which recovery was no longer possible.
There was evidence reported that the control stick and linkages were deformed probably due to pilot effort to pull through at whatever G was available. When the report was submitted, General Creech returned it and reconvened the board with the statement that "Thunderbirds do not commit pilot errors." Command guidance was to come up with another cause.
The revised report implicated a "shock absorber" in the pitch control artificial feel system. The failure of the "shock absorber" resulted in inability to input sufficient control deflection to complete the pullout. The problem was that with four squadrons of experienced fighter pilots flying 130 AT-38 aircraft at Holloman and more than 800 maintenance troops on the line, no one had ever encountered the guilty "shock absorber". There was no mention in the tech orders and no corrective action to fix the errant machinery.
IMHO, the most telling evidence that the cause of the accident was NOT mechanical failure is that NO T-38s were grounded after the accident.
If this were actually a mechanical problem, the T-38 fleet would have been grounded for a period of time in order to inspect this mechanical item that had caused the loss of four pilots and four aircraft (as in what they did with the F-15C crash).
But...there was no grounding.
FWIW, General Creech is one of those mythical powerful Generals from USAF history -- ranks right up there with Curt LeMay in terms of having his hands in EVERYTHING and ruling it with a zero-tolerance iron fist. The Thunderbirds meant a lot to him -- to the point that he was STILL directly involved in approving team members well into the late 1990s, more than 10 years after his retirement as a 4-star.
It is not at all surprising to those who knew/worked for Creech, yet had no direct involvement with the T-38 crash, that he would go to any length to protect the name of a Thunderbird pilot, especially the lead.
EDIT: Found this additional info on the crash on the interwebz, but can't vouch for it's accuracy. Looks as if the "load relief cylinder" in point D is what Rasimus was referring to:
The 6 major points of evidence in the investigation were as follows:
a: Maj. Lowery had vast experience in high speed fighter operations in a low altitude environment and had flown over 500 loops.
b: The throttle settings on the lead aircraft were reduced well below the settings used in a loop.
c: The video tape indicated that the stabilizer angel essentially did not change on the backside of the loop until very late and then only a small amount. (7deg vs the available 17deg) (it was 3.4 degrees through most of the backside of the loop.) At some point even a novice pilot would have realized he was in a serious problem and would have overreacted and pulled the stick to maximum deflection and at least overstressed his aircraft. This never happened.
d: The load relief cylinder in the leaders aircraft showed several indications of failure under stress overload, while his wingmens’ load relief cylinders were dented but not destroyed. (the load relief cylinder serves to dampen transient control moves.) This despite almost identical force vectors on each aircraft.
e: Major Lowery was pulling on the stick with both hands at the time of impact.
f: the accident loop backside was closely duplicated many times by holding the stabilizers at 3.4deg from the 180 degree point through the remainder of the loop.
The above information was taken from the Air Force’s report printed in Aviation Week 5/17/82. I also have the article from 4/5/82 and it has the same conclusion.