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Intruder & Prowler - Mishaps [History]
- Thread starter mike bennett
- Start date
As good as any advice I've seen on Air Warriors. Maybe the best ...
You forgot the AW's smiley ... so I'll do it for you ...
.... Naaaaa .... AW's "search", when appropriate, is here today -- gone tomorrow kind of information ... it changes.
Steve's was "life" advice .... it never changes .... and there's the big difference.
And since I was threadjacking anyways, I'll add in a little encouragement for guys "forced" into helos. While you can't beat old-school VERTREP for fun, stick-and-rudder flying, it seems to me that you can't do anything more satisfying than saving one of your brothers when they are having a bad day. If you look at OP's list, behind a lot of those survivors is a helo crew, and if it seems like they are a bit forgotten sometimes that's ok, they did what they had to do.
Your 15 Feb 91 A6 ejection with J. Williams as pilot description is not accurate. 'Mac' Williams is my daughter's godfather and he did not crash into the carrier. He lost all brakes taxiing out of the wires and the plane veered to the left. They ejected before it went over the side. Mac broke his leg landing on the carrier deck.
Diane Gurley
New Member
I found this blog while doing a search on Chuck, Kevin and Peter (and the EA-6B accident that happend 11-3-1992). Thank you for your kind words on these men. It is such a pleasure to read this even so many years after the accident. I will share this with my family....Sincerely, Diane Gurley-Martin (sister of Chuck Gurley)
I found this site one day on a Google search and think its pretty cool. As the son of a Prowler guy I spent a lot of time around the squadron spaces and knew some of these guys as a kid. My Dad was ECMO 1 in the plane that was Dash 2 on the 21 November 2001 Q-1 crash out in the Atlantic. I saw the plane after the salvage boat brought it in, weirdly enough you could still tell, sort of, it was Prowler. Even though it has inaccuracies and is kind of hard to maneuver around, still think it's a cool site.
Did you get to see it up close? I can remember seeing it being driven through town one morning on the school bus.
Diane Gurley
New Member
I could not agree more sbeaTMO8.....It is a great site. Especially since there is hardly no information available regarding these mishaps. The little info that is available on my brothers accident seems pretty accurate, but it is obvious that some correction had been made. I am still pleased that there is now something out there on it. It really does mean something to the families to have it acknowledged in some kind of way. I also remember reading about the incident that your father was in. I am glad that he and his crew made it out ! Take care !
Yea man, it was wild. They let us have look at it on the boat. They said that when they found it on the bottom in was in pretty "good" shape but when they pulled it up it started to bend and twist. It sat in Q-1's hangar for a bit while they did the investigation, but they kept it kind of hidden.
I knew the pilot, Mark "Willie" Nelson, in the Q-1 mishap. We were instructors together back at VAQ-129.
About 8 months before this mishap, "Willie" almost had to the use the yellow and black handle on a another hop. He was flying a DEFTAC hop during a RAG det down in El Centro. While doing a hard reversal on the low level, he decided (for some unknown reason) to climb to 1000' feet (vice the normal 500') before during the manuever. At 90 degrees angle of bank, when he commanded the reversal, the one of the flaperon (which is the roll control in the Prowler) actuator packs exploded, causing the jet to lose all flaperon control as well as combined hydraulics. He ended up using rudder to roll the jet upright, losing about 500+' feet in the process. As I remember it, he was losing flight hydraulics as well and could not wait to get jet down in weight to slow to 150KIAS for the emergency flaps/slats. So, he ended up flying a no flap/no slat approach at about 170KIAS to an arrested landing at MCAS Yuma.
When I heard about the Q-1 mishap, I kept thinking that someone really wanted "Willie" to be in the Martin Baker Tie Club.
About 8 months before this mishap, "Willie" almost had to the use the yellow and black handle on a another hop. He was flying a DEFTAC hop during a RAG det down in El Centro. While doing a hard reversal on the low level, he decided (for some unknown reason) to climb to 1000' feet (vice the normal 500') before during the manuever. At 90 degrees angle of bank, when he commanded the reversal, the one of the flaperon (which is the roll control in the Prowler) actuator packs exploded, causing the jet to lose all flaperon control as well as combined hydraulics. He ended up using rudder to roll the jet upright, losing about 500+' feet in the process. As I remember it, he was losing flight hydraulics as well and could not wait to get jet down in weight to slow to 150KIAS for the emergency flaps/slats. So, he ended up flying a no flap/no slat approach at about 170KIAS to an arrested landing at MCAS Yuma.
When I heard about the Q-1 mishap, I kept thinking that someone really wanted "Willie" to be in the Martin Baker Tie Club.
