USN flight accident investigations

[Tex232]

Air Force guy here so forgive me if I’m a little unfamiliar with Navy SOP when it comes to this topic.

The USAF has a website where they publicly post their completed accident reports and findings for all aviation mishaps. I often found these to be of interest and good reading material to learn from other pilots’ mistakes. I was wondering if the Navy does the same and has any similar open source material they publish for their own mishaps. I’ve heard they more closely guard their findings than the Air Force, but just thought I’d ask.

 

[Gatordev]

Air Force guy here so forgive me if I’m a little unfamiliar with Navy SOP when it comes to this topic.

The USAF has a website where they publicly post their completed accident reports and findings for all aviation mishaps. I often found these to be of interest and good reading material to learn from other pilots’ mistakes. I was wondering if the Navy does the same and has any similar open source material they publish for their own mishaps. I’ve heard they more closely guard their findings than the Air Force, but just thought I’d ask.

A clarification...what the AF posts is the non-safety based investigation, probably the legal investigation (but I can't remember, exactly). The actual mishap investigation is privileged and not made public. Right or wrong, the AF is actually even more uptight with its investigations than the Navy is, and the Navy is pretty uptight about it.

The Navy does have an equivalent investigation that can be public that's called a JAGMAN, but it's not done for all mishaps. I'm not sure how easy they are to get your hands on without a document request.

 

[VMO4]

Is this what you are referring to ?

Aircraft Accident Reports Archives | Air & Space Forces Magazine

www.airforcemag.com

 

[SynixMan]

It’s possible the AF equivalent of our Safety Center has an interconnect to the Naval Safety Center. I’d start by contacting your side and asking. But no, we don’t publicly post mishap investigations.

 

[insanebikerboy]

Air Force guy here so forgive me if I’m a little unfamiliar with Navy SOP when it comes to this topic.

The USAF has a website where they publicly post their completed accident reports and findings for all aviation mishaps. I often found these to be of interest and good reading material to learn from other pilots’ mistakes. I was wondering if the Navy does the same and has any similar open source material they publish for their own mishaps. I’ve heard they more closely guard their findings than the Air Force, but just thought I’d ask.

Gatordev was spot on. The releasable reports in AFSAS are the legal investigations. The safety investigations are kept close hold in AFSAS. To get access to the Navy safety investigations you'd have to get ahold of someone to the system that used to be called WESS (I know the name has changed, can't recall the new acronym). I have full rights in AFSAS and I can't seem to figure out how to link it to the Navy system, or if that's even possible.

 

[STOVLer]

Navy, USMC, and USAF are all on RMI now.

 

[sevenhelmet]

Right or wrong, the AF is actually even more uptight with its investigations than the Navy is, and the Navy is pretty uptight about it.

This, to a T. I remember seeing some USAF investigation "results" in the safety management system when I was safety-O a few years ago.

Where the USN reports went into details that were fascinating and often very helpful to other units, the published (and accepted) USAF reports read roughly like: "Mishap aircraft lost power and suffered class A damage. Cause of crash was due to loss of engine power."

...in other words, useless from a professional learning perspective.

 

[nittany03]

This, to a T. I remember seeing some USAF investigation "results" in the safety management system when I was safety-O a few years ago.

Where the USN reports went into details that were fascinating and often very helpful to other units, the published (and accepted) USAF reports read roughly like: "Mishap aircraft lost power and suffered class A damage. Cause of crash was due to loss of engine power."

...in other words, useless from a professional learning perspective.

That’s an interesting example, as a guy who once flew a jet that had to have oil samples periodically run through a mass spectrometer to help detect impending wear issues with a bearing that could fail and take out the engine and thus the jet.

Which was found through following the fault tree a lot further back than “uhh, yeah. They ejected because the engine blew up.”

 

[Flash]

Which was found through following the fault tree a lot further back than “uhh, yeah. They ejected because the engine blew up.”

Ahhh, memories. Funniest was when my XO grabbed one of the free P&W beer steins at Hook in the midst of that and asked the rep if it would shatter as easily as their engines.