Posted on 12/17/2010 8:28:56 PM PST by ErnstStavroBlofeld
Pilot error is the US Air Force's official cause for the first fatal crash of a Boeing C-17, but the service's investigation report has also exposed lax oversight of an over-aggressive flier who was allowed to repeatedly perform an unsafe airshow routine.
The crash report - released by the Pacific Air Forces Command on 13 December - also echoes the findings of a 16-year-old Boeing B-52 crash that ranks as one of the darkest chapters in USAF history and sparked a movement to reform the service's management and safety culture.
Aviation safety experts have already seized on the new report detailing how the C-17, code-named Sitka 43, crashed at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Alaska within the first minute of a planned 12min routine. Despite its brief duration, the flight was still long enough for the pilot - Maj Michael Freyholtz - to deliberately break several
(Excerpt) Read more at flightglobal.com ...
Sad, needless accident. The loss of the airmen is immeasurable. The C-17 loss was about 1 billion?
Hold my beer
hate to say it, but what a screw up. He must have had a brain fart.
So you’re flying a few hundred feet above the ground, in a tight right turn > 60 degree angle of bank, stall horn is blaring, and you decide to pull flaps up and kick opposite rudder? WTF was he thinking? Might have just used a gun and spared the lives of his crewmen and the taxpayers plane.
Sorry to sound callous but this was way beyond “pilot error”.
Stupidity. Nothing else.
Unfortunately, over aggressive pilots who kill people and destroy aircraft are often ignored. There was a B052 pilot in Washington state a few years ago who was a reckless pilot who had high powered friends who kept him flying long after he should have been grounded. He tried to fly the B-52 like it was a fighter or attack aircraft and plowed it into the ground, killing everyone on board. Much like the C-17 that crashed.
Four airmen killed and about $200 million worth of aircraft destroyed...
I agree. Terrible tragic waste of fine Americans.
Confusing. It says the 2nd officer retracted the flaps prior to the turn. The pilot may have not known they were retracted when he started the turn. It says he reversed stick pressure but says nothing about bank control. No idea why the left rudder unless he was totally disoriented thinking he was leveling and reducing right rudder but ending up with left rudder but it’s hard to see an experienced pilot doing that unless he just ‘lost it’. I would like to see a flight recording of the event.
Gravity 1;foolishness 0.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBwMJUOFmlM
Here is the video. The flaps were retracted after leveling after the left turn and before the right turn. I happened quickly. I am guessing that the pilot was to confident having banked the plane many times at this angle and speed only this time the 2nd officer had retracted the flap after leveling off. Just guessing.
For comparison... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFkdJjtmeEA
Quite the capable aircraft.
In that video it appeared to be a similar maneuver following take-off but flaps stayed extended for both turns and bank was less. I saw another video where they did both turns without flaps but it was not done just following take-off and it also appeared to be at a faster air speed.
One pilots absoluetly wrong actions does not mean the culture of safety we have is cracked. People are always going to make bad judgements and take bad courses of action and prove we are human. We have all but eliminated events like this...Yes, they happen occasionally but out of the thousands of pilots and aircraft we fly in peace and in war for what we do we are amazingly safe.
Poor leadership oversight, poor airman ship and pilots that never got over being assigned to heavies instead of fighters...
ping
The way you describe it doesn’t appear to be the way it happened in the video. The plane was flying in straight and level flight after the manuever you describe but then went into a hard right bank and that’s where it appears to stall.
For those interested, here is the actual report:
USAF Aircraft Accident Investigation Board Report for Incident of 28 July 2010 (PDF)(41 PAGES)
http://www.pacaf.af.mil/shared/media/document/AFD-101214-048.pdf
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.