BIRDS TAKE OUT T-38C - Pilot delays ejection to avoid crashing into city

Yeah, and AIB boards are not usually the best on the block. The SIB (Safety Investigation Board) has a board president (usually a LT COL or COL, and usually a pilot) and SIB board members include a maintenance officer, human factors expert, and others from a good cross-section of the Air Force. I've served a good number of times not actually on the SIB but as a subject matter expert (they call it being a tech advisor). Every SIB that I've worked with has been a good experience, or as good as it can be. A crashed plane is never a good thing, and I'm glad that in all but two that I've worked with, the pilot came out OK.

The AIB (Accident Investigation Board) is run by JAG lawyers and they're nearly never good to work with. I've worked with them and they're nearly always a pain in my ass. I view them as co-workers, they view me as the hired help far beneath them. So right up front, we're not generally seeing eye-to-eye. I've been cut off by a good number of them with a snotty, "I ask the questions here, not you." There's good JAG lawyers out there, there's been a half-dozen that I didn't want to punch when working with them. They don't like it when I tell them I don't give a flying f*** about their Ph.D. or that I'm not intimidated when they threaten to call my commander because they don't like my conclusion and I won't dump my integrity by reversing it to match their preconceived notions. I have no problem telling my commander that since this guy doesn't like my system analysis, he can write it himself and sign it. They're free to overrule me but they're NOT getting my signature on it.

Right after I retired from the Air Force, I took a job with the University of Dayton Research Institute. One of my first projects was to analyze FAA data on birds being sucked into jet engines. They provided me with data on hundreds of such incidents. I analyzed such things as probability by time of day or season of the year, and probability of engine damage as a function of bird weight. Very interesting project. Made me pay a lot more attention when the plane I was on was to land near a bird sanctuary, as with Washington National.

Yes. At first the crash was blamed on computer error, then as a fault of the lead pilot, and then finally, by investigation and report, the fault of a jammed stabilizer and will of the team to maintain the formation. Later commentary that I heard blamed the error on the lead pilot again. The final report was supposedly racially motivated.
I’m sure the family know more about it than I do, but I have never asked them about it and won’t.

Captain Mays’ father, by the way, was a decorated B-17 pilot who was shot down over Germany. Mays was the first pilot to make his way out of Germany, in to occupied France, and finally back to England without being captured. He spent the remainder of the War instructing other pilots on how to do the same. Both of our families are military, and we have remained friends since the mid
‘60s,

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