Very sad. 
And even sadder that the crash may have been preventable.
What does the Navy do if the pilot and ground crew didn’t follow emergency rules?
I apologise for the guessing. I’m not sure if there are applicable criminal Federal statutes here. That is a question for GFactor. My coworker, a retired Navy Chief Petty Officer, says that some Navy/Marine Corps careers are essentially over, but probably no jail time.
The investigation board (which includes not just the Department of the Navy members, but the FAA personnel as well) will determine who carries how much fault, and make recommendations in whether or not there will be any administrative action against them. (Which can include discharge from the service, or a reassignment to another specialty, for example.) They may also recommend a change in whatever procedures that lead to the poor decision making.
For example: There is a lot of pressure to keep a squadrons’ “readiness” numbers high. (Maintenance numbers, in other words. Number of aircraft “up” and ready for flight, number of hours flown, etc.)
If the safety regulations are sufficiently vague on whether part “x” being bad “downs” an aircraft from flight, the Maintenance Officer may decide to fly the aircraft anyway. (All pilots are required to review the maintenance log books on the particular aircraft they are going to use for a flight/mission. The pilot should have been aware of the fuel system problem history in his aircraft.)
Note the fuel system in this case was known to be a problem:
I cannot imagine being in the Marine detail that had to go to the greiving father/husband and apologise.
Wow. Just wow. Missed this thread the first time around.
I heard on NPR that the pilot was offered the opportunity to land at NAS North Island, but declined. I understand why he would want to land at his home base, which was after all only a few minutes away. But if I’m in a crippled aircraft, I want to land ASAP. I’m sure the pilot didn’t believe he’d lost both engines, and continuing to MCAS Miramar seemed reasonable. But in aviation prudence is best.
‘Aviation in itself is not inherently dangerous. But to an even greater degree than the sea, it is terribly unforgiving of any carelessness, incapacity, or neglect.’
“Offered the opportunity”?
Shouldn’t he have been ordered to land at the safest nearby runway?
The morning talk radio mentions that the pilot is supposed to be the final authority in the operation of his aircraft. He’s the one who is experiencing the loss of power and handling, the warning buzzers, etc, not the folks on the ground.
As mentioned a couple months ago, a single engine failure in a twin engine plane is not unheard of. It is a serious situation, but they train for that. He had a double failure (due to the fuel system problems), which is much more rare.
I presume that when the first engine lost power (10 minutes into his flight), the ground staff assumed it was a problem with the engine, and failed to consider other causes. (Surprising, since the ground staff have access to the maintenance log books…)
The newspaper article say that the pilot was an experienced pilot, but new to the type/model aircraft. (So, he sorta was still in a student status.) The folks in his chain of command (for example, the Squadron Duty Officer that was relieved, mentioned in the newspaper articles I linked above) were telling him to land at Miramar, but it may be that they were not considering all of the info about the situation, or the history of the plane. He’s a student, so may have been relying on folks in his training command to know what they are doing. That’s the measure of the fault of the pilot in this story, IMO. (The Navy & Marine squadrons have a radio in the squadron ready room, and in the maintenance control room, that allows a squadron to communicate with their pilots flying.)
Thanks. I assumed that for a novice pilot it would be a bit different.
I think that that difference may influence the Investigation Board’s recommendations on the (pilot) Lieutenant’s future flight status and military career.
Contrast this pilot’s (apparent) decision with the chief concern of the commander of United 232, when it lost steering control over Sioux City, Iowa, in 1989:
[
](United Airlines Flight 232 - Wikipedia)
Admittedly the F/A-18 pilot may have had less experience.
Sailboat–not just less experience, but less time.
Hard to say what happens to the pilot after something like this. There will no doubt be an evaluation board to review the findings and determine whether his career will continue. Sometimes the career is left intact, but the member is “highly encouraged” to change from a flying role to more of a desk job.
I’d hate to be an officer on that board. It’s hard to cut someone off at the knees for a decision that turned out bad–a decision made with good communication with (and possibly direction from) your reps back at the squadron.
The tapes do show the ATC controller gently ping the guy (twice, I believe) to land at North Island. I can tell he was surprised at the pilot’s declaration of Miramar vice NI. He even routed him right past NI, hoping, IMO, that he’d bite and land there. The main question in my mind is whether or not the pilot considered the lingering gripe about the fuel system relative to the remaining good engine. If so, I’m boggled as to how they all came up with Miramar. If not, I’m boggled as to how the pilot and his team on the ground missed it.
I really don’t understand why he didn’t put down at North Island.
As the graphic here shows, he flew right over it on his way to Miramar. Not only that, but basically any route he takes from North Island to Miramar involves flying over heavily populated areas. The North Island approach is all water, except for the last few hundred yards, where the planes come in over Coronado Beach. It would have been far better to just put down at North Island and have the problem looked at.
Even if he hadn’t lost the second engine, the approach to Miramar required him to make a big looping turn, whereas he could have flown straight in to North Island given his approach from the south-south-west. Just bad decisions all round.
ETA: Also, have a look at the transcript of the pilot’s discussion with the FAA air traffic controller, at the right of the page in the OP’s second link. The pilot new, well before he got to North Island, that there was possibly a problem with the second engine. No excuse for landing at North Island, IMO.
‘Get-there-itis
May someday bite us’
He was probably thinking that MCAS Miramar is not that much farther than NAS North Island, plus he still had a working engine. (Haven’t had time to read the information in your ETA.)
As I said, it’s not the decision I would have made or advise anyone to make; but I can understand why he would opt for it.
[Kelly McGillis] That’s a hell of a gamble with a $(4)0 million dollar aircraft, pilot. [/KMcG]
The plane was from VMFA(AT)-101, which is home based at Miramar. That is where all the maintenance crews, parts, and tools were currently at. (There are no F-18 squadrons based at NASNI.)
I would hate to think the decision was made (partly) on the desire to avoid having to send a maintenance team and/or a truck over to NASNI to retrieve the plane.
It probably was.
Was he trying to burn off fuel? I heard some people talking today about how F-18’s can’t land with a lot of fuel in their tanks. Could that have had anything to do with it?
The F-18 have a “fuel dump” ability.
Generally you want some fuel in your tanks upon landing, otherwise you’ll be flying a glider.
The problem in this case is that the fuel in the tanks was apparently not reaching the engine, so the pilot wound up flying a glider – on final approach (i.e., low and slow) in an aircraft with the glide ratio of a lawn dart.
[nitpick]AFAIK, and after listening to the tapes, the controller wanted him to turn right (east) to final. He told the controller he was turning left (he “needed a spin”) to continue troubleshooting and get below the cloud deck. The controller, knowing the pilot in an emergency aircraft can do whatever the heck he wants, just acknowledged.[/nitpick]
Without knowing the exact nature of the emergency it’s hard to know what EP’s (Emergency Procedures) were being followed. Depending on the severity and outlook, some EP’s have “Land As Soon As Practical” and some have “Land As Soon As Possible.” You can see the difference. To me, it looks like he was following the former. This, in the Monday morning Quarterback seat, was not good judgment. Even if he was following a “land as soon as practical” procedure, Navy EP’s are widely publicized to not take the place of sound judgment.
The fact that the Squadron CO (et. al.) was canned leads me to believe there was some undue influence from him, and seeing as how they’re based out of Miramar… well, beyond that I don’t want to comment. It could simply be that someone with some rank had to fall on a sword since this is so high vis.
Whatever happened, try to keep this in mind: These guys are pros. But they’re human. They can get led down the wrong path, just like anyone else. Seeing as how many people got led down the wrong path, I’m inclined to believe that were I there, in the cockpit or the ready room manning the radio, I’d also be talked down the road of “You Can Make It To Miramar.” If the aircraft were streaming fuel or flames, you can bet your ass NI would have been the destination. But I’m guessing the problems he was seeing in the remaining engine were such that he firmly believed he wasn’t in too much danger–so much so that he elected to make that extra loop out to the west even though he almost had the field made. Had he landed the thing, no one would have questioned the Miramar call. Bad luck, bad timing, and ground sometimes win.
I’ve read multiple news articles that said:
a) That the pilot did not even consult his safety checklist in this situation, an oversight that one naval aviator said was inexcusable, adding that not using the checklist is “almost like a doctor going into surgery and forgetting to wash. It’s that basic.” San Diego Union Tribune
b) The checklist would have told him that a plane having the fuel transfer problems he was experiencing should land immediately. Stars and Stripes
I mean, if i’ve understood the articles and the news stories correctly, the checklist that he failed to check was there precisely to deal with situations like this.
Really? If true, that’s a pretty damning indictment of military priorities. “Hey, fundamental procedures weren’t followed, but we got lucky and managed NOT to drop a jet on top of a suburban house, so we don’t need to look into the missteps.”