Today's award goes to an unnamed Colonel and a Chief Warrant Officer in the Utah National Guard.
When a Utah National Guard helicopter crashed earlier this year, it was under the control of a fighter jet pilot without the necessary qualifications.
The February 12 accident is described in an investigative report FOX 13 News obtained though a public records request. The crash happened during what’s called an “orientation flight” to demonstrate the attack helicopter’s capabilities for a colonel in the Air Force Reserves, an F-35 pilot.
Flying a jet is not the same as flying a helicopter, and the investigators said that was key to the crash. Before the flight, the colonel’s Apache experience consisted of about 35 minutes in a simulator.
The flight in the real helicopter lasted 90 minutes. On the return to the West Jordan airport, the colonel tried three times to hover and land, according to the investigative report. Each time, the chief warrant officer in the cockpit had to assume the controls.
The colonel tried a fourth time.
“In a moment of panic and due to his great unfamiliarity with the… helicopter flight controls,” an investigator wrote, “the [colonel] reverted to his fixed-wing… training and applied downward movement…. This motion…was not the proper input in a [rotor wing] aircraft.”
The Apache rotated and fell from about 10 feet above ground before the chief warrant officer could grab the controls.
There's more at the link.
What was the Chief Warrant Officer thinking - to allow a fixed-wing jet pilot to try to land one of the most advanced, sophisticated rotary-wing aircraft in the US inventory, a plane requiring a whole lot of training and experience to handle? He may even have been ordered to allow it - but why did he not immediately protest the order, and log his objections in writing? He would at least have had some cover, legally speaking - but he (apparently) failed to do so, and therefore his rank and career are probably on the line right along with the Colonel's.
I recall one incident in the South African Air Force when I was still living in that country, where a helicopter pilot allowed a fixed-wing pilot to try his hand at the controls. There was no accident and no damage, but the helicopter pilot was still court-martialed for allowing the attempt at all, and the jet pilot was court-martialed for flying an aircraft he was not licensed and certified to fly (even for only a few minutes). The powers that be were Not. Amused. at the potential risk to other people and aircraft in the vicinity, even though that risk did not actually lead to any harm.
I wonder who's going to pay for the medical treatment both men required, and for the (very expensive) repairs to the helicopter? Doofi indeed!
Peter
As seem elsewhere---
ReplyDeleteATC: "Is the spinny thing on the front or the top of your aircraft?".
It sounds like a bet, a hung over officer, and a warrant officer soon to realize it wasn't worth it.
ReplyDeleteFor everything we do there is a point where we have no experience at all and yet, somehow, we move on to succeed, or fail. Starting out WO pilots have just as much experience flying helicopters as Air Force Colonels who fly F-35s do. None at all. I don't know how he talked his way into the left seat of Army helicopter but that was the point of failure, not turning over the controls to an unqualified Air Force pilot. There was somebody up the chain who told them to put the Colonel in the left seat. Fire that guy.
ReplyDeleteYes, that was incredibly dumb. Helicopter Flight School took the wind out of my sails. I was a jet jockey but the chopper was another species.
ReplyDeleteThe more fixed wing time you have the harder it is to make the transition to rotory wing aircraft. When I made the transition my instructors were very concerned with how many fixed wing hours I had and were very frank about not everyone can learn to fly helicopters and very few can make the transition from fixed wing to helicopters.
ReplyDeleteIn the 70's, when I was looking at flight training, I was told that it would be much better to start with rotary wing training if I planned to eventually go that direction. IIRC, the preferred training route was rotary/sailplane/props/jets for ease of transfer.
DeleteStraight and level flight in a rotary wing aircraft is no problem for almost anybody. Hovering is a different matter. It takes a lot of practice to "find the hover button". The Chief knew that, and should never have allowed the Colonel to try to hover, even once.
ReplyDeleteTalked to a huey pilot from vietnam era. He was an F86 pilot in Korea and complained that a 'trigger' switch on the huey flight control stick was in the same spot as his gun switch on the F86. Said it made him 'jump' a bit inside every time he used it to fly the huey. Any verifications of this out there?
ReplyDeleteEgos and rank... sigh
ReplyDeleteDuh! - versity.
ReplyDeleteDon't normally comment, but this is something I'm a little more familiar with. Nothing abnormal about this at all. WO are often instructor pilots, and they are trained/certified to fly single pilot in aircraft that are normally used for dual pilot operations. If they are still using the RCOP (risk common operating picture) method of risk assessment, then there is a block for single pilot operation, and a higher level approval required for this. In flight school (us army), new pilots learn to hover by taking the controls and trying to 'kill' (it's a flight school joke) the instructor. The instructor pilot (normally a WO), then retakes the controls, and has to stabilize the now unstable aircraft.
ReplyDeleteIt's pretty common for army commanders of helo units to fly in other helos they are not trained/checked-out in when placed with a senior WO (who is then approved for single pilot operations).
I would attribute this accident to pilot error, and institutional nor mission approval error. Handing over the controls to an untrained pilot to try hovering is not in any way something outside the scope of normal instructor pilot duties.
And the 10ft fall? If it was a blackhawk the stroking hydraulic landing gear should have handled that pretty well, I've heard the Apache is a little more fragile.
(all coming from an Army Rotary Wing Aviator of 10yrs experience in 3ID, 8th Army, and the 101st).