Jet Mishaps Spur New Word to Navy Pilots: Don’t Push It
The Navy has warned all 3,550 aviators in the Pacific Fleet to fly cautiously, an attempt to end a recent series of mishaps that has killed five officers and destroyed five jets worth about $130 million.
Vice Adm. James E. Service, commander of the Pacific Fleet, said the only common thread in the string of six accidents since December appears to be a refusal by Navy pilots to admit they were in trouble and take corrective action before it was too late.
“Believe me, I remember how hard it is to ‘fess up and pull out of formation . . . or admit that you’re lost and out of ideas,” Service wrote in a message sent to all Navy aviators from his San Diego office.
“It’s time to take stock, guys. It takes a bit of courage to back off, but that kind of courage, not blind faith, is what we call ‘the right stuff.’ That’s the stuff that distinguishes us from lesser birdmen as we go about the business of being combat ready.”
The string of six mishaps began Dec. 3 when Capt. Henry M. Kleemann was killed after his FA-18 Hornet skidded 5,000 feet and flipped over while landing on a slick runway at Miramar Naval Air Station. Four of the incidents involved F-14 Tomcat fighter jets, including a pilot and radar intercept officer who died after they were inadvertently ejected from the cockpit and landed on the flight deck of the aircraft carrier Enterprise.
The accidents, all of which are under investigation, come during a critical period as the military is facing substantial budget cuts that could restrict its ability to purchase new aircraft to replace lost planes. The Navy is also struggling to retain many of its experienced pilots who are leaving the military for higher-paying and less dangerous work at commercial airlines.
The Navy is short more than 1,000 experienced pilots and expects to lose 550 more during fiscal year 1986. The cost of training a new fighter pilot is about $1 million. In addition, the rate of aviation mishaps historically increases as the experience level among Navy fliers drops, according to a Navy spokesman.
No trends or consistent causes have been detected by safety officers investigating the string of accidents, leaving top Navy officials scratching their heads over what to do.
“This is a cycle,” said Capt. James Morford, safety officer for the Pacific Fleet. “Last year we had 87 days mishap free, which was an all-time record for the Pacific Fleet. Then we had three mishaps in the following month, none of them related. The good does come with the bad.”
At least two of the mishaps this year are believed to have been caused by pilot error, according to Navy sources who have reviewed preliminary investigative results.
They said that the pilot of an F-14 that ran out of fuel in the Western Pacific took off from the carrier Enterprise even though he knew the plane’s navigational system was not operating properly. The crew of the F-14 then intercepted a Soviet aircraft and flew 500 miles off the carrier using its backup navigational system, which is not as precise or reliable as the primary computer system. Sources said the plane ran out of fuel when the crew failed to notify the ship or nearby U.S. radar planes of its correct location because of the malfunctioning navigational equipment.
Another F-14 caught fire and was ditched in the Pacific after a pilot struck the carrier Constellation on a poor landing approach.
“I’m appealing to the professionalism of all these guys out there,” Service said. “I’m saying I know you’re great . . . for God’s sake don’t be afraid to look bad every now and then . . . .
“None of these guys ever think they’re going to die. They control it so well . . . they don’t recognize perhaps quickly enough that they’ve got a deteriorating situation. I want a guy to recognize that maybe he’s pushed himself or his airplane a little too far.”
The string of mishaps began in December as the Pacific Fleet was wrapping up one of its safest aviation years on record. Navy fliers on the West Coast in 1985 were involved in 19 serious mishaps resulting either in pilot death or in more than $500,000 damage. That amounts to fewer than four accidents for every 100,000 flight hours, a significant decrease compared to Navy-wide mishap rate of 20 accidents per 100,000 in 1970 and 10 in 1980.
However, the Pacific Fleet does not appear to have a chance to set any safety records this year. The following is a list of 1986 accidents so far:
- Jan. 13: Lt. Joe D. Durmon and Lt. (j.g.) Stephen Engeman die after their F-14 ejection seats inadvertently send them flying seven stories in the air after they land on the deck of the Enterprise. The accident occurs as the crew is about to leave the cockpit after an uneventful landing 70 miles west of San Luis Obispo.
The aviators had unstrapped themselves shortly before they were sent directly upward without their parachutes. Because the seats were lost in the ocean, it is not known what triggered the ejection lever. Durmon, the pilot, was pronounced dead on the carrier, and Engeman, the radar intercept operator, was flown to UCLA Medical Center, where he died the next day.
- Feb. 11: An F-14 escorting three A-6 Intruders on a night training mission near Hawthorne, Nev., crashes into the side of Bald Peak mountain, killing Lt. Shawn Levine and Lt. William K. Ritter.
The flight out of nearby Fallon Naval Air Station proceeded without incident until Levine, the F-14 pilot, reported that he had vertigo, a dizziness that aviators experience when their instruments indicate flight conditions that the mind and body say can’t be possible.
“We’re trained to believe our instruments, but vertigo causes you to hesitate,” said Lt. John Semcken, public affairs officer at Miramar and a former F-14 pilot. “It takes up to a minute of concentration to get your mind back to believing where you’re going. . . . When you’re flying low to the ground at speeds the F-14 is going, a couple of seconds of disorientation can mean tragedy.”
- Feb. 14: Lt. Russell J. Sklenka and Lt. Cmdr. Thomas Lorenzo are plucked from the Western Pacific between Hawaii and the Philippines 20 hours after their F-14 runs out of fuel. The men had ditched the plane and parachuted into the ocean at nightfall, and waited until daybreak before the crew of the Enterprise could find them and begin rescue operations. They were found in excellent condition. The plane was not recovered.
- March 8: The engines of Cmdr. Carl W. Chamberlain’s A-7 Corsair II fail as he is about to land on the Enterprise after a successful bombing exercise in the Indian Ocean. Chamberlain, the executive officer of squadron VA-94 based in Lemoor, Calif., ejects from the plane and is rescued by helicopter within two minutes. Fuel control failure is blamed for the accident.
- March 12: Lt. Robert Mills and Lt. Thomas Powell are coming in for a night carrier landing about 100 miles off the San Diego coast when their F-14 hits the stern of the carrier Constellation, leaving the plane’s tail hook in the ship’s safety net. Mills takes the plane to 1,000 feet when carrier air controllers see flames and order the crew to eject.
“They were very, very lucky to survive,” a Navy spokesman said. “Sometimes when you have a ramp strike you’re not able to keep going and you bite it right there.”
In another mishap, four civilian fliers were killed March 5 when two Learjets collided head-on near San Clemente Island while conducting radar training exercises for the Navy.
Each year, the Navy projects the number of replacement aircraft it will need because of mishaps in which planes are lost. Navy safety officers projected the Pacific Fleet would lose three F-14 Tomcats this calendar year--the same number that have been destroyed so far.
Thus, for each F-14 that is lost during the remainder of the year, the Pacific Fleet will be short another $35-million aircraft.
“They don’t grind another extra one out at the factory, not when they cost $30 million apiece,” Service said. “ . . . Now you cannot play high, fast and loose with the kind of accident rates that were rampant back in the ‘50s. We’d be bankrupt in no time at all.”
Service said his combat pilots are trained to be resilient aviators who cannot let a string of fatal accidents upset them. While they may suffer some nervousness when they contemplate the mishaps at home, they cannot afford to dwell on the accidents in the cockpit, Service said.
“Aviators have to have an incredible self-confidence to be able to do what they do,” Service said. “Along with the confidence is a vulnerability, a conviction on their part that it’s never going to happen to them.”
