Crash-Plagued Copter Safe to Fly, Navy Says

The controversial Super Stallion military helicopter, linked to crashes that have killed at least 20 Marines and injured 17 others, is now considered safe and should not be grounded, the naval inspector general said Thursday.

Rear Adm. J. H. Fetterman, the inspector general, also revealed publicly for the first time Thursday that the Jan. 8 crash of a CH-53E helicopter near the Salton Sea, which killed all five crew members, was caused not by mechanical problems but by “pilot error. . . .”

“The pilot got disoriented and literally flew into the ground,” Fetterman said.

Fetterman testified before a hearing of a House Armed Services procurement subcommittee in response to charges by Rep. Robert E. Badham (R-Newport Beach), a panel member. Badham said two weeks ago that the entire fleet of 92 helicopters should be grounded until the safety problems are corrected.

Fetterman acknowledged that the powerful three-engine, heavy-lift helicopter had been “a problem” but said that--because of modifications in the operation of the aircraft and further planned testing--”no general grounding is required.”

The Super Stallion had been grounded temporarily Feb. 14 for what the Marine Corps and Navy said were transmission problems. The helicopters were to have gearbox assemblies, whose safe operation had become suspect, replaced.

The aircraft, which costs $16 million each and is the world’s largest mass-produced helicopter, has been plagued by accidents. Badham said Navy officials knew as early as 1976 that the helicopter may have been designed with a structural problem but did nothing to fix it. He said the aircraft had been involved in at least 39 emergency landings and accidents, including the January crash near the Salton Sea in Imperial County.

Fetterman’s pronouncement Thursday of the cause of the Salton Sea crash was the first indication from the military since a team from the Tustin base launched an investigation.

The CH-53E went down in open desert in the Salton Sea Test Range, located about seven miles south of Salton City, about 8:30 p.m. Jan. 8. The fiery crash occurred during practice of nighttime landings for troop deployment.

The day after the crash, Badham cited “pilot error” as the probable cause of the crash, saying that there was no evidence that the aircraft had experienced mechanical difficulties. “The bird didn’t just fall from the sky. It was entering the landing zone in night troop exercises and hit the ground too hard, flipped over and burned,” Badham said at the time.

After Thursday’s hearing, Badham said the Navy’s response to the helicopters’ problems has been “backward. . . . They flew them first and then came and told us about them.”

“The Navy has told Congress, has told the world that it (the helicopter) is safe,” Badham said. “The first steps that need to be taken have been performed satisfactorily, but I’m not going to be satisfied until testing has been completed and the total fixes needed have been done.”

Vibrations Cited

The Super Stallion is capable of carrying 55 combat-equipped troops or lifting 16 tons of equipment. Fetterman said the major source of problems for the craft can be linked to compounded vibrations resulting from the helicopter design. As Badham explained it, those vibrations sometimes caused the “over-stress” of the helicopter’s critical moving parts and a visible twisting of the tail section.

In September, the Navy adopted a new procedure that requires the pilot to jettison certain loads if vibration problems are detected, Fetterman said. That has been done twice, he said, “without any accidents.”

Fetterman said he made several other recommendations for the helicopters this week that have been accepted by the Navy Department. These include an accelerated testing program, prohibition of the aircraft’s flying over populated areas and restrictions on Super Stallions that carry passengers other than crew. Until the testing program is completed, Fetterman said, there should be no new contracts for the aircraft.

Badham said that he and naval officials are still negotiating how soon the testing program will start but that he is “anxious to get it going” and believes that it should take no longer than a year.