"The Navy’s official investigation into the Oct. 1 crash in rural Tennessee of a T-45C Goshawk from Training Squadron 7 concluded the crash was the fault
of the instructor pilot, even though at the time of impact, he wasn’t at the controls.

Investigators said that the instructor pilot was “flat-hatting” by flying and directing his student to fly too close and too fast to ground, which is against the
Navy’s procedure for such training of student pilots, the Navy’s investigation into the crash concluded.

The report also said that the investigation shows that such out-of-bounds flights and unauthorized training had become part of culture in the VT-7, but
also throughout all the Navy’s tactical jet training, which investigators called a “failure of leadership.”"