Some much for OBOGS, Grampaw P. could have called this one back in WW-II.

Nobody likes to speak ill of the dead and in a very real sense the system failed them if their leadership allowed unsafe practices to develop and did not effectively correct them. Heck, I find the recent spate of Navy surface fleet mishaps that lead to the firing of the PACFLEET commander and may lead to manslaughter charges against some of the ship captains involved in the collision profoundly disturbing.

It is up to the senior officer leadership to assure that mission and training needs and risks - and yes, the risk of youthful enthusiasm too - are appropriately managed and balanced.

Deficiencies in the basics of seamanship demonstrated in those PACFLEET were rather alarming in the case of not only the ships that were involved in collisions but in the one that ran aground in Yokohama harbor as well.

Junior troops deserve better and even the goat locker can only do so much.

Does sound like there were systemic/cultural issues. But what I find interesting in that is that apparently a lot of people in naval aviation seem to think that the regs are too strict, and you need need to color outside the lines a bit to train/maintain warriors... and leadership is at least looking the other way, if not encouraging that. Although this instance went too far, perhaps with an IP who didn't fully understand the machine he was instructing in. But are all those people dead-wrong?

BTW, C7F was fired, not PACFLT. PACFLT is retiring on schedule although he may have lost an opportunity to fleet up to PACOM over the collisions (that's unfortunate IMO).

But the at-sea collisions were not intentional flat-hatting, I suspect that there were multiple root causes, many of them stemming from years of war: poor material condition, long deployments resulting in burnout and insufficient time resources to accomplish all training/maintenance/readiness/political requirements. If the expectations are utterly unrealistic, then they are not taken seriously. If leadership doesn't manage that, then all expectations are taken equally not-seriously and inexperienced folks are choosing what to blow off. Apparently none of the leaders wanted to say "no" to their bosses, which would have forced prioritization of effort. Congress gets blame too, for squeezing blood from the stone for 15+ years. The economy probably didn't help... experienced hands are leaving for industry jobs, and recruiting is a bit hampered.

This SIR is a complete farce and there is treachery afoot. Extremely high likelihood that CNATRA gets chit-canned and some of his minions along with.

None of what is reported in this Navytimes article is accurate and none of what CNATRA has said was ever included in the ORIGINAL findings. It’s all BS.

So as far as the qualifications question(s) - the IP was fully qualified to be instructing in whatever phase training was taking place?

So navy times is (unwittingly) broadcasting someone's agenda?

Or is CNATRA trying to dilute responsibility?

Do you think there's a cultural issue?

Could be a culture of normalized deviance. Or possibly a culture of working around excessively risk-averse policies and leaders to get the job done?

I don't think we can train warriors with zero accidents (yet). Leadership and policy needs to manage that fine line, without erring too far on either side.

So far as I know yes. The only factual statement in that whole article, is that two great Americans lost their lives.




None of the above. Two deceased aviators are having their memories stomped on and their legacies tarnished to further an agenda, and major violations of OPNAV have occurred under direction of a certain Flag officer.

It will all come out, just not soon enough.

Pretty sweeping statements. I'll take it on faith because we've both been around here for a while. Would appreciate if you post any info which becomes public.

The USAF has had similar failures of adult leadership:

https://robrobinette.com/T-3A_Firefly.htm

https://fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ac/t-3.htm

I recall a certain senior officer, after a couple of instructors (and their students) died in stall spin accidents, commenting that both of the instructors had come from "heavies" (C-141) and that had they been fighter pilots they likely would have recovered.

Dont know if this has been posted

redacted command investigation of the incident

https://news.usni.org/2018/04/16/fin...-goshawk-crash

From just briefly skimming the document on the last two pages opinion 10 and 11, the investigator believes that there was ambiguity as to who was supposed to be flying and no one was flying the aircraft until just before impact.