Go Back  Airline Pilot Central Forums > Career Builder > Military
Military Crashes and Safety Record >

Military Crashes and Safety Record

Notices
Military Military Aviation

Military Crashes and Safety Record

Old 05-02-2018, 10:23 AM
  #1  
Line Holder
Thread Starter
 
Joined APC: Feb 2018
Posts: 74
Default Military Crashes and Safety Record

https://patch.com/georgia/savannah/plane-reportedly-down-port-wentworth-near-savannah
It seems lately there has been a slew of military airplane crashes. For all the millions of dollars of tax payers money spent on pilot training, maintenance, and equipment, I am wondering what underlying causes of these are? I am not talking about combat realted accidents. Can any current or ex-military pilots shed light on this? Also, it doesn’t seem, at least in the media, it gets the same attention as passenger airlines. Or cargo.
TexBubba is offline  
Old 05-02-2018, 10:42 AM
  #2  
Gets Weekends Off
 
Joined APC: Apr 2016
Posts: 376
Default

Not much hard data to support conclusions but because we are an up/out organization many of us suspect it’s the 2nd/3rd order consequence of under funding an entire generation of pilots. During sequestration we had pilots flying hours at the bare minimum of safety. Those pilots eventually moved on to be IPs and then field grade Majors/LCDRs. Though all “qualified” their body of work and experience is not equal to their predecessors. It’s not uncommon for Commanding Officers to only have 1500-2000 hours of flight time now but when I started out - 300 hours per year was a good target....now it’s 100-150 averaged over 15 years.
FlewNavy is offline  
Old 05-02-2018, 11:10 AM
  #3  
Gets Weekends Off
 
Joined APC: Oct 2017
Posts: 131
Default

Originally Posted by FlewNavy View Post
Not much hard data to support conclusions but because we are an up/out organization many of us suspect it’s the 2nd/3rd order consequence of under funding an entire generation of pilots. During sequestration we had pilots flying hours at the bare minimum of safety. Those pilots eventually moved on to be IPs and then field grade Majors/LCDRs. Though all “qualified” their body of work and experience is not equal to their predecessors. It’s not uncommon for Commanding Officers to only have 1500-2000 hours of flight time now but when I started out - 300 hours per year was a good target....now it’s 100-150 averaged over 15 years.
Around the time I got out of the Army it was embarrassing how little the average pilot flew. Army regulations require someone to fly every 60 days or else they need to have a checkride to re-establish currency. As an Instructor pilot, I spent ALL of 2016 giving proficiency checks instead of doing mission oriented training. Our line pilots were simply mismanaged, under appreciated, and constantly forced to attend non-aviation related training. Example, we have to cancel Mr. So-and-so's training flight tonight because he has to attend an Anti-trafficking brief at 0600 tomorrow. There is a time and a place for these things but the military MUST realize that our flight crews are not normal individuals and need to be treated as such. An Army pilot should be practicing his trade of flying aircraft in combat, not ruck marching and assaulting buildings. We have other people that do that. It's embarrassing to have more accidents in a non deployed environment than during a deployment. This happens because we use our dwell time to get the meaningless BS out of the way instead of flying to proficiency. During an actual deployment, the funding is in place to allow for alot of flying and training.

It should be noted, however, that the things asked of military aircrews is much more dangerous than civilian IFR flying. It should be expected to see more accidents while doing precarious things in an aircraft. Recently though we have seen far more military accidents than normal. I am curious to see the cause of this latest C130 crash. God bless them all.
Iregretnothing is offline  
Old 05-02-2018, 11:12 AM
  #4  
Prime Minister/Moderator
 
rickair7777's Avatar
 
Joined APC: Jan 2006
Position: Engines Turn Or People Swim
Posts: 39,100
Default

Might be pilot training hours funding, or it might be a lot of other things related to the strain on the services over the last 15 years... material, cultural/moral, attrition.

DoD knows it needs to reset and recapitalize. But it looks to me like that budgeting needs to account for sustained, indefinite low-intensity conflict. We used to be in the habit of going into four-alarm-fire mode when actual warfighting had to be done... that worked OK for a few months, but not years or decades.
rickair7777 is offline  
Old 05-02-2018, 12:49 PM
  #5  
Gets Weekends Off
 
bizzlepilot's Avatar
 
Joined APC: Mar 2017
Position: Swimming, or drowning, depends on the day.
Posts: 106
Default

Originally Posted by rickair7777 View Post
Might be pilot training hours funding, or it might be a lot of other things related to the strain on the services over the last 15 years... material, cultural/moral, attrition.

DoD knows it needs to reset and recapitalize. But it looks to me like that budgeting needs to account for sustained, indefinite low-intensity conflict. We used to be in the habit of going into four-alarm-fire mode when actual warfighting had to be done... that worked OK for a few months, but not years or decades.
Nailed it. Years of conflict, funding issues, low morale, all the experience is leaving. I think it all contributes to the current state of military aviation.
bizzlepilot is offline  
Old 05-02-2018, 03:51 PM
  #6  
Gets Weekends Off
 
hindsight2020's Avatar
 
Joined APC: Oct 2006
Position: Center seat, doing loops to music
Posts: 821
Default

The DoD won't admit to it, and it's too early to draw conclusions, but those of us invested in this game do recognize the greening out of the squadrons and the logical progression towards higher hull losses. The chickens will slowly come home to roost, at the clip we're going.
hindsight2020 is offline  
Old 05-02-2018, 04:05 PM
  #7  
Line Holder
 
Joined APC: Oct 2014
Posts: 37
Default

As one of our monitors wrote, “The Marine Corps doesn’t care about your qualifications, designations or flight experience. They care about your green side” Physical fitness score, FITREP perfection, picture, and other “well rounded” qualities that have little to do with your MOS credibility and more to do with your ability to promote.
BigIron is offline  
Old 05-02-2018, 05:04 PM
  #8  
Gets Weekends Off
 
Gundriver64's Avatar
 
Joined APC: Jul 2017
Posts: 249
Default

As an Army pilot with almost 20 years of IP, examiner, and Safety officer time I have seen/experienced great change with military aviation culture. Today's O-4/O-5s are more concerned with career KD time and PowerPoint metrics (e.g., flu shots and late OERs) versus having a safe/proficient flying force. Most WOs are counting the months, days, hours, and minutes to punch-out time. It really is a travesty.
Gundriver64 is offline  
Old 05-02-2018, 08:24 PM
  #9  
Perennial Reserve
 
Excargodog's Avatar
 
Joined APC: Jan 2018
Posts: 11,409
Default

Not unlike the Navy PAC fleet with their surface combatants collisions and groundings. They seem to have forgotten the basics. How does a surface combatant with Aegis radar, sonar, lookouts, a Combat Information Center, and watch stander son the bridge run into a container ship that can only do 12-14 Knots flat-out?

For that matter, how do you ACCIDENTALLY upload six nukes and fly them from Minot to Barkesdale without the crew even noticing they have six nukes under their wing? Damn, it's stenciled on the warhead.

There are a lot if problems in the military right now for a lot of reasons, and inadequate resources is only one of them.
Excargodog is online now  
Old 05-02-2018, 08:50 PM
  #10  
Gets Weekends Off
 
Joined APC: Dec 2017
Position: Retired NJA & AA
Posts: 1,907
Default

Originally Posted by TexBubba View Post
https://patch.com/georgia/savannah/plane-reportedly-down-port-wentworth-near-savannah
It seems lately there has been a slew of military airplane crashes. For all the millions of dollars of tax payers money spent on pilot training, maintenance, and equipment, I am wondering what underlying causes of these are? I am not talking about combat realted accidents. Can any current or ex-military pilots shed light on this? Also, it doesn’t seem, at least in the media, it gets the same attention as passenger airlines. Or cargo.
I was a C-130 Pilot and Aircraft Accident Investigator back in the 1980's.

The C-130 that just crashed was 60 years old:

9 Puerto Ricans killed in final flight of 60-year-old National Guard plane - Chicago Tribune

From eyewitness accounts (notoriously inaccurate) the plane entered a steep bank and crashed just after takeoff. Sounds like wing structural failure. That happened many years ago to a Little Rock based C-130. For quite a while we had restrictions on maneuvers until all the cracked wing 130's were fixed. They called them "Level 1" and "Level 2" restrictions.

Edit: just found video of the crash, not quite as sure about what I just wrote above:

https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/02/us/mi...gia/index.html


Last edited by AirBear; 05-02-2018 at 09:04 PM.
AirBear is offline  
Related Topics
Thread
Thread Starter
Forum
Replies
Last Post
MX727
Cargo
5
06-27-2012 05:26 PM
Jesse
Foreign
2
12-07-2011 02:54 PM
flyharm
Union Talk
0
08-22-2011 06:57 AM
MD80
Major
1
12-04-2009 08:04 AM

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Trackbacks are On
Pingbacks are On
Refbacks are On


Thread Tools
Search this Thread
Your Privacy Choices