highsky

Amen. Yes, that brings back the memories.

CAFB 04-12

I've never had to not go for safety of flight or fatigue but I have refused missions due to weather. Usually the only people who get ****ed are the non aircrew passengers (understandably). Flying leadership, in my experience, especially leadership that has experience in your aircraft, accept an Aircraft Commander's judgement on safety.

Vito

Satpak77,

Here's my story, Just left active duty and my first mission in the reserves, I'm AC on a C-141 mission to fly Al Gore's limos into an obscure airfield in Russia. On Active duty I was one of a few crews cleared to fly US and Soviet "inspectors" into the Soviet Union to confirm the Soviets were dismantling their Nukes after signing the INF treaty in 88, so I had alot of experience with Soviet wx and airspace/navaids etc. The forecast for the flight from Frankfort to the Soviet airport was horrible, with freezing fog at the destination, which was 6 hours from Frankfort. We can't fly in freezing fog, but lo and behold a secret service member at the Soviet base said he can see the sun and the wx was beautiful!! I asked the Frankfort weatherman, who was very good at his job, if this was possible and he showed me the radar/charts for the Soviet base and he said the Secret Service guy was literally "blowing sunshine up my ass" I told the command post officer I couldn't fly because of the destination wx. The call went from him to a Major, then a LTC then to a full Bird. At one point the Major asked me what I needed to fly the mission, I jokingly told him 200,000lbs of fuel! (the 141 only held 153,352 Lbs max) he told me in disbelief!, "If I can arrange a 200,000 lbs upload will you fly????? I told him unless he bolted on drop tanks that was impossible!!! Turned out he was a KC-135 pilot and was unfamiliar with the 141 (big surprise) The way this ended was I used a technique that served me well over my career, I asked for the full spelling of their name!!!! so when the LTC started to push hard to make me fly I asked for the full spelling of his name, when he asked why, I said,
"When we crash and the Vice-President of the United States Limo's are scattered on a Soviet moutainside because their charts and nav-aids sucked, we would at least know who's to blame"
He got real nervous, said He'd call right back. A few minutes later a Full Bird calls me, now I'm expecting all hell to break loose, but instead he tells me that Air Force Two, with the VP on board had just gone around at the Soviet base and that my mission was cancelled, Then he said "Good call, Captain!"
The sad part to this story was 10 minutes later another C-141 crew walks in to base ops going to the same airfield. I relayed my situation and the AC looks at his Co-pilot and says, "Thanks for the info, but I think we're going to have a look see"!!! What a jerk...I tried to warn him...turns out his mission cancelled too. That was one of the hardest times I've been pushed to fly an unsafe mission, it was only my experience flying in Russia that made me stand my ground.

Freddriver5

Vito,

Change the cargo to a TALCE, the location to Turkey during Kosovo, and the probem to no Dips, and I've got the exact same story. They asked me as the lead aircraft of 4 to "find a reason to declare an emergency and divert" to avoid solving a Dip problem when the Turks refused to grant one. Yes, that was the plan for ALL FOUR aircraft.....yeah that'll work....I advised the senior at TACC that it would take a lot longer to find a new aircraft commander than to fix the Dip problem with an ally.

satpak77

Vito - your story makes me wonder what the "backdrop" was to the AF 737 crash 10-15 years ago in ??? Bosnia or some Europe airfield. I believe the approach required two ADF's and they had VIPs/CODEL on board.

Good posts guys

Starlifter

1996, Dubrovnik Croatia, Sec Commerce Ron Brown

articles.latimes.com/1996-05-31/news/mn-10484_1_air-force-officials‎Cached

rickair7777

IIRC there were several underlying factors, and probably some "normalization of deviance" going on as well, based on the fact that tried to save a crappy approach setup rather than just go missed.

There's no reason to believe there was any sort of direct pressure applied, although I think the pilot may have been the squadron CO, and thus upwardly mobile so he was probably goal-oriented to complete a high-profile mission without delay. Also I think Brown's CoS made several visits to the cockpit.

Since this was not a combat mission, no one should have been under pressure to weigh risk-to-crew vs. risk-to-supported-forces.

They did an air crash investigation episode on this, worth watching if you're interested.

Moose

My way of handling fatigue calls in the C-17 was to run my Operational Risk Matrix sheet to a very high point and then try find a colonel at TACC to sign off on it. Never found one who would sign my release.

USMCFLYR

1996 Croatia USAF CT-43 crash - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

http://www.uscg.mil/safety/docs/CRM/Unforced_Errors.pdf

DefenseLINK News: CT-43 Crash Investigation Results - June 7, 1996 DoD News Briefing

Mayday - S04E08 - Fog Of War (Crash in Croatia) (Inbound) (Flight 21 is missing) - YouTube

Since you mention the 'Mayday' TV show in your post I assumed that you were somehwta familiar with the mishap.
I've posted a few other to sources for details. the paper written by the USAF LtCol sheds some light on the chain-of-command that I found particularly interesting in light of the subject of this thread.

Husker4Life

Ok, here's a couple...

I was an IP in a tanker squadron in USAFE and drew the short straw to ferry the CINCUSAFE 4 star to Ramstein. My boss warned me that this guy liked to fly sometimes and as luck would have it, that's what happened. I met him in the cockpit as he sat down in the left seat. With not even a single salutation, he began to tell me how this flight was going to proceed. He said I might be the best IP in the AF, the best pilot to ever fly the tanker, but he didn't give a sh$&! He told me this was his airplane and he'll fly it how he wants and he doesn't want to hear one word from me unless we're about to crash. After a brief pregnant pause, he then said I was free to talk about anything else with him, just not how he flies an airplane....he had a good laugh but I knew he was serious about petty critiques.

Another time, I was walking into base ops somewhere in Crete. An EC-135, if I remember correctly, was landing soon with 2 engines out and a third one compressor stalling. (This is another story altogether but it had to do with contaminated water used in its water injection.)
The aircraft was carrying troops and high value assets from an U2 redeployment. They made it safely on the ground and pulled up in front of base ops. Out comes this O-6 who is heading for the phones. After a short while he noticed me in the room. He asked me where I was heading and what type of aircraft we had. I told him I was taking a KC135 to Mildenhall. He then said he was commandeering my aircraft and wanted me and my crew to fly him back to the states. I tried not to laugh too hard but he was serious. He said CINCACC was directly involved in his redeployment. Ok. I told him to call his people and I'd call mine to work out the details. After a while, he sheepishly told me he only needed a ride for his men and equipment to Mildenhall. I said great and we'd love to have him but I was limited to ten people. We had only a boom operator and the two pilots up front and a refueling mission over Europe. Our regs clearly limited our pax to 10 unless waived by the MAJCOM DO. He about came unglued and said he was giving me a direct order to take all of them. I politely told him that was not a legal order but I would be glad to ask the MAJCOM DO for a waiver. I called my home command post and moments later I'm talking to a 3 star. He asked me what's up and I told him. He said to hang a sec. Evidently the two 4 stars (USAFE and ACC CINCs) were having some disputes between them. He called his boss and now I'm talking to a 3 and a 4 star on a phone conference. I again relay the info and am told stay put and to call back. After a bit, I call back to find out not only can I not take more than ten people, the 4 star didn't want any ACC assets on his airplane. I was told to leave them all behind and go do my mission as originally planned. That was not a pleasant conversation with that O-6.

And if someone wants to start a similar thread but about similar situations in the civilian world, boy, there are some hilarious ones here at UPS.....