rickair7777

Ok, makes sense. Apparently more than just a student goof if the other IP went for the CL too.

joepilot

You didn't get to the part that mentions that T-38s have been prohibited from doing formation landings since 2020. Why, I have no idea. But that would be why both aircraft thought that they were supposed to land on centerline.

Joe

hindsight2020

The Vance fatal is what yielded the wing landing prohibition. Essentially the CAF advocates within 19th AF got the agenda passed to HAF that to continue to pursue wing landings was unnecessary risk since fighters don't do it enough to warrant it in undergraduate training. A hell of slippery slope and I said as much as the time, but it matters not. Many arguments pro and against; water under the bridge now as it has been forbidden since 2020.

--break break--

USMCFlyer and others,

This IP was a student of mine at PIT. He survived (gnarly obstructed ejection sequence) with grave injuries; his student did not (ejected while already inverted into pavement, due to the 1.3s delay). He will probably never fly again based on his injuries.

The "treat the runway center as a brick wall on landing" is a red herring in this instance. There is no expectation of formation landings anymore for the last 2 years. As such even when alternate side operations are used, in this instance there was no such imperative, being a center runway with tower imposed 6k separation.

The root cause was the dual crew IP losing SA on the position of the wingman upon clearing him off. He even disregards the student's inquiry with that fateful "yeah, he's gone". That's unfortunately a significant indicator of how tumbleweed he was. The SP had more SA , but as a mere UPT student after all, didn't have the authoritative ability to impress upon his formal authority figure that something was wrong. That's still on the IP from where I sit as a peer member of this specific community. But that's because I hold myself to a higher standard with students, as we sign for their lives when we sign for the jet.

It is painful for me to know the IP's imperatives to continue in spite of the student's lamentations and confusion-alerting inquiries, ended up killing the student of all people. I don't say any of this lightly; I flew with/against this IP during his training tenure at PIT. I was also an instructor of record for the IP in the solo jet while he was at PIT as well. Wasn't mentioned on the AIB I don't think, but said pilot was also Wing leadership at the time, which is why the O-6s had to be plucked from the NAF and go down there (interim boards are usually given to the wing).

Contributing factor was the student's long aimpoint. Common student error, usually a result of not "unsticking" from the ILS glideslope, sometimes even after verbalizing "transitioning visual". Also a fast final. But that's called Tuesday around here. Something the IP is ultimately responsible for monitoring and correcting. At any rate, that combination blanketed the preceding aircraft perfectly under the nose and allowed the aircraft to catch up and collide. The touchdown speed was at least 10 hotter than the preceding aircraft, which was in the process of aerobraking when the nosewheel impacts its stab.

The general standards of behavior in our enterprise are to land favoring on the cold side for full stops. But this is mainly for RSU controlled ops, for traffic maximization and landing count increase. This is not relevant for the center runways at UPT because they're controlled by tower. Center rwy generally deals with T-6, T-38 and T-1 arrivals (plus all non-home aircraft arrivals), and for which the default 6k separation is expected (dissimilar). So everybody tends to land on the centerline on the center runway, as taking sides is moot (and T-1s don't use offsets anyways). The only time where a purposeful offset will be taken is during a VMC drag, but that maneuver implies keeping tally on your landing lead, between 3-6k in separation. Again, not something germane to this accident sequence at all.

So for the third time: wing landings are neither an expectation anymore, nor relevant for offset ops which are generally the purview of RSU controlled runways. The expectations of the community regarding landings in the formation phase have been reset since 2020. Hope this helps provide additional context to the AIB reading for those coming to it from different branches and/or MAJCOMS.

5th fatality in 5 years. 3 of which I knew personally. My community is not doing good. My wife hates my job (the airplane specifically, she didn't have near the apprehension when I taught T-6s). There's a job to be done though. So we learn, we press. My username checks type of thing. Everybody stay safe out there. Cheers.