Alaska F-22 crash: RIP, "Bong" Haney

[Buddy Spike]

I know lots of people are immediately jumping on "Leadership" as part of the problem. I'm not defending the CSAF and I'm sure this won't make anyone feel any better but I'm seeing lots of traffic from the O-6 and above level and guys are saying (privately) this is total bullshit and they're only getting away with this because dead men cannot challenge the board findings.

There is no excuse. The fact that people are privately saying this, but no one is doing anything about it further points to the spineless leadership style prevalent in today's air force.

[Guest]

There is no excuse. The fact that people are privately saying this, but no one is doing anything about it further points to the spineless leadership style prevalent in today's air force.

Whatever.

Just sayin'.

[Fud]

Is there a reason most AIBs seem to be always attributed to "pilot error"? Is this a way for the brass up or the contractor to deny culpability in case of a lawsuit from the family, especially since the OBOGS issue has been so public as of late?

[di1630]

If the General leading the AIB had found Lockheed at fault, it probably would have jeopardized his high paying defense industry job when he retires.

[Fudge]

Wow, what a bunch of BS.

[Day Man]

Instruments.

Serious?

[Steve Davies]

Another question.

The pilot initiated a recovery three seconds before impact. The report states that this resulted in a 7g pull, but the illustration shows that the stick was pulled all the way back.

Why was the pull only 7gs? Max available given current Mach (M1.1)? or flight control software limitation? If the latter, is there no 'hard stop' override in the F-22? Such a feature exists in other modern FBW fighters (Typhoon, for example), and even some earlier gen a/c (Swiss F/A-18C/D, for example).

What I am wondering is if the pull been at 9gs or greater, would this have made a difference to the outcome?

[JoeMamaSucka]

Complete BS. An AIB blaming the pilot while there's a restriction/grounding of F-22's with a known problem. Never has Big Blue been more seriously speaking out of both sides of it's mouth.

[Buddy Spike]

This story seems eerily familiar:

AT 1:30 A.M. ON THE MORNING OF NOV. 15, 1982, 31-year-old Janet Harduvel, wife of an Air Force fighter pilot, was awakened by a knock at the front door of her suburban Tampa home. Through the window she saw the outline of a team of military officers and flung the door open to ask, "Am I a widow?"

Five hours earlier her husband, respected instructor pilot Capt. Ted Harduvel, 35, had led a flight of four F-16 fighter planes on a training mission in the sky above South Korea. Seven minutes into the flight he radioed, "I've got a problem," and a moment later flew, upside down, into a mountain.

As unreal as that grim news seemed, there was something else that Janet simply could not accept: the Air Force's official explanation 45 days later that it was Ted Harduvel's misreading of his instruments—"pilot error"—that had caused the crash.

Janet, who had served as her husbands study partner while he went over the F-16's specifications, became convinced that the true cause was a malfunction in the plane's electrical system. Prevented by law from suing the Air Force itself, Janet, in a herculean effort chronicled in the HBO movie Afterburn (first telecast: May 30. See review, page 13), did win a 1987 judgment, which found General Dynamics, the plane's manufacturer, liable for defects in the jet and awarded her $3.1 million in compensatory damages.

Although that monetary judgment was later reversed on a legal technicality, Janet—played in the film by Laura Dern—still claims victory. "It was a question of honor—Ted's honor," she says. "I couldn't live with the epitaph: 'Here lies Ted Harduvel, world's greatest fighter pilot—until he got stupid.' "

The second of four children of a Long Island, N.Y., wine salesman and his waitress wife, Janet met 1st Lt. Ted Harduvel in 1973 while working her way through the University of Tampa as a cocktail waitress in the officers' club at MacDill Air Force Base. They married in 1974, and six years later their only child, a daughter, Kiki, was born.

In 1980, Ted Harduvel (played in the movie by Vincent Spano) became one of the first pilots to fly the Air Force's new F-16, but he expressed concern about the plane's performance. "He said, 'If I crash, don't cry for me,' " Janet recalls. " 'Get yourself the best attorney in town and sue 'em, Jan, because it ain't going to be my fault.' "

After his death, Janet followed that advice, ultimately retaining Texas-based aviation attorney Myron Pappadakis (played by Robert Loggia) and spending the next 4½, years amassing the complex technical paperwork to support her case. Her legal efforts, she says, served as a kind of therapy. "When you become a widow, you're angry at him for dying on you," she says. "And if you don't channel that anger externally, six months later you take a loaded gun and try to blow your brains out."

Kiki, now a fifth grader who has only vague memories of her father, also provided a focus for her mother. "She's the reason I didn't kill myself," says Janet. "I want her to realize you can do anything if you put your mind to it."

Her mother, perhaps, was Kiki's best role model. In April 1987, the day after a federal district court awarded her $3.1 million, Janet visited her husband's grave and said softly, "Rest in peace. Your name is clear. It wasn't your fault."

Though Afterburn ends there, Janet's story does not. In 1989 a higher court—though it did not challenge her husband's blameless-ness—reversed the lower court's monetary award on the grounds that, in this case, General Dynamics shared the government's immunity from lawsuits.

Today, Harduvel, who has petitioned the courts to rehear her case, raises her daughter in their comfortable three-bedroom house in the Tampa suburb of Lutz. She makes do on her husband's $830-a-monlh pension, augmented by income from an astrology-counseling business that she runs with her sister, Mary. "I'm frugal. I'm not an expensive-taste person," she declares. Harduvel has no plans to marry again but for the last four years has dated warehouse owner Zehntner Biedenharn Gay, 33.

"Life is good," Harduvel says earnestly. "It's on a very even keel for me." For her, what really matters is that the verdict on Capt. Ted Harduvel's death leaves his honor unblemished. "I owed him that," she says. "I really did."

https://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20112810,00.html

[MKopack]

Good call, Spike. Harduvel was my first thought when I read the report a couple of days ago. As a young troop back in 1987, I was on the flightline at MacDill assisting our electricians chasing down sparks related to the same issue - at the exact same time Diane Sawyer and her 60 Minutes crew were taping our PA spokesman saying, "No, everything is fine. Must have just been bad luck..." only two or three parking spots away.

Edited December 17, 2011 by MKopack

[Guest]

Serious?

As a heart attack.

[163 FS]

This whole thing just pisses me off. These things break the camel's back and the brass wonders why we are going to be so short on 11Fs.

[Toro]

The pilot initiated a recovery three seconds before impact. The report states that this resulted in a 7g pull, but the illustration shows that the stick was pulled all the way back.

Why was the pull only 7gs? Max available given current Mach (M1.1)? or flight control software limitation? If the latter, is there no 'hard stop' override in the F-22? Such a feature exists in other modern FBW fighters (Typhoon, for example), and even some earlier gen a/c (Swiss F/A-18C/D, for example).

What I am wondering is if the pull been at 9gs or greater, would this have made a difference to the outcome?

Steve,

It could be an aerodynamic limit. When you get well above corner velocity, the stabs don't have the same authority.

[Day Man]

As a heart attack.

If he couldn't see D2 fog/mist, how could he reference his instruments?

[sky_king]

I'm surprised they didn't blame this on lack of flight discipline. I can't believe they didn't emphasize the lack of airflow through his mask a little more. Just try exhaling and then not breathing for 30 seconds while sitting at your desk. It's tough enough when you're at 0' AGL, under no stress and know that you can breath in at any time.

[Toro]

If he couldn't see D2 fog/mist, how could he reference his instruments?

Canopy vs instruments. If the canopy fogs over because of the difference in temperature/condensation/pressure, you can't see outside. It doesn't fog over your instruments.

[Day Man]

Canopy vs instruments. If the canopy fogs over because of the difference in temperature/condensation/pressure, you can't see outside. It doesn't fog over your instruments.

Rog. I thought Steve was referencing the fog/condensation being inside the cockpit during a rapid-d...

[sky_king]

Doesn't that fog usually go away fairly rapidly. I don't see the lack of vis being as big of a factor as the suffocation from no air flow.

[Steve Davies]

Rog. I thought Steve was referencing the fog/condensation being inside the cockpit during a rapid-d...

I was.

[Guest]

Doesn't that fog usually go away fairly rapidly. I don't see the lack of vis being as big of a factor as the suffocation from no air flow.

Yes. It isn't. What Toro said.

[Loach]

According to the attached article, which I first saw about 10 years ago, B-52's (apparently) had their own design flaws that the USAF refused to acknowledge. I'm sure there are other examples... https://www.salisburypa.com/buzzonefour.html

When I was active duty army, we lost an Apache (AH-64A) to a wire strike that killed both pilots. One of the spouses tried suing MD, and a friend of mine was flown to Tx for depositions with the same firm that sued GD in Afterburn (he was in an OH-58 and witnessed the crash). I don't remember the specifics, but it probably had something to do with the capabilities and limitations of the Apache PNVS. Nothing came of the case though (as far as I know).

I do remember reading the Army Aviation Center's publication (I think it was called "FlightFax") which addressed army aviation mishaps, lessons learned, etc. Regarding our accident, they attributed it also to "pilot error". I remember reading that they came to this conclusion based on comments from other pilots in my company including one who said that "he (the PIC that night) knew the helicopter like the back of his hand" (something similar to that). From that comment, they (the investigators) concluded that the PIC was overconfident, and that was a contributing factor to the accident! That was a bunch of BS! He knew it well b/c he was our Apache MX officer, and he'd been flying for probably 15 years SAFELY! We knew him -- they didn't, yet based on a few hours of "investigation" they knew exactly who to blame and what caused the accident. In reality, there were a lot of reasons, but over confidence was not one of them.

https://www.salisburypa.com/buzzonefour.html

Cold War mission ended in tragedy for B-52 crew

By DAVID WOOD

NEWHOUSE NEWS SERVICE

Editor's note: National security correspondent David Wood came across the ghost of Buzz One Four on a

backpacking trip in western Maryland in 1996. This is the first time the full story has been told about the B-52

bomber's last flight from Westover Air Force Base in Chicopee in the middle of the Cold War.

l

[addict]

More skepticism of the Air Force's findings: https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-fighter-jet-down-20111220,0,3566553.story

[Buddy Spike]

More skepticism of the Air Force's findings: https://www.latimes.c...0,3566553.story

If they could only figure out the difference between a "test mission" and training...

[Danny Noonin]

Well, this is a useful discussion.

To Bong. And fuck that accident report.

Edited December 21, 2011 by Danny Noonin

[Toro]

Bong was a fantastic person and will be well remembered.

This could have happened to any of us.

Shack.