C-17 4-engine flameout/SIB/FEB questions in here

[Guest]

I realize I am sacrificing some anonymity here, but I feel it's worth it if it helps one person.

I was the co-pilot on the C-17 4-engine flameout on 17 Sept 2010 in Pakistan. An SIB was conducted (anything privileged won't be discussed here), a CDI was ordered, and I went to an FEB. The board decided I should return to flying the C-17. AMC/CC non-concurred and disqualified me from aviation service. I then got a referral OPR D2 that decision, which limited the AFSCs I could crosstrain to (Acft mx). I applied for to get my SUPT ADSC waived...it was approved, and yesterday was my last day on active duty.

I am disgusted by the way AMC shared any lessons learned from our incident. For example, my -17 buddy at CHS had no idea our nose was imploded, giving us erroneous airspeed and stall indications. Unsat.

The whole story is quite long so I won't bother, but hopefully someone can learn something from this...ask away.

[TheFranchise]

Doesn't surprise me they threw you under the bus. What happened to rest if crew?

Btw the story always smelled bad the way it's told. I'm pretty sure you guys did something right since you landed a crippled plane with no fatalities.

Can you shed any info on the engine air starts?

[JS]

I have never been through the FEB/SIB thing, and hopefully never will. But my question is this: did you have any avenues of appeal? I mean does the word of one person, even if that person is the AMC/CC, overrule what a board of (hopefully) your peers decided with regards to flying??? Did you seek any legal counsel on the matter?

[Day Man]

Doesn't surprise me they threw you under the bus. What happened to rest if crew?

2/3 are out

Btw the story always smelled bad the way it's told. I'm pretty sure you guys did something right since you landed a crippled plane with no fatalities.

Some things right, some things wrong...just like every flight

Can you shed any info on the engine air starts?

Boldface (ignition orride & extend the RAT) was done immediately. One of the next steps was to turn the engine start switch off (cuts fuel), which I didn't want to do incase the engine was about to light off. My sense of time was very skewed, but the freefall lasted for several minutes. When we got power back, it looked like all 4 were online (all 4 EPRs appeared to be at idle). After about a minute, the EPR tapes on 1 & 4 disappeared, and the EGT started rising. We were on short final so elected to worry about it on the ground. On landing rollout, tower indicated 2 of our engines appeared to be on fire (no fire lights inside). I confirmed what he said, and T-handled/blew the bottles on 1&4.

I have never been through the FEB/SIB thing, and hopefully never will. But my question is this: did you have any avenues of appeal? I mean does the word of one person, even if that person is the AMC/CC, overrule what a board of (hopefully) your peers decided with regards to flying??? Did you seek any legal counsel on the matter?

BCMR, and yes I had counsel. I also wrote letters to my congressman/senator, but nothing happened.

Edited September 27, 2013 by day man

[ThreeHoler]

Do you have the AFSAS #? I'd like to read the report for myself so I don't ask any dumb questions, because the brief we got on the incident on the KC-10 side of AMC was essentially "these guys were dumb and lucky."

[Day Man]

Do you have the AFSAS #? I'd like to read the report for myself so I don't ask any dumb questions, because the brief we got on the incident on the KC-10 side of AMC was essentially "these guys were dumb and lucky."

No I don't, and I consider myself very lucky. Again, why I'm disappointed by the dissemination of information regarding this mishap...a lot to learn.

[Gov]

No I don't, and I consider myself very lucky. Again, why I'm disappointed by the dissemination of information regarding this mishap...a lot to learn.

Sorry for the result on your end, but just to reassure you, we had an extensive rehash of all the data in last years' CRM topic at my current base. We also did the same, with some great discussion at my previous squadron. Not sure where the disconnect is, but I felt confident that both of my squadrons were pretty extensively informed. Both reserve squadrons I might add, but the CRM classes had both active and Reserve dudes in it.

[Day Man]

Sorry for the result on your end, but just to reassure you, we had an extensive rehash of all the data in last years' CRM topic at my current base. We also did the same, with some great discussion at my previous squadron. Not sure where the disconnect is, but I felt confident that both of my squadrons were pretty extensively informed. Both reserve squadrons I might add, but the CRM classes had both active and Reserve dudes in it.

Good to hear. Did they show the video? What were the takeaways?

[Spur38]

Aviator to aviator, I commend you Day Man for having the major league huevos to step up to the plate and provide your peers with your experiences. In my 40+ years of military aviation it is certainly a rarity but really demonstrates what any worth-a-shit aviation safety program or command should have as its primary focus…to inform and prevent aircraft incidents, accidents and contribute to effective CRM.

From your candid approach and willingness to share, it seems very strange to me that the decisions made to relieve you from flight status seem incongruent and shameful….it also appears, obviously, that there was major “Shoe and Strap Hanger” involvement with the decision process and quite possibly a failure on the part of your counsel.

Without our having access to the report, would you be willing to give us a time sequence synopsis? Causation, Recognition and Crew Reaction(s), CRM factors etc.?

I’m sure that the BO mods would allow the space for this very important story and believe me; it will help lots of pilots and crews, not just one!

[Day Man]

Aviator to aviator, I commend you Day Man for having the major league huevos to step up to the plate and provide your peers with your experiences.

Thanks

In my 40+ years of military aviation it is certainly a rarity but really demonstrates what any worth-a-shit aviation safety program or command should have as its primary focus…to inform and prevent aircraft incidents, accidents and contribute to effective CRM.

From your candid approach and willingness to share, it seems very strange to me that the decisions made to relieve you from flight status seem incongruent and shameful….it also appears, obviously, that there was major “Shoe and Strap Hanger” (I don't know what this means...) involvement with the decision process and quite possibly a failure on the part of your counsel.

Counsel did their job for the FEB. One (of many) of my issues was that AMC/CC was briefed (several times) on the incident, which obviously included privileged interviews. He also had access to our testimonies for each other's FEBs which was under a grant of immunity. Shady...

Without our having access to the report, would you be willing to give us a time sequence synopsis? Causation, Recognition and Crew Reaction(s), CRM factors etc.?

I’m sure that the BO mods would allow the space for this very important story and believe me; it will help lots of pilots and crews, not just one!

The day was planned UAFM-OPRN-OPSD-OPRN-UAFM for relief supply/emergency evac after huge floods in Pakistan. OPSD is a RIDICULOUS (for -17s) airfield (google Skardu). Picked up relief supplies at OPRN, found a hole in the layer over the field, and landed. Combat offload the pallets and park. OPRN was running out of pallets, so we had extended ground time to build pallets of pallets. We ended up floor-loading a bunch of pax (~170), and departed. There was some wispy clouds along the route of flight, but nothing that we felt was "true IFR."

Approaching OPRN, we had bad comms. There were some cells on the wx radar that we maneuvered around, but nothing extreme. We asked to maneuver north of the field, but denied D2 Indian airspace. They sent us south, and we flew through one of the wx cells (it wasn't bad...light chop)where we lost comms with OPRN, until we eventually just turned around (the radios sucked anyways, plus the wx). We were instructed to proceed to the navaid at the field and descend, so we did. There was a cell over the field, but it looked similar to the one we had flown through previously and thought nothing of it. With a low power setting for the descent, we got into some HEAVY precip. I looked at the AC and said "we gotta get the outta here." He began a left turn, and everything went black. I thought it was a power surge from a lightning strike, but he immediately did the boldface. I then realized what had happened. I double checked his boldface steps were correct, and retrieved my checklist for clean-up. Like I said before, one of the next steps was to turn fuel off, but I wanted to give the engine a chance to light off (there was no time or altitude in the checklist when to proceed after the boldface was completed). I tried to back him up with airspeed (pitch for 250), but our stby indicators were 60+ knots off (turbulent airflow from the imploded nose), so I shut up. I even tried starting the APU which won't start in flight, but I figured if the electrical system was jacked, it might work (it didn't)

2&3 came online after a couple minutes giving us normal cockpit power through the split parallel system. We had no desire to run any other checklist since the AC could control the plane sufficiently and proceeded to final. Didn't bother with inputting told (bad airflow, 2 engine, winds out of limits), and I made sure important shit was completed (spoilers/gear). We were initially going to land 1/2 flap, but the AC called for 3/4 (standard 3 degree config) after the runway was made to make it smoother for the floor-loaded pax). The crap after roll-out is already posted above.

[Fuzz]

Day man, sorry to hear this, even as a new guy to the 17, the whole incident still stinks given the amount of conflicting information and criticism of the crew. The fact that you brought a crippled plane back to earth with no one killed is commendable at the least. I recently flew with a sim instructor who was very familiar with you, the circumstances of the event and the investigation, and he shed some light on what happened and your actions as the crew. For better or worse I try not to judge your actions because I still get a pucker factor in the sim when I'm given that situation, I can't imagine going through it in real life.

[Spur38]

Thanks Bro! Curious about how much wx radar training you guys get. Could you say that it was a factor?

I was Nevada based (Army Guard) and flew C-12s OEF/OIF. I had our guys go through some outside (Civ) wx radar interpretation classes prior to deployment. Just knowing how to set the gain correctly was a big plus for accurate interpretation vs. the info provided in the wx rad ops man.; stuff that we certainly didn't get in transition and very limited during refreshers at FSI International, but became invaluable for OCONUS and SOUTHCOM Ops...

"Shoes and Strap Hangers" = Non aviators or higher ranking aviators with very little flying experience, wantabes......dickheads etc. Not to mention the utterly miserable and worthless weather reporting available...at least in 2005. Always on your own...

At any rate, I greatly appreciate the info, think you didn't deserve what you received and congratulate you and the crew for getting it down with all those folks on-board...none of us would ever want to be in that position but I know we all appreciate and benefit from your experience.

Hopefully your still flying something, you deserve to be!

[disgruntledemployee]

Good stuff. I will echo that the briefing we received at a quarterly session was basically what 3-Holer said, the crew was dumb. The brief was lacking sufficient detail and I didn't learn anything.

I try to learn as much from these things as I can so that I can improve as an avaitor. Sitting around swapping stories and gaining a better understanding of our limits and our aircraft is priceless. Thanks for sharing.

Dear BaseOps Moderators: I pledge that we create a new discussion group called Safety. This topic is a great start.

Out

[addict]

62 AW attempted to brief a couple hundred people in a C-17 hangar, but the heavy duty fans on the ceiling were left on and delayed the briefing for a good 15 minutes. It was stupidly ironic, because they had emphasized how much a crew could do in such a short time, but in as much time some staffer or Colonel could figure out how to turn off a fan, the entire EP was over and the C-17 was on the ground. The audio was then restarted from the beginning but just about the entire wing already saw the irony.

Edited September 27, 2013 by addict

[Champ Kind]

"these guys were dumb and lucky."

Same thing I'd heard.

There was a cell over the field, but it looked similar to the one we had flown through previously and thought nothing of it. ...we got into some HEAVY precip

What was the intensity of the returns?

[Hueypilot]

AFSAS # is 482994.

[Shaft34]

^ beat me to it Hueypilot.

Edited September 27, 2013 by Shaft34

[10percenttruth]

Good on ya day man. Times are tough & friends are few these days. It's commendable that you stepped up willing to rehash a shitty moment in your life. Hopefully once the dust settles it will turn out to have been for the better. If I was in your shoes, I'm not so sure I'd want to be in an organization that chucked me under the bus without at least making my errors a learning point. Seems like a par-for-the-course waste of talent.

Cheers bud.

[JS]

"these guys were dumb and lucky."

Yeah, that's what we heard too. One of our guys, after seeing the jaded CRM brief in the sim, said how dumb the crew was because "they knowingly and intentionally flew straight through magenta." And he implied that such a single, bad decision was what caused the whole thing.

Does the radar in the C-17 have an automatic mode, or do you have to fuck with the gain after every pitch and altitude change? Did you see the magenta that you "intentionally flew straight through" like this guy said, or was it not up?

[Azimuth]

The SIB makes the crew, especially you, sound like you had no idea what you were doing and only luck got that jet on the ground safely..

Edited September 27, 2013 by Azimuth

[Fuzz]

yes we have an auto mode but there are two different radar systems so I'm not sure which one was on the jet. For us the magenta is turbulence and it can actually cover up more severe weather on our displays.

[BolterKing]

This is becoming a recurring theme throughout military aviation, regardless of the outcome the crew gets thrown under the bus. Just happened to a friend of mine. Had to eject from a Superhornet after fighting it for over an hour, and the causal factor being hung around him because of a peculiar system anomoly that barely gets any mention in NATOPS (our version of the -1, I think) that no one in the Superhornet community had any clue even exsisted. Case in point, the F-22 crash in Alaska. Some how an OBOGS defect was the fault of the pilot? Robin Olds would've been kicked out for wrapping his glo-belt around some shoe E-8's neck, and Chuck Yeager would've lost his wings for breaking the sound barrier with broken ribs.

More and more the best you can do anymore is break even, from emergencies to employment in combat. Give it another 5 years, they'll see what it's earned them.

Edited September 27, 2013 by BolterKing

[jazzdude]

The thing I learned from my mishap was there is no such thing as safety privilege, and that you are guilty until proven otherwise. The same applies to airdrop review boards after an airdrop incident.

[matmacwc]

Combat Camera was in the flight deck correct? Would love to see that video. And Day Man, you got screwed.

[Fuzz]

that video is probably buried next to where ever they put the ark of the covenant at the end of Indiana Jones.