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8 sailors injured after landing mishap on USS Eisenhower


Subdeacon Joe

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http://www.cnn.com/2016/03/18/politics/several-sailors-injured-on-uss-eisenhower/index.html?sr=fbCNN031816several-sailors-injured-on-uss-eisenhower1030PMVODtopLink&linkId=22451725

 

 

Washington (CNN)Eight sailors on the USS Eisenhower were injured Friday in an accident involving an aircraft landing, the Navy said.

The arresting gear that catches landing airplanes broke on the deck of the ship, which is stationed just off the coast near Norfolk, Virginia, during a routine landing by an E-2C Hawkeye aircraft, the Navy said in a statement. There were no fatalities, and the sailors are listed in stable condition with non-life-threatening injuries.

The names of the sailors, who were working on the flight deck at the time of the accident, will not be released, the Navy said.

The aircraft regained flight and returned safely to its base at Norfolk Naval Station Chambers Field, the Navy said. Initial reports are the aircraft was not damaged and no aircrew members were injured.

 

 

Prayers for the injured.

One heck of a pilot to get his craft into the air again.

Here is an incident from a few years before:

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Pert sure NSI will be investigating that

 

Not sure what kind of scheduled maintenance is performed on these cables. But, I'm sure it would be regular like.

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Of course we don't have all the facts, but one of those broken cables gets to whipping around, it can take off legs or worse! Prayers up for the injured! Got to wonder why the cable broke, however!

 

 

Pert sure NSI will be investigating that

 

Not sure what kind of scheduled maintenance is performed on these cables. But, I'm sure it would be regular like.

 

Oh, there will be investigations out the waazoo, and someone will be blamed.

 

But sometimes things break before they are supposed to and without warning.

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Oh, there will be investigations out the waazoo, and someone will be blamed.

But sometimes things break before they are supposed to and without warning.

 

The issue is that, relying solely on "the book" (maintenance policy and procedure) is a mistake, as far as turnaround maintenance for ANY critical operational "unit" is concerned. Creating interdisciinary inspection teams, performing safety and administrative reviews, and accompanied by line supervisors, and following a checklist and ad hoc questions. VERY often catch problems that aren't caught or addressed by any other process. I don't know how all this is covered aboard Naval warships, but if this isn't being done (I'd be surprised if it's not) perhaps it should be considered........we'll give them another 15 years. :-)

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A friend of mine was on a carrier (don't know which one) off VN in 1968 when an arresting cable broke during landings of an F4. He lost a leg right at the knee and another guy was decapitated. He has passed away now, but he did not let it bother him too much. We used to hunt together a lot. Was a great guy, miss him a lot.

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Having been prior Naval Aviation, There will be a through investigation and as long as all inspections were properly performed and documentation IAW the manuals they will not be looking for a scape goat. The Navy classifies mishaps according to the dollar amount involved and whether or not any personnel were injured. This will be classified as a class "A" mishap because of the loss of the aircraft and people were injured.

 

As for some of the the people injured in the video they were NOT doing their jobs properly and had become complacent towards flight deck operations. You NEVER EVER turn your back to the landing area while an aircraft is recovering. The red shirt leaning against the tractor with his back to the danger area learned a very hard lesson about complacency. I cannot see the green shirt well enough in the video to tell why he didn't jump over the cable. The Yellow shirt that jumped the cable is the only one that reacted properly to the situation. The group of people standing in the background probably shouldn't have been there and they were definitely not paying enough attention to flight deck operations.

 

Naval Aviation is a unique animal. Safety investigations are focused towards finding the cause and ensure there is not a repeat. Testimony provided to the investigators CANNOT be used later to punish individuals.

 

As for doing it by the book; Naval Aviation has worked long and hard to get their book correct and most of procedures in the book are "written in the blood" of prior shipmates. Every maintenance task or inspection is looked at by at least two sets of eyes. The person that performs the task and the person that inspects that the task was done correctly. Some tasks that are critical in nature require an addition person to inspect the work or at least sign off on critical phases of the work. This third person works in a separate Quality Assurance shop that is separate from the shop that performs the maintenance.

To inspect work at the work center level requires the individual to be at least a Petty Officer 2nd Class and they have to meet certain criteria including demonstrating personal responsibility and through knowledge of the systems they are inspecting. To work in QA the individual has to meet an even higher threshold of personal responsibility. All work is also signed off by the work center supervisor.

 

In 20 years I have only seen this process short circuited twice. In the first case the individual went to Admirals Mast and lost three paygrades plus some brig time. In the second the person lost 1 paygrade.

 

As part of the operation of the arresting gear engine, prior to landing the pilot will call the ship with his fuel state and if he is still carrying any external stores. All of the this information will be entered into the arresting gear system so that it will properly stop the aircraft based on its total weight and landing speed. All entries are double checked by a second person to ensure they are correctly entered into the system before the aircraft lands.

It is also entered into a separate log that can be used in case there is a malfunction to help determine the cause

 

Naval Aviation keeps meticulous records and analyses those records for trends, especially when it comes to failure analysis. Every aspect of the arresting gear system has an inspection and preventative maintenance procedure that is strictly adhered to. Inspections are based on one of three criteria; time, number of cycles, or special events.

 

Based on extensive testing and trend analysis some parts are replaced based on the probability they will fail based on their time in service. I know that arresting gear cables are replaced after so many cycles no matter what they look like. The rest of the system I am not familiar enough with to know what its criteria is.

 

The failed arresting gear engine will be thoroughly inspected as to the cause and if it could have been prevented. Based on the outcome of that investigation changes may or may not be made through out the fleet.

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Dave, that was enlightening... thanks for taking the time ~ a good read!

 

Now... here's another involving an Intruder that was interesting:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czvEDNdyFBU

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Dave, that was enlightening... thanks for taking the time ~ a good read!

 

Now... here's another involving an Intruder that was interesting:

 

 

 

 

Didn't that Intruder fly on for quite a while before crashing? I know that the change in weight and balance, as well as the surface effect, got it back in the air, just wondering how far it went.

 

Here is the video up just after yours, Hardpan. A bird strike. Pilot got his ship into an empty area of the field, pointed it down, and punched out.

 

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Naval Aviation is unusual in that the general attitude is about airing your dirty laundry so that others do not make the same mistake. Mishap reports and safety grams are routinely disseminated so that others can learn from them. The Naval safety center publishes two periodicals where mishaps with teachable value are published.

"Approach" covers aircrew and flight related mishaps while "Mech" covered maintenance related issues.

 

There was also "Grandpaw Pettibone" of "Naval Aviation News" I never saw the videos while I was active duty only magazine articles but I'll include links to a couple of the videos.

 

Here is a link to the current copy of "Naval Aviation News"

 

You used to be able to view all of them online but none of the links I have work any more.

 

There was also a weekly Naval Safety Center message known as the "Friday Funnies". Used humor and good natured ribbing to highlight the poor safety decisions Sailors made on and off duty. I remember one write up about a Sailor that suffered a bad foot injury when the push mower he was using amputated a couple of toes. Something was mentioned about the individual not being able to afford steel toe shoes and not wanting to damage his Navy issued steel toe boots off duty.

Safety Center Admiral at the time put out a special message that if he ever heard of a sailor being disciplined for damaging any Navy Personal Protective Equipment used by an off duty sailor that he would personally crucify the person doling out said punishment. He made it plainly clear that if you needed PPE off duty, your command should make sure it was available for checkout. If your boots got damaged they would be replaced. Need hearing or eye protection he expected your command to have it freely available 24/7/365.

 

Until just now I had forgotten how entertaining and enlightening those magazines and the Friday Funnies were. I do remember that NO ONE wanted to find themselves in print that way.

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Dave, that was enlightening... thanks for taking the time ~ a good read!

 

Now... here's another involving an Intruder that was interesting:

 

 

I am willing to bet if the LSO (Landing Safety Officer) had not been yelling EJECT EJECT EJECT the crew would not have bailed out of the plane. The pilot had control ogf the jet and it was levelling off in controlled flight.

It is not uncommon for a jet to settle when boltering, however when you drop below the flight deck and the LSO cannot see you any more yelling EJECT EJECT EJECT is a natural response. The crew would not know why he was shouting eject and would have taken his instructions at face value and followed his command. After all, there could have been something terribly wrong that the aircrew couldn't see.

 

Hardware is expendable and replaceable. People not so much.

 

As for the A-6 continuing without its crew, the Air Boss probably dispatched one of the fighters flying overhead as CAP ( Combat Air Patrol) to follow it and record when it crashed. On the off chance it would crash in a less than desirable area, CAP aircraft are fully armed and could shoot it down if necessary.

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Adding my prayers.

 

Flight deck is the world's most dangerous place to work so I understand.

My S-I-L served on the Kennedy flight deck. But we got him home in one piece.

Been there ,done that. Was very young at the time, well trained and very aware of what can happen on the flight deck. NOT something I would do today.

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There was also a weekly Naval Safety Center message known as the "Friday Funnies". Used humor and good natured ribbing to highlight the poor safety decisions Sailors made on and off duty.

There still is.

 

Not sure if it still comes out weekly but every once in a while I'll see it.

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