Blame Assigned

[apacheguy]

http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/longform/military/2015/11/01/black-hawk-tragedy-orders-ignored-soldiers-marsoc-marrines-killed/74816048/

 

Really a tragic mishap that could've been easily prevented. Any MARSOC folks out there know what the fallout from this was? Specifically are you all still flying with army aircrews or national guard units?

[akscott60]

This article is burning up the internet today.

 

Sad deal all around.

[Creep0321]

"Raider" is over with those guys still, he may have some insight. I lived in the same neighborhood as a few of the guys, but haven't heard anything.

[Joe_P148]

This the worst crash I have ever seen. Anyone who has seen the video is shocked by how disoriented these two experienced guys were. PC made a bunch of hoorible decisions and NO ONE challenged him.

[akscott60]

Where did you get the video?

[Joe_P148]

A safety guy had it on his laptop.

[akscott60]

Ok thanks. I will ask mine tmw.

[stearmann4]

We did the safety investigation on the mishap. It was a mess from the initial tasking forward.

 

Mike-

[RagMan]

Any possible way to catch a link of that video via PM, if its even accessible?

[raider8071]

http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/longform/military/2015/11/01/black-hawk-tragedy-orders-ignored-soldiers-marsoc-marrines-killed/74816048/

 

Really a tragic mishap that could've been easily prevented. Any MARSOC folks out there know what the fallout from this was? Specifically are you all still flying with army aircrews or national guard units?

I have not noticed any fallout as a result of the accident. We still have guys doing the HAVEACE training down there. I was actually the CACO for one of the guys, not exactly an ideal assignment but seeing first hand how all of the families and friends rallied together to get through it was insane. The whole situation was unfortunate but hopefully policies and procedures have been put in place to avoid something like this from happening again.

 

I have also not seen the video, I'm assuming it's from someone's helmet cam?

[TachedOutOffRoad]

I have a copy of the offical accident investigation. Let me check with somebody to see if its okay to put out.

 

There were flying backwards for almost a minute before hitting the water!

[Velocity173]

Guys be careful about distributing this thing out. There's a reason why that statement at the beginning of ACT exists. Military accident investigation material is for military safety briefings only. If you're not a releasing authority, it has no business being out in the web.

[Yamer]

Is it a helmet cam video or the typical army virtual reconstruction computer simulation type video?

[Joe_P148]

Is it a helmet cam video or the typical army virtual reconstruction computer simulation type video?

They hit nose down in a dive from 1,500' passengers and crew were dismembered on impact.

 

And it was at night.

 

There was no helmet cam video.

[Yamer]

So it's a reconstruction video that shows flight instrumentation and cyclic positions and everything.

It will be an unfortunate learning tool for a lot of future aviators.

[achfly]

MARSOC is still using that same unit. They of all people will be the last to forget the lessons learned. And as for changes to prevent this from happening.... None necessary! They were already in place. The PC just ignored them. Big time. The ramifications are this: DES is going to brief most if not all of the aviation brigades on this because of the "culture" behind the bad decisions that were made.

[Flying Pig]

Is this going to be anything like the Czar 52 scenario with the B52 at Fairchild AFB?

[Velocity173]

Is this going to be anything like the Czar 52 scenario with the B52 at Fairchild AFB?

I'd say Col Holland was someone who had repeated episodes of flying his aircraft outside the flight manual and AF regs.

 

The LAANG pilot in question was simply known as "aggressive." I didn't see anything of his history that suggests he violated regs on a regular basis. We've all gotten ourselves out in bad weather accidentally. We've all been up against the wall and found a way out. if you haven't, you just haven't flown enough.

 

Why would a crew intentionally go out less than briefed mins? Not only less than mins but weather that's almost assured to result in IIMC? No telling but there's 3 other crew members who had the option of "tapping out" but didn't and another entire crew that went out below mins. PIC error but an obvious breakdown in aircrew coordination (CRM) as well.

Edited November 3, 2015 by Velocity173

[Cantankerously]

So it's a reconstruction video that shows flight instrumentation and cyclic positions and everything.

It will be an unfortunate learning tool for a lot of future aviators.

60M IPs talk about one aspect of this incident almost every night durning ILD before we go fly.

[UH60L-IP]

The LAANG pilot in question was simply known as "aggressive." I didn't see anything of his history that suggests he violated regs on a regular basis.

 

And that's one problem with the regs, risk assessments, you name it. You can be well within the regulations and still be an overconfident idiot that is an accident waiting to happen (not saying this guy truly was).

 

I flew with a particularly arrogant, overconfident, and aggressive pilot in Afghanistan. I did not see him do anything that I would consider in violation of regs or briefs. However, he often said, "I'm a helicopter pilot. I'm going to fly it like a helicopter." He would do things that I didn't think were necessary simply because he could. I am a pretty conservative pilot myself as I'd rather save that margin for when I really need it rather than as a point to play around in just because I have the skill to do so.

 

I said things to the company standardization pilot and to the commander. Nothing ever happened. I ultimately refused to fly with him and was simply assigned to fly with others.

 

That's what it comes down to. You cannot be afraid to say something. Once you have done all you can do, make it personal and take responsibility for yourself. Had one of these crewmembers said, "We're not going, and if you do it will be without me," perhaps lives would have been saved. And that is sad.

 

You can laugh and point fingers at me for being a wuss all the way to the commander's office, but I'll be on the ground while you're doing it.

[Cantankerously]

Sort of reminds me of the Fairchild B-52 crash narrative.

[stearmann4]

If you have the mishap video, do not distribute it until the safety center has and/or SOCOM has debriefed it to whomever they see fit. As a BN ASO and USASOC ASO these get messy. It serves no purpose at this point other than to satisfy folk's curiosity. Just don't be part of the YouTube culture...

 

As far as flying aggressively, it's hard to quantify. One pilots "aggressive", is another benign. A PC doesn't need anyone's approval to fly an aircraft up to, and including the limits published in the -10, 95-1, local SOPs, etc. Whether or not a PC is experienced enough to take it to that limit is the gray area. The Lead PC as well as chalk two departed Eglin deliberately in violation of published WX minimums with an ATIS and WX report stating such. That's not to say that the same result wouldn't have happened if the visibility was legal. Over water flying, even in decent WX isn't to be taken lightly.

 

Mike-

[Velocity173]

Well that answered the one thing that was bugging me. Did they have weather reporting from their departure field? No excuse now.

[Joe_P148]

Velocity,

 

There were some questions on whether he crew rcieved the wx brief. Last intel I recieved they could not prove that the PC or the AMC had ever filed for a -1 or local wx brief. To put it in perspective how bad the weather was, the boat crew to recover the jumpers from the water, canceled the drop because they did not have visibility on the water to recover jumpers safely.

 

I think the word aggressive in describing the PC of the mojo crash is innapropriate. A more appropriate word would be negligent, dangerous, or arrogant. As Mike said, aggressive pilots still maintain the aircraft within limitations and regulations.

[Wally]

There are no magic procedures to ward off misfortune. Whether or not you have eleventy-eight reviews and approvals won't be a significant factor in any accident. There is no magic breaking point in weather either. One is capable, equipped, reasonable well planned and prepared for the conditions that exist and capable of executing the plan, or you're not. A big part of that plan is a firm decision point to abort. I'm not certain what 'flying aggressively is, unless it's not making training traffic patterns and settings in operational situations wherein they are not appropriate. Which is 99% of helicopter operations...

Management must decide the parameters that are acceptable, but that's only a statistical decision and applicable to the fleet as a whole. Your decision in flight planning and the execution is entirely subjective and will vary second to second. You can fall under the power of the mistaken idea at any point in the flight process, and make a smoking hole whether it's "clear, blue, and 22" or zero-zero.

It's not whether this flight seems to have ignored about a million red flags; or whether all the T's were crossed and I's dotted on paper; or whether this pilot yanked and banked and tried to always get the job done...

 

Why would an otherwise reasonable and experienced crew get themselves in an obviously risky situation that turned out to be fatal? How will you prevent similar issues? THIS CAN HAPPEN TO YOU!