Tag: unfold

SALCHA, Alaska (KTUU) – An F-35 Lightning II aircraft crashed on an Eielson Air Force Base runway Tuesday and the pilot was able to safely eject from the plane and was taken to Bassett Army Hospital for evaluation, according to the 354th Fighter Wing Public Affairs Department.

An Alaska’s News Source viewer was driving North along the Richardson Highway, heading to town to pick up dog food. The highway is right next to the Eielson AFB airstrip, and he had a full view of the accident.

“It was an amazing sight,” Joe Henderson said.

“It was unfortunate because that’s our military planes that defend our country, big loss to us. But it was just amazing. I guess it shows you how vulnerable we are as human beings and relying on anything mechanical … anything can go wrong.”

Henderson described the plane crash, saying two F-35s were practicing “touch and go” techniques, which see a plane touch a runway and immediately take back off. He said these were normal maneuvers and didn’t think much of it until one plane shot straight up in the air.

“[The F-35] went straight up and seemed like it lost power and went straight down tail first,” Henderson recalled.

“And right when it basically peaked to where it almost suspended in mid-air before it started falling, that’s when the pilot ejected out.”

Dr. Jeff Edwards of McCall, Idaho, is a retired U.S. Navy A-6 Intruder bombardier/navigator. He has also been an aircraft accident investigator for more than 25 years — investigating over 500 accidents worldwide — including military fighter jet investigations.

He explained what the process is currently looking like as the Air Force investigates Tuesday’s accident. It starts with an Air Force investigator making their way to Eielson from Kirtland AFB in Albuquerque, NM.

“The goal is to get the [investigator] moving to be on site within 24 hours, depending on where it’s maybe sooner, but typically within 24 hours unless it’s really, really remote,” Edwards said.

“I did some [investigating] in Africa, Antarctica, etc., that’s gonna take a couple days. Alaska, from Kirtland, from Albuquerque, is probably gonna be a flight to Seattle, then a flight to Anchorage,” he said.

“So depending on the time of day when it occurs and the airline schedule, they’ll be up there either late that afternoon or late that evening and then next morning.”

An interim safety board is formed in which the Colonel will appoint a senior officer from another unit to head.

“[The board is] going to have a senior member,” Edwards explained.

“It’s going to have what we call the investigating officer, that person who’s been through the safety training at Kirtland. They’re going to have a maintenance person.”

“They’re going to have a pilot member and these folks will be drawn typically from the unit to have the accident. They’ll have a flight surgeon assigned who’s a medical doctor, and they may have other specialists.”

“They’ll have an aircrew flight equipment. So if like if we saw in this case there was an ejection, so that flight equipment person is gonna be focused on the ejection seat, the parachute, the equipment that the pilot wore. Investigate and opine on whether or not that equipment worked, dysfunction or didn’t. And then they’re gonna have a recorder, somebody that’s gotta be taking notes,” Edwards said.

The investigator sent from Albuquerque will act as a guide for the board, as Edwards says, members of the board may not have prior experience in accident investigations.

He said that investigations are much like that of a police investigation, including witness interviews and reviewing video of the accident. Investigators will walk through the wreckage path, taking pictures and documenting what came down and where. They’ll also be speaking with the pilot of the downed F-35.

“The pilot member of the [board] is going to interview the accident pilot along with the flight surgeon,” Edwards said.

“They’re going to sit down and interview that person. ‘What happened?’ And they’re going to try to establish a sequence of events.”

He said that in the military, there is a 72-hour history that investigators want to know about the pilot.

“So this accident occurred yesterday?” Edwards asked.

“So they’re gonna go back to Saturday, for example, and say, ‘OK, what did you do Saturday?’ ‘What time did you get up?’ ‘What time did you go to bed?’”

“‘What did you have for breakfast, lunch, dinner, all that stuff?’ ‘Were there any family activities going on?’ ‘What did you do on Sunday, what did you do on Monday?’ ‘What time did you get into the office on Tuesday?‘”

He said the internal investigation should wrap up within 30 days, but the public won’t be privy to that report. Another report would be made available to the public but requires a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.

“A lot of loss of control accidents occur because the pilot induced it,” Edwards explained.

“So the first thing they have to sift through is answer those kinds of questions and they’ll get to the bottom of it.”

“[Investigators] determine, was the aircraft at the proper speed for where he was in the flight ‘cause he was real close to the to the field, landing, so he’s got to be at landing speeds.”

“There’s particular speeds for different phases of flights. There’s configurations where the leading edge flaps down, trailing edge flaps, was the airplane configured for landing or whatever phase he was in.”

“So those [questions] and the video’s gonna help establish that pretty quickly even before they get the data readout.”

Anthony “AB” Bourke is a highly accomplished and decorated F-16 pilot who was one of the first to fly in homeland defense efforts over New York City following Sep. 11, 2001.

“I will say this, from the day you enter… I’m Air Force, so I’ll speak only for the Air Force and of course, the F-35 that had the accident was also Air Force,” Bourke said.

“From your first day of what we call undergraduate pilot training, I remember very clearly showing up with my class of 20 of us at 5 a.m., nervous, in our flight suits, we’re all seated at our tables.”

“The flight commander comes in and the first thing he does is he looks at me and he says, and it could have been anyone, happened to be me. ‘Lieutenant Bourke, you’re flying a T-37, you’ve just taken off. You’ve got an engine overheat light on your #2 engine. What are you gonna do?‘“

“Emergency procedures are constantly drilled into you, both in an academic environment, in a simulator environment, and when you’re flying the airplane.”

Bourke says there are critical steps that must be taken as a pilot when something goes wrong in the sky.

“I see your pilot up in Eielson, although I know very little about his situation. Something obviously went terribly wrong with that airplane,” Bourke said.

“And I feel confident that he went through the training and it was automatic for him.

“He went through his steps… try to maintain aircraft control, analyze the situation, take appropriate action.”

“At some point, he said, ’Okay, I’ve tried ‘A’ to get the airplane lined. That’s not working.”

“I’ve tried ‘B’ to keep the airplane flying. Not working. I’m very close to the ground. It’s time to eject.”

No matter the result of the investigation, Bourke, Edwards, and Henderson share one thing in common… they’re all grateful that the pilot was able to safely eject and is alive.

“I have no doubt that the training has not changed in substance [since Bourke served]. You know the Air Force way is written in blood and you know we are an organization that constantly is trying to get just a little bit of better every day,” Bourke said.

“But there’s no doubt in my mind that that pilot was extremely well trained.”

“He was qualified to fly that airplane and knew exactly what he was doing.“

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