Air Drive Maintainer Blamed for Inflicting Fighter Jet Fireplace with Elevate Truck, Incident Report Says

An Air Force maintainer was faulted by officers for dropping management of a bomb elevate truck that struck a parked F-16 Fighting Falcon jet, inflicting it to erupt into flames final 12 months throughout a deployment, an accident investigation report revealed.

The incident — which occurred in a “undisclosed location in Southwest Asia” — occurred Nov. 17 when the maintainer was working an MJ-1 car, known as a “jammer,” as crew members have been loading ammunition onto a parked F-15E Strike Eagle, the report launched Friday detailed.

Whereas working the bomb elevate and putting it in reverse, the maintainer had a “lack of situational consciousness and confusion” throughout which he thought he couldn’t cease the car and was accelerating as an alternative of braking. The airman had been conversant in a distinct mannequin that had a small distinction within the location of the pedals, based on the Air Drive investigation.

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The MJ-1 hit the sniper pod of the F-15E, and the maintainer “hit his head and scraped his again” after which went “unconscious,” the report detailed. The airman was thrown from the car, and it hit the Strike Eagle’s touchdown gear tire, the place it shifted route towards the parked F-16 Preventing Falcon about 60 ft away.

The elevate finally hit that plane’s gas tank, inflicting a leak.

“A spark from the … MJ-1 ignited a fireplace, which engulfed the … MJ-1 and the correct entrance facet of the [F-16],” the report states.

Whereas the incident resulted in no fatalities or main accidents, it prompted practically $5,000 in environmental cleanup prices and upward of $30 million in damages to the plane, based on the accident investigation board.

One crew member had tried utilizing two different bomb lifts previous to the incident, however one wouldn’t begin and the opposite was experiencing gear shifting points, which led the crew to make use of the jammer that prompted the incident, the report discovered.

The report additionally factors to different failures akin to “an absence of correct documentation for the jammer fleet on the undisclosed location and a free tradition of adherence to Air Drive requirements and technical procedures by maintainers on the location” as further elements within the crash, U.S. Air Forces Europe-Air Forces Africa said in a news release.

The report on the incident comes because the Air Drive is pushing maintainers to signal nondisclosure agreements, or NDAs, earlier than they will obtain privileged security studies on such mishaps.

In a roundtable with reporters Friday, Maj. Gen. Sean Choquette, the Air Drive chief of security and commander of the Air Drive Security Heart, stated that latest incidents on the flight line prompted officers to have maintainers signal NDAs and loop them in on security studies.

The Air Drive’s 80,000 maintainers may have entry to the studies after signing NDAs, he stated.

“We have had a rise over the course of final 12 months in what we name aviation floor operations mishaps, so not flying the plane, however towing airplanes across the flight line, upkeep work out on the flight line,” Choquette informed reporters. “We will not share all the lessons-learned data that we’ve got inside the protection privileged system with out extending that to them.”

After main mishaps, Air Drive officers sometimes fee two studies: an accident investigation board report and a security investigation board report.

The previous is launched to the general public whereas the protection investigation board studies are saved inside, typically present extra specifics and particulars behind the reason for a mishap, and are used to teach service members and officers. Choquette stated that inside security privilege is essential within the investigations.

“What security privilege does is it guarantees to these people that something that they are saying cannot be utilized in disciplinary motion and it’ll not be offered in public to ensure that them to speak in a fulsome approach about what occurred,” Choquette stated. “We do not wish to put them in a scenario the place they really feel like they can not inform the entire story, as a result of it may come out in an article that is going to be learn by their household or their superiors or their subordinates.”

For instance, Navy.com reported on the accident investigation board findings behind a CV-22 Osprey crash late final 12 months in Japan that claimed the lives of eight airmen. However the information group additionally reviewed a copy of the internal safety investigation board report that, in contrast to the accident investigation board report, revealed prior warnings associated to a element that failed on the plane a decade in the past.

Transparency advocates told Military.com earlier this month that requiring NDAs gave the impression to be an “effort to intimidate” these in uniform from talking.

When requested by reporters whether or not an airman may face administrative motion in the event that they revealed security privileged data below that NDA, Choquette responded, “You wager they may.”

Associated: To See Crash Info, Air Force Maintainers Must Now Sign Non-Disclosure Agreements