“Poor Airspeed Control Caused Thunderbird Crash” (Avweb):
The U.S. Air Force F-16, assigned to the Thunderbirds, that crashed following a runway overrun at Dayton International Airport in June was more than 40 knots too fast on final approach and did not touch down until nearly 5,000 feet down the runway. The $29 million aircraft was entirely destroyed … In addition to being 43 knots fast over the threshold, … the pilot, did not pull the throttle to idle until the aircraft had flown 3,000 feet down the runway, according to the AIB.
The pilot was injured, unfortunately, in addition to the loss suffered by the taxpayer (also kind of embarrassing given that the Thunderbirds air show team members are supposed to be among our best pilots; a runway overrun is more typically associated with a weekend pilot recently upgraded to a higher-performance airplane).
I think this is a good illustration of why the time has come for my “dome light copilot” idea. With a video camera up in the dome light area, a microprocessor can see all of the same instruments and view out the window as the pilot. This avoids the multi-year certification process for anything that is truly hooked into the aircraft. The dome light copilot is connected only to power (which had previously supplied only the light) and to the audio panel. This accident might have been avoided with minimal intelligence, e.g., “hey, you’re more than 15 knots fast; why don’t you go around?” and “you didn’t touch down in the touchdown zone; how about adding power and going around?”
Related:
- “F-16 Crash Caused By Bad Maintenance” (failure due to a fuel controller overhaul done in-house by the Air Force)
Reminds me of this incident at Oshkosh in 2011: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUei3kAcl9s
Oshkosh is a particularly bad place to screw up, because of all the pilots watching and judging you, to say nothing of the FAA and NTSB folks in attendance. Making it worse, this was in 2011, when the 100th anniversary of US naval aviation was being celebrated at the airshow; so there were many naval aviators on hand to watch the mishap by an Air Force affiliated (Air National Guard) pilot.
I was at oshkosh when this happened! I was going to fly my experimental aircraft in a homebuilt review as part of the air show. I was at the briefing room when it happened and sitting next to Bob Hoover! A very neat day but they closed the runway and we were not able to fly.
Chuck Yeager was there, too. He was answering questions at the central plaza shortly afterwards, and he did not express a very high opinion of the pilot involved. Ouch!
I have found Chuck to be a big blow hard!
This accident might have been avoided with minimal intelligence, e.g., “hey, you’re more than 15 knots fast; why don’t you go around?” and “you didn’t touch down in the touchdown zone; how about adding power and going around?”
I know just the company to implement this.
It looks like you didn’t touch down in the touchdown zone. Would you like to add power and go around?