Settling over the lawsuit.
Would have been interesting to see it go to trial; the widow wins, and the jury decides punitive compensation.
Condolences to the family.
BTW, nice job of honor and all that for the USAF to blame the pilot.
Despicable.
8 comments:
The USAF has a cultural history of blaming the pilot for program and aircraft deficiencies. Sorta like the Marines with the MV-22. Could be interesting when both services field the F-35.
The accident report did not "Blame" the pilot. It offered a few seconds of pilot distraction as the most probable explanation for the bad outcome. The contractor was not involved in making any conclusions in that investigation.
"The board president found, by clear and convincing evidence, the cause of the mishap was the MP’s [mishap pilot’s] failure to recognize and initiate a timely dive recovery due to channelized attention, breakdown of visual scan, and unrecognized spatial disorientation."
The USAF has a cultural history of blaming the pilot for program and aircraft deficiencies.
To the extent of the brass explicitly overriding and rejecting the findings of their very own accident investigation board, in the case of the USAF CV-22 crash in Afghanistan.
BGEN Harvel, who headed up that board, reported that there was intense pressure exerted upon him by his superiors to declare the flight crew at fault. Harvel declined to do so, and his board reported that the most likely cause was technical.
Harvel's boss then threw away the report, substituted his own report blaming the pilots and exonerating the Osprey, and accelerated Harvel's retirement.
Eric, since you want to absolve the pilot from the ultimate responsibility for stopping the cascade of events that led to catastrophe, I am sensing that you want to blame someone else. Who might that be?
I am afraid I don't agree that any pilot was blamed or thrown under the bus. Why is it so hard to accept that a few seconds of miss-directed attention is out of the question for even the best of the best? Does the possibility that even the best pilots have the capability of making the wrong decision when the moment of truth arrives constitute an insult? Expectations are high for USAF fighter pilots to perform under adversity, especially when the means of survival is provided for the emergency. It was the judgment of Brig. Gen Browne that the Capt. Haney could have saved the situation with the proper procedures. Of course there is the unfortunate aspect that Capt. Haney cannot explain himself, which is regrettable. The chain of events to this tragedy could probably been broken in many ways: ergonomic changes, automatic emergency action, pilot apparel (NVGs and gloves), training etc., but the pilot is the captain of his ship. He made his best decisions, and it didn’t work out. In my research to understand the pilot’s aspect, I was most informed by the anecdotal story of Lt. Zachary Matthews published in “Approach”, the Navy Safety Magazine, Nov-Dec 2011. This experience, called “Where’s the Green Ring”, is quite similar to the Capt. Haney accident in terms of systems malfunction, with the major exception that the aircraft state at the beginning of the incident was lower and slower compared to the F-22. The story will show you that my opinion is more than a reaction to psychological baggage I am carrying. Give it some consideration. http://www.public.navy.mil/navsafecen/Documents/media/approach/App_Nov-Dec11.pdf
I don't have a problem with pilots making mistakes. It happens. I have a problem with pilots not getting quality breathing air.
Seemingly not said is whether the pilot was getting sufficient flying to be reasonably proficient.
Post a Comment