USN training crash

[Borderland]

Anyone find this a bit odd?

https://www.mlive.com/news/saginaw-b...ing-crash.html

These aircraft have ejection seats. I was stationed at NAS Saufley field in the late 60's, not far from Pensacola and Whiting Fld. VT-1 and VT-5 were at Saufley Fld. at that time and using T-34's and T-28's. None of those had ejection seats. While I was there we never had a fatality due to a crash. We had crashes but nothing like this. We had 7 day dawn to dusk flight ops because of the Vietnam war. I find it hard to believe that a fatality crash happened with this aircraft (T6B) in a training flight.

Maybe someone with experience with turbo prop aircraft can shed some light on this. This amazes me.

[DDTSGM]

Those MB seats should be zero zero at wings level attitude.

Could be they stayed too long trying to save the aircraft. Could be they stayed too long ensuring safety of those on the ground: their training aircraft crashed into a residential area near Foley Alabama. No civilians were injured in the crash.

Could be student panicked. Probably won't know for a while.

Thoughts and prayers for the departed aviators and their families.

[Arbninftry]

I am betting, they both stayed on to not have that plane land on a house or building.


RIP, for the ladies flying. You will be remembered for your service.

[TC215]

Looking at the photos of the crash site/debris field, it looks like it about went straight in. I'm not sure how much control they had. Not enough info has been released (or is known) to make many conclusions.

[rayrevolver]

It's been a terrible week for Naval Aviation. Lost a Rhino out west. The jets are replaceable though. RIP VT-2 aviators.

It's not odd for reasons already mentioned.

What is odd is that you were stationed somewhere during the 1960s and there were no fatalities! But Mentors and Trojans were known for keeping their crews alive, so that jives.

[Lost River]

I don't know the first thing about the workings of that aircraft, so I cannot comment.

That said, having gone in harms way once or twice, I can tell you this. There are men and women every year in uniform (and some who don't wear uniforms, but serve their country operationally) that sacrifice their lives, so that people they have never met, will continue to pick up their kids at school, surf the net, go on vacation, and complain about everything, etc. They put themselves between whatever stands to harm Americans, at the cost of their own lives.

It is simply the type of people they were born to be.

I don't know if the flight instructor in this case did something similar. It is not my place to say. One way or another, it would not surprise me, as there were no civilian casualties.

Condolences to the families.

[JTQ]

TRAWING 6, crashed a T-34 in 2000, and another in 2001, in the same general area. All four aircrew died in those crashes.

While they do practice approaches and landings at a couple of small airfields in Baldwin County, Alabama, I think they also do some unusual attitude work in the area.

The local news reports the USN is looking for any video or eyewitnesses to the crash.

[JTQ]

TRAWING 6, crashed a T-34 in 2000, and another in 2001, in the same general area. All four aircrew died in those crashes.

Correction: I believe the TRAWING 6 crashes were in eastern Baldwin County, while this crash was in the western part of the county.

[DMF13]

Anyone find this a bit odd?

https://www.mlive.com/news/saginaw-b...ing-crash.html

These aircraft have ejection seats. I was stationed at NAS Saufley field in the late 60's, not far from Pensacola and Whiting Fld. VT-1 and VT-5 were at Saufley Fld. at that time and using T-34's and T-28's. None of those had ejection seats. While I was there we never had a fatality due to a crash. We had crashes but nothing like this. We had 7 day dawn to dusk flight ops because of the Vietnam war. I find it hard to believe that a fatality crash happened with this aircraft (T6B) in a training flight.

Maybe someone with experience with turbo prop aircraft can shed some light on this. This amazes me.

Only odd because military flying is so safe in general, but there is nothing inherently odd about a fatal crash on a training aircraft, just because it has a good ejection seat. An ejection seat is not some magic talisman that guarantees a safe escape from every system failure, or human error. Sometimes things break in a way, or at a time, that doesn't allow for a successful ejection, or sometimes the crew makes an error, or errors, that either go unnoticed until the crash, or noticed too late to allow for a successful recovery or ejection.

[60Driver]

Godspeed aviators, tough loss and prayers for those they left behind.

I assume it is a current practice area for Aerobatics / Spins etc. but I did primary in Texas MANY moons ago and our areas were predominately feet wet or along the intercostal off Corpus.