AC-130 loss of controlled flight

(CNN)How can you destroy a $115 million airplane without crashing it?

Fly it upside down.

That's exactly what happened to one of the Air Force's newest gunships, the AC-130J Ghostrider, this year, according to a report from Air Force Materiel Command released this month.

On April 21, the four-engine gunship was on a test flight over the Gulf of Mexico performing a "steady heading sideslip," according to an Air Force release. A "sideslip" is a maneuver in which the pilot slightly lowers a wing and applies opposite rudder to enable the plane to lose altitude fairly quickly. The maneuver is often used when planes are landing in a crosswind or when there is a need to lose altitude quickly. If you've seen those scary jetliner landing videos, the pilots are often executing a sideslip.

"The aircraft exceeded the targeted angle of sideslip until it departed controlled flight and momentarily inverted before being recovered after losing approximately 5,000 feet of altitude," according to a statement from Air Force Materiel Command at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio. The plane was flying at 15,000 feet when the mishap occurred. Recovery was at 10,000 feet, and it was flown safely back to Eglin Air Force Base in Florida. No one was injured.

But because the plane flew upside down, it "over-G'd," or exceeded the load and stress limits on the airframe, meaning it can no long be considered airworthy, according to the Air Force report. It estimated the cost of the incident at more than $115 million.

The service's Accident Investigation Board blamed the accident on the gunship pilot's "excessive rudder input during the test point followed by inadequate rudder input to initiate a timely recovery from high angle of sideslip due to overcontrolled/undercontrolled aircraft and wrong choice of action during an operation."

The AC-130J Ghostrider is part of a long line of gunships on the C-130 platform that date back to the Vietnam War. The newest version began testing in 2014. They are expected to be operational by 2017, with a total of 32 in the Air Force's inventory by 2021.

They will carry precision-guided munitions as well as 30 mm and 150 mm cannons, according to Air Force documents.



http://www.cnn.com/2015/11/20/politics/air-force-gunship-lost/index.html
 
Sounds like they stamped on the rudder to try to 'fix it' - aa587 anyone (admittedly different) but why not let the aircraft loose some altitude and fly out of it vs wrestle it into another shape
 
Looks like a media smear campaign. They were testing some kind of flight regime from the sounds of it. Sometimes, those things don't always go as planned.
 
"The service's Accident Investigation Board blamed the accident on the gunship pilot's "excessive rudder input during the test point followed by inadequate rudder input to initiate a timely recovery from high angle of sideslip due to overcontrolled/undercontrolled aircraft and wrong choice of action during an operation."


I wonder how much rubber dog feces one has to fly out of Hong Kong to pay back $115 million?
 
Cptnchia said:
"The service's Accident Investigation Board blamed the accident on the gunship pilot's "excessive rudder input during the test point followed by inadequate rudder input to initiate a timely recovery from high angle of sideslip due to overcontrolled/undercontrolled aircraft and wrong choice of action during an operation."


I wonder how much rubber dog feces one has to fly out of Hong Kong to pay back $115 million?
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I've always had questions about that line in that movie! Haha
 
mshunter said:
Looks like a media smear campaign. They were testing some kind of flight regime from the sounds of it. Sometimes, those things don't always go as planned.
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And sometimes AOA awareness just "slips" one's mind.
 
Wardogg said:
The Marines did it better and still had a serviceable airframe afterwards.

http://www.thefreelibrary.com/The+wild+ride+of+106:+a+snow+storm+of+helmet+bags,+approach+plates,...-a0153234707
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Eff that.

Remember folks- if you're OCF go Idle- neutral and work your way back from there.

We had a p3 crew forget they and applied full power engine out during an OCF condition. Developed Into a high speed spiral that only got recovered form 25-75 feet off the water, parallel with a cliff face because the FE restarted the shutdown engine in the spiral and pushed the power lever up. Going idle and leveling the wings would have made recovery from the situation a lot less of a miracle.
 
mshunter said:
Yeah, because you were there and know exactly what happened. :rolleyes:

Sounds like they were testing outside the normal envelope. Things happen when you do that. Sometimes unintentional.
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I wasn't there, just reading from the accident report. Lighten up, Francis. :)
 
zippy said:
Eff that.

Remember folks- if you're OCF go Idle- neutral and work your way back from there.

We had a p3 crew forget they and applied full power engine out during an OCF condition. Developed Into a high speed spiral that only got recovered form 25-75 feet off the water, parallel with a cliff face because the FE restarted the shutdown engine in the spiral and pushed the power lever up. Going idle and leveling the wings would have made recovery from the situation a lot less of a miracle.
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To be fair, there were some other factors in play on that one that might have initially confused them enough to not execute as you said. However, absolutely concur that this would have at least broken the OCF, giving more time to evaluate the problem and affect a recovery to level flight at a safe altitude.
 
When I left there was a Navy C-130 parked at Clark in the Philippines.

It had been there for the better part of a year because the pilot did an emergency landing and tried to stop a fully loaded aircraft in about 8 feet on a giant runway.

Ended up destroying the undercarriage with no easy way to fix it. The Navy was still shipping parts in to get their bird out instead of just writing it off and letting the Phils have it for parts.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
///AMG said:
To be fair, there were some other factors in play on that one that might have initially confused them enough to not execute as you said. However, absolutely concur that this would have at least broken the OCF, giving more time to evaluate the problem and affect a recovery to level flight at a safe altitude.
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I only mention it because the author of the C-130 article made a call that probably saved the aircraft by pulling power back to idle. Which slowed the decent preventing them from hitting the ground, Or breaking apart past VNE.

OCF recovery procedures were something that was never a memory item in the p3 community. That's the fault of the community and not the individual pilots, regardless of the situation leading to the OCF (I'm pretty well versed in it- the ASO called in for the mishap was my PPC at the time). After the Hazrep came out my squadron re-ran their scenarios in the sim after the incident, and reducing power after the aircraft departed elimated the spiral immediately, because both wings became stalled vice one wing stalled and one with the airflow of the engines at full power. It was a situation that we as a community never considered before so I certainly can't blame the mishap crew for their actions at the time. From the post mishap sims I learned that a stall in a p3 sucks, but sucks a lot less than a spiral.

Before that, and after that the only place I ever even discussed OCF and recovery was in the Primary VTs.

From what I saw, instinct In a multi engine aircraft is to apply power in an effort to keep your aircraft flying when it's about to depart (because we train to use the good engin to keep you flying when • starts to wrong with the other engine) and that's fine but once it departs, applied power only gets you to the scene of the crash faster by exacerbating the OCF condition.

We lost an MC12 in Afghanistan that departed controlled flight in IMC and crashed into terrain after the crew applied full power in an attempt to recover from an unusual Attitude and it departed. Power to idle upon departure may have bought them enough time to recover from the nose low condition.
 
zippy said:
I only mention it because the author of the C-130 article made a call that probably saved the aircraft by pulling power back to idle. Which slowed the decent preventing them from hitting the ground, Or breaking apart past VNE.

OCF recovery procedures were something that was never a memory item in the p3 community. That's the fault of the community and not the individual pilots, regardless of the situation leading to the OCF (I'm pretty well versed in it- the ASO called in for the mishap was my PPC at the time). After the Hazrep came out my squadron re-ran their scenarios in the sim after the incident, and reducing power after the aircraft departed elimated the spiral immediately, because both wings became stalled vice one wing stalled and one with the airflow of the engines at full power. It was a situation that we as a community never considered before so I certainly can't blame the mishap crew for their actions at the time. From the post mishap sims I learned that a stall in a p3 sucks, but sucks a lot less than a spiral.

Before that, and after that the only place I ever even discussed OCF and recovery was in the Primary VTs.

From what I saw, instinct In a multi engine aircraft is to apply power in an effort to keep your aircraft flying when it's about to depart (because we train to use the good engin to keep you flying when starts to wrong with the other engine) and that's fine but once it departs, applied power only gets you to the scene of the crash faster by exacerbating the OCF condition.

We lost an MC12 in Afghanistan that departed controlled flight in IMC and crashed into terrain after the crew applied full power in an attempt to recover from an unusual Attitude and it departed. Power to idle upon departure may have bought them enough time to recover from the nose low condition.
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IIRC the mishap report stated the spin actually saved them as well. By spinning it caused a large portion of the raft off of horizontal stabilizer instead of becoming "permanently" lodged causing the elevator to go nose up and un recoverable.
 
Cptnchia said:
"The service's Accident Investigation Board blamed the accident on the gunship pilot's "excessive rudder input during the test point followed by inadequate rudder input to initiate a timely recovery from high angle of sideslip due to overcontrolled/undercontrolled aircraft and wrong choice of action during an operation."


I wonder how much rubber dog feces one has to fly out of Hong Kong to pay back $115 million?
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I would wager Choco pies to North Korea in an Antonov would be more profitable.
 
zippy said:
I

We lost an MC12 in Afghanistan that departed controlled flight in IMC and crashed into terrain after the crew applied full power in an attempt to recover from an unusual Attitude and it departed. Power to idle upon departure may have bought them enough time to recover from the nose low condition.
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when?who?
 
Wardogg said:
IIRC the mishap report stated the spin actually saved them as well. By spinning it caused a large portion of the raft off of horizontal stabilizer instead of becoming "permanently" lodged causing the elevator to go nose up and un recoverable.
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Small miracles, and a lot of luck.
 
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