Blue Angels crash in Nashville

Not saying it was or it wasn't, but fatal GLOC mishaps are challenging to completely, 100% conclusively prove. The process (and the same could be said about hypoxia and most other incapacitating physiological events) is normally ruling out everything else it could have been. Then in the absence of any other likely cause, the board will start digging deeper into the potential physiological casual factor. Mechanical problems and pilot error are more straightforward, in that they leave either physical, witness, or circumstantial evidence, or often all 3. Physiological events yield much less physical evidence, and in some cases, recovery and examination is very time critical……..ie tissue/blood examination, if there is even any left. I'm sure MikeD can much more eloquently comment on the process, as he was a trained investigator, but those have been my observations.
 
///AMG said:
Not saying it was or it wasn't, but fatal GLOC mishaps are challenging to completely, 100% conclusively prove. The process (and the same could be said about hypoxia and most other incapacitating physiological events) is normally ruling out everything else it could have been. Then in the absence of any other likely cause, the board will start digging deeper into the potential physiological casual factor. Mechanical problems and pilot error are more straightforward, in that they leave either physical, witness, or circumstantial evidence, or often all 3. Physiological events yield much less physical evidence, and in some cases, recovery and examination is very time critical……..ie tissue/blood examination, if there is even any left. I'm sure MikeD can much more eloquently comment on the process, as he was a trained investigator, but those have been my observations.
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You've seen the video, what do you think happened? You get my point. Concluding GLOC is an easy place to go with a hi viz investigation. I think it was a stretch in the SC accident and a couple of my old F-18 buddies agree.
 
///AMG said:
Not saying it was or it wasn't, but fatal GLOC mishaps are challenging to completely, 100% conclusively prove. The process (and the same could be said about hypoxia and most other incapacitating physiological events) is normally ruling out everything else it could have been. Then in the absence of any other likely cause, the board will start digging deeper into the potential physiological casual factor. Mechanical problems and pilot error are more straightforward, in that they leave either physical, witness, or circumstantial evidence, or often all 3. Physiological events yield much less physical evidence, and in some cases, recovery and examination is very time critical……..ie tissue/blood examination, if there is even any left. I'm sure MikeD can much more eloquently comment on the process, as he was a trained investigator, but those have been my observations.
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Agreed. About the only evidence that can prove GLOC, is HUD audio of the intercom system, or something similar like a cockpit video camera. You're absolutely right about the lack of any physical evidence of a GLOC having occurred, absent the aforementioned types of evidence.
 
Yeah, and perhaps unfortunately in military fighter aircraft, that HUD/comms recording is only on the 8mm tapes or in newer aircraft, a non-hardened solid state recorder, which are generally destroyed in most mishaps in either case. In some newer jets, there is a "deployable" flight data recorder that for lack of a better term, will pop out of the aircraft prior to impact, but even that doesn't work with the regularity that we have become accustomed to with CVR and CDR's in civilian aviation.
 
MikeD said:
Agreed. About the only evidence that can prove GLOC, is HUD audio of the intercom system, or something similar like a cockpit video camera. You're absolutely right about the lack of any physical evidence of a GLOC having occurred, absent the aforementioned types of evidence.
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///AMG said:
Not sure where you are going with that one…..
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With all respect to the departed, if you butcher a rejoin like this and get your nose pointed to the ground with little chance of recovery, it's interesting that GLOC is considered a major factor without any evidence other than he was cranking hard to recover from what might have been an irrecoverable situation. That's where I'm going. Like I said, I haven't seen the report but I've read a number of references to GLOC in the 2007 accident.

The ghost of General Creech lives on.
 
///AMG said:
Yeah, and perhaps unfortunately in military fighter aircraft, that HUD/comms recording is only on the 8mm tapes or in newer aircraft, a non-hardened solid state recorder, which are generally destroyed in most mishaps in either case. In some newer jets, there is a "deployable" flight data recorder that for lack of a better term, will pop out of the aircraft prior to impact, but even that doesn't work with the regularity that we have become accustomed to with CVR and CDR's in civilian aviation.
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That's surprising.

In Army aviation for example we have loads, and I mean loads of data available through the MDR (mission data recorder)which, short of a bunch of Pathfinders throwing thermite on the pile of ash that is your dead friends (happened to happen in a situation very close to me), almost always survives.

The MDR gives us the data later used to construct the "last moments" videos we then use for our air crew training program where you literally watch the crash build and analyze what was going on in a moment to moment debrief. This is a yearly event for all aviators and typically is tailored to your particular aircraft so me and my guys are watching Apache videos while guys in the assault battalion are watching Hawk videos. In the last few years we've used actors reading scripts based off the cockpit recordings because obviously it's a lot to ask somebody to sit in a room and listen to their friends last moment in is world. Still, the original voice recordings are kept on file at the safety center.
 
Pilot Fighter said:
With all respect to the departed, if you butcher a rejoin like this and get your nose pointed to the ground with little chance of recovery, it's interesting that GLOC is considered a major factor without any evidence other than he was cranking hard to recover from what might have been an irrecoverable situation. That's where I'm going. Like I said, I haven't seen the report but I've read a number of references to GLOC in the 2007 accident.

The ghost of General Creech lives on.
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The reason you state as contradictory is actually a red flag for GLOC. That join is supposed to look exactly like that. With a rapid onset/high G maneuver (like the one depicted, starting at his initial right hard turn), it can take less than 5 seconds for full loss of consciousness…….and the scary part is that in that scenario, there is no greying or tunnel vision, just wide awake to immediately fully asleep. If you were to time from the initiation of the hard right turn to the nose coming down, that is almost exactly the time observed in the video. Remember, these guys don't wear G-suits. Looking at the physiological facts, your average physically fit male has a resting G tolerance of somewhere between 4-4.5 G's. That means you do nothing at all in a bare flight suit, and you don't start losing vision over time. A good anti-G straining maneuver (the breathing and muscle flexing ditty we do during high G flight) buys you an additional 2 G's of tolerance. G-suit buys you another 2-3 G's. Without that, most guys are going to have their physiological limit somewhere around 6-6.5 G's. Beyond that, there will be some greying over time, or in rapid onset, you will be vulnerable to rapid GLOC.
 
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///AMG said:
……if he were awake, why wouldn't he have ejected?
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For the same reasons that most folks have failed to eject.

If you telling me that he was flying a textbook rejoin, I'll have to take a Hornet-driver's word for it. Soon after the accident, an F-18 buddy of mine that was a CAG at the time (just made Admiral) told me he butchered the rejoin.

Maybe they need to figure out a g-suit solution for the Blues.
 
The jet with one of the worst rapid-G onset rates? Oddly enough, the T-37 Tweet.

Countering GLOC, is the one place where the shorter, stockier guys win out over the tall, lanky Steve Canyon types.

However said stocky guys don't get hired onto the Thunderbirds or similar, as they don't fit the image. :)
 
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MikeD said:
The jet with one of the worst rapid-G onset s? Oddly enough, the T-37 Tweet.

Countering GLOC, is the one place where the shorter, stockier guys win out over the tall, lanky Steve Canyon types.

However said stocky guys don't get hired onto the Thunderbirds or similar, as they don't fit the image. :)
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Flew into KLEX a few days ago, Mike Nord's Blue Angel A-4 was outside the museum getting washed.

Yeah, those blue flight suits don't come in husky sizes.
 
Pilot Fighter said:
For the same reasons that most folks have failed to eject.

If you telling me that he was flying a textbook rejoin, I'll have to take a Hornet-driver's word for it. Soon after the accident, an F-18 buddy of mine that was a CAG at the time (just made Admiral) told me he butchered the rejoin.

Maybe they need to figure out a g-suit solution for the Blues.
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I don't know what the reason most don't eject is……I've known plenty who have. That jet was well within the ejection envelope before it disappeared below the treeline. That isn't a "textbook" join (we don't say "rejoin" in the Navy, but whatever :) ), but it is what the Blues routine generally looks like. And by that, I mean the guy starts out with probably 1000 knots of closure, and very rapidly arrests it to nothing. It looked like he was well within that window prior to the nose going down. As for the suit, they determined a long time ago that the g-suit itself interfered with the stick and the very fine control inputs they have to make……..their stick feedback system is completely different than in a fleet jet, necessarily.
 
///AMG said:
I don't know what the reason most don't eject is……I've known plenty who have. That jet was well within the ejection envelope before it disappeared below the treeline. That isn't a "textbook" join (we don't say "rejoin" in the Navy, but whatever :) ), but it is what the Blues routine generally looks like. And by that, I mean the guy starts out with probably 1000 knots of closure, and very rapidly arrests it to nothing. It looked like he was well within that window prior to the nose going down. As for the suit, they determined a long time ago that the g-suit itself interfered with the stick and the very fine control inputs they have to make……..their stick feedback system is completely different than in a fleet jet, necessarily.
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I know they load the stick and a reg g-suit would interfere with bracing against the leg, that's why I chose my wording to suggest that a solution wasn't as simple as suiting up with an off-the-shelf g-suit. Other than CFIT with no warning, staying with it too long is most often the case....and the pilot is usually conscious.
 
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Pilot Fighter said:
For the same reasons that most folks have failed to eject.

If you telling me that he was flying a textbook rejoin, I'll have to take a Hornet-driver's word for it. Soon after the accident, an F-18 buddy of mine that was a CAG at the time (just made Admiral) told me he butchered the rejoin.

Maybe they need to figure out a g-suit solution for the Blues.
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Having read the report yesterday, during the rejoin, he was flying faster than normal in order to make up for being late. I believe it indicated 6 to 7 G's in the turn. They believe he was awake at the end as he selected full AB and initiated a left roll.
 
Most guys wake up pretty quickly from a GLOC event. That is the really horrible part of such an event. Normally it is too late to effectively recover or do anything other than die. For those of us who fly these types of aircraft for a living, that is a nightmare.

So as an inquiring mind, where did you read the report?
 
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Pilot Fighter said:
Popcorn, please.

Other than the Revlon report, I've never seen a report in the wild. There's been a few Captain's masts that have resulted from very minor leaks.
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Well I dont know how this got there but look up the crash on wikipedia, and then under links there's one that says JAG manual investigation basic report. I don't think its the whole thing because its relatively short. It looks like it might be a follow up or something. Idk, look it up, you military guys would know better than me.
 
///AMG said:
Most guys wake up pretty quickly from a GLOC event. That is the really horrible part of such an event. Normally it is too late to effectively recover or do anything other than die. For those of us who fly these types of aircraft for a living, that is a nightmare.

So as an inquiring mind, where did you read the report?
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Also remember that in a GLOC, the brain and other senses can be awake (and mentally confused) before vision comes back with any clarity. I have a bud who GLOC'd in a Viper recall that after he woke up, he knew the jet was screaming downhill by how it felt and sounded, but his vision was all just a big gray, blurry, fuzz.
 
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