AUradar

Not being judgemental or anything. Just wondering from those of you experience in military aircraft (seems to be a few here) what you thought on the cause of hte crash is. I understand how this can happen in airshows. But in training???? Even dog fighting training, do they get that close?

Evensplit

Without knowing exactly what they were doing, it's tough to say exactly what the cause of the mishap was, but it will relate to "loss of situational awareness" in some way. In a fight, it's easy to lose sight of the other guy.

brnbser

SOP for them requires them to remain 500' apart when they are conducting ACM's (Air Combat Manuevers-this is the training they where conducting) but at 500+ KIAS, which it a 1,000+ KIAS head on closure rate, a micro second mental error and it's over.

__________________
************************************************** **************
Capt. Scott Brown

http://www.forumpictureprocessor.com...sp?gallery=351

AUradar

it just seems kind of wierd to think that two jets could hit each other in such a wide open sky. But when you figure the number of hours of jet time in this area, well, its surprising we don't have more accidents.

I remember being shocked at the number of training deaths at my Army post during my brief tour.

fishnfool

thats why the Air Force will do an investigation. It'll be hard to blame a maintainer for this one though. We usually are the fall-guys for incident reports so the pilots keep their hands clean. I just feel for the family of the one that passed and also even more for the surviving pilot. That would tear me apart knowing that I had been a part of someones death during "training"

Tuna Man

Can happen very easy. Like Scott saysabove at 500K and a possible 1000K closure rate doesn't give you but a split second.

In 1981 I was a Non Radar Approach Controller, for those that don't know, we are in the tower and control A/C within our jurisdiction. Mine was approx a 35 mile radius, and up to 5000 feet. This one day in Feb the weather was picture perfect, NOT ONE cloud in the sky, visibility unlimited, and a pretty blue. Well I had a Beechcraft Barron BE 58 (twin engine 200K A/C) depart my airport eastbound. Unbeknown to me there was a Beechcraft Barron BE 55, another twin (180K) heading westbound (overflying me). I departed the BE58, watched his flight path till he turned east, and turned around to scan the rest of my area when all of a sudden 1/2 mile to the East of the airport, at about 3000 feet these two meet head on. Now what are the odds. ...Pilot ERROR at the up most. Give or take at a closure rate of 1000 K that is about 1,450' /second

Of all the ones that I have either been involved in or seen, not one was attributed to Controller error.