Report blames crews for Super Hornet collision

[unhappycamper]

2 aircraft destoryed
All three officers survived January collision.


Report blames crews for Super Hornet collision
By Andrew Scutro - Staff writer
Posted : Monday Dec 1, 2008 6:16:22 EST

NORFOLK, Va. — The collision of two Super Hornets over the northern Persian Gulf the night of Jan. 7 ended with all three surviving aviators being pulled from the water uninjured and two $57 million warplanes, or scattered parts of them, on the bottom of the sea.

And despite top-shelf pilot training and technological smarts aboard both aircraft, the aviators who ended up flying into one another in the dark apparently didn’t know where they were prior to a planned rendezvous.

“All three aircrew failed to maintain proper visual scan to find and deconflict with other aircraft. There was a loss of situational awareness that is directly attributable to aircrew error,” according to the report of a Judge Advocate General Manual investigation released to Navy Times under a Freedom of Information Act request.

The pilot of an F/A-18E from Strike Fighter Squadron 105 and the pilot and weapon systems officer in an F/A-18F from VFA-11 were inbound to close-air support missions over Iraq. They’d launched from the aircraft carrier Harry S. Truman, steaming in the Persian Gulf.

The F/A-18E was sent to join the F/A-18F as a substitute wingman after the original wingman reported “an aircraft malfunction and would not be able to proceed to the mission,” the report says.


Rest of article at: http://www.navytimes.com/news/2008/12/navy_hornets_120108w/%2e