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Marine pilot loses command after ejecting from F-35B that kept flying
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- talldayo 2y ago> “How in the hell do you lose an F-35?” Mace posted on X, formerly known as Twitter. “How is there not a tracking device and we’re asking the public to what, find a jet and turn it in?” This sounds like a potent critique of 5th generation fighters but it's quite not. The F-35 is meant to be lost - it can't even use standard Link 16 because it reveals too much of it's presence to enemy fighters. The idea of it lacking an active tracking beacon isn't really that surprising to me. There is no "Find My" for fighter jets, sorry.
- bigfatkitten 2y agoIt has an SSR transponder, but the electrical problem took that out along with most of the other avionics.
- echoangle 2y agoBeing a stealth jet doesn’t mean you can’t accommodate this problem when training. The F-35 already has radar reflectors which increase radar signature to obscure stealth properties during peace time, having a beacon on top of that isn’t that absurd.
- left-struck 2y agoThey absolutely do have beacons, called transponders, similar to what civilian aircraft have. Of course they can be turned off in a military jet. The article says the transponder was not functioning because of the electrical malfunction
- michaelt 2y agoI mean, stealth is all very well when nobody's ejected. But shouldn't an ejection trigger some sort of beacon? We probably want to find the pilot, after all. You'd think the military's budget could stretch to a $300 Garmin InReach.
- bigfatkitten 2y ago> We probably want to find the pilot, after all. You don't want the enemy to find the pilot. That's why pilots carry these, which they can use when it's operationally safe for them to do so. https://gdmissionsystems.com/products/communications/radios/combat-search-and-rescue-radios/hook3-combat-survival-radio https://gdmissionsystems.com/products/communications/radios/...
- talldayo 2y agoYep, and you also don't want your enemy to find the crashed plane before friendly forces have the opportunity to destroy it. If an F-35 crashed over foreign soil, an actively transmitting transponder would be a nightmare scenario for friendly forces that intend to scuttle the remains. Nobody wants another RQ-170 incident: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_RQ-170_Sentinel#Iranian_capture_and_reverse_engineering https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_RQ-170_Sentine...
- ssl-3 2y agoYou also don't want the enemy to find the plane (crashed or not, peacetime or not, attended or not).
- red_admiral 2y ago> Web browser administration Should I be worried?
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- the5avage 2y ago> The investigation report said the F-35′s transponder failed as a result of the electrical malfunction Reading the article before posting comments could help.
- DidYaWipe 2y agoThen it must also not have any secure communications, and is thus a fucking joke.
- voidUpdate 2y agoSecure or not, an enemy can still see that there is a constant stream of RF coming from a patch of sky moving at fighter jet speeds, which might warrant some investigation
- Stevvo 2y agoSeveral light aircraft can land autonomously at the closest safe airport. Would be useful for fighter jets, where there is a much higher risk of pilot incapacitation.
- jerlam 2y agoNot sure you want the stealthy $80 million dollar plane packed full of restricted electronics and bombs to land at an insecure airport full of civilians. Also: in air refueling and carriers mean the plane may not be anywhere near a safe airport.
- Stevvo 2y agoMostly these jets fly above NATO countries where nobody is going to fuck with it. I guess such a system would get turned off when flying somewhere unfriendly.
- wrs 2y agoBetter to have it shred itself in some random cornfield or big box mall parking lot? I guess that is a sort of built-in self-destruct mechanism…
- jjk166 2y agoGenerally, yes. Better to destroy dozens of aircraft than let an adversary discover a vulnerability that compromises all of them. Of course the ideal would be to not have a problem in the first place, but by the point you're considering having a pilot eject that's out the window.
- burnt-resistor 2y agoBullshit. If you lose the engine at low altitude on climb out, there is no hope of banking much less returning. At that point, it's all about looking for a straight road or level field without power lines +- 30 to 45 degrees of runway heading. For other light aircraft that get themselves into unrecoverable situations like deep stalls where there is sufficient energy, Cirrus SR series have parachutes (CAPS) that reduce the horizontal vector to almost 0 and the vertical component to about 17 mph / 25 ft/s / 7.6 m/s. CAPS isn't deployable < 500' AGL, so if the terrain is unforgiving on a failure on takeoff, there's no safe recovery option except a rough "landing".
- Havoc 2y agoYeah I mean bailing on a plane that keeps going for 10+ more minutes was never going to be a good look
- defrost 2y agoNot in hindsight, no. What sucks for the pilot is he followed procedure and at the time had no way of knowing whether the craft would remain stable or totally brick and spiral any second (rendering a procedural ejection even more dangerous).
- jasonlotito 2y ago> VMX-1 is in charge of assessing the Corps’ aircraft and helping develop and refine tactics, techniques and procedures to fly them in combat successfully. > What sucks for the pilot is he followed procedure He was the commander. He defines those procedures.
- Syonyk 2y agoIn other words, he was a rather experienced pilot in that airframe and knew it better than most pilots should. And still decided that the successful outcome of the flight was in doubt based on the condition of the airframe and systems failures, in the middle of the situation. He survived. Working as intended, as far as I'm concerned.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- xnyan 2y agoFrom the article: > Over the next 25 years, Del Pizzo became an experienced combat pilot with more than 2,800 hours in the cockpit, 32 hours of which were in the F-35B. It's the other way around, he has relatively little experience in this particular airframe.
- dialup_sounds 2y ago
- synapsomorphy 2y agoThe report criticizes the pilot for ejecting, but also says he did everything by the book (F35 manual), but the book was wrong. And the pilot should've figured that out? Feels like they just need someone to blame for losing the plane.
- emptiestplace 2y ago> And the pilot should've figured that out? Yes, probably. I suspect you're lacking context on the sophistication and comprehensiveness of their training.
- fargle 2y agoas harsh as it sounds, the point is that as the commander: "the buck stops here" yes, he didn't do anything by the book, but the command still suffered a great deal of embarrassment and loss. there's nothing dishonorable but it's normal to rotate him out of leadership.
- lumost 2y agoFighter pilots are extremely highly trained individuals. While data is scarce for the exact dollar cost - an F-22 pilot costs roughly 11 Million USD to train, pilots are expected to use judgement and be capable of dealing with high pressure/ambiguous outcomes.
- Peteragain 2y agoYes. And pilots are harder to replace than planes. The manual will say "if in doubt, punch out". Being in doubt is the issue: should he have been able to figure out he was safe in the time it took to eject? There is the question, and it is a question of training, not moral character.
- krunck 2y agoThe pilot had a justifiable lack of faith in the aircraft and didn't care to be the next pilot victim.
- elif 2y ago64 miles the school bus sized rocket flew before crashing into some suburb. Imagine if someone accidentally fired a tomahawk missile in South Carolina for some reason by procedure. The operator had 10 minutes to cancel but instead acted prematurely.
- _mlbt 2y agoYes, as the old saying goes “better to be judged by 12 than carried by 6.” The decision to relieve him was made with the benefit of having much more data and time to make a decision available to them than the pilot had.
- varjag 2y agoThere was exactly 1 (one) fatality involving F-35s. In Japan air force, attributed to the piloting error.
- toast0 2y agoI'm sure had the pilot not ejected and the plane crashed, we'd all be calling it pilot error for not ejecting when in this situation, when the book called for ejecting.
- temp0826 2y agoHe really wanted one of those Bremont watches that they only sell to people who have ejected using one of their seats.
- throwanem 2y agoRelieved because he wasn't Yeager enough for the job.
- hluska 2y agoHere is a military.com article with more information on the crash: https://www.military.com/daily-news/2024/10/31/pilot-of-f-35-crashed-south-carolina-ejected-after-malfunctions-disorientation.html https://www.military.com/daily-news/2024/10/31/pilot-of-f-35... There are two interesting additions in this version: 1.) A discussion on spatial disorientation. 2.) Comments by the Colonel’s wife, who discussed how they uprooted their lives in Virginia (almost a year after the crash) after being assured that the crash would not impact his command. Three months after getting to Yuma, there was an “oops sorry” and they removed the Colonel from command. However, they did offer him his choice of a next assignment.
- drivingmenuts 2y agoin any situation where you "serve at the pleasure of" another person. you can literally be removed for any or even no reason at all. the person who decides to discontinue your service might themself have to answer to someone else, but you're still out of a job. it might not be right or fair, but that's not necessarily a disqualified in the military.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- ics 2y agoBrief summary and my understanding of why this occurred: - Pilot ejects, survives while losing very expensive plane - The crash is Marine's third in several weeks, the other two having fatalities; leads to a safety stand down across the entire corps - Investigation concludes that ejection was unnecessary and so fault of the crash is on the pilot, however adding that the procedures written were overly broad - Pilot is offered to lead VMX-1 after all this; key part of the responsibility is improving procedures Reading between the lines, it appears that somewhere in the leadership was a belief that putting the pilot in charge of VMX-1 was an opportunity for both; let the guy who made a mistake move forward as they'll be least likely to make it twice kind of thing. General Eric disagreed and ordered him out; it's not stated whether that was based on his own judgement only or if others in VMX-1 lost confidence and that factored in. Nobody disagrees that they have the ability to fire him for what happened.
- afruitpie 2y ago> The crash is Marine's third in several weeks Should be “the Marines’ third.” I don’t mean to be a stickler, but for a moment I thought this one pilot was crashing a plane a week!
- DidYaWipe 2y agoYep. The statement is utterly wrong and profoundly misleading as it stands.
- kaliqt 2y agoThat would be hilarious if it were the case.
- ics 2y agoI meant to type Marine Corps' but seem to have clipped it before saving, too late now. One pilot crashing thrice in a week would be quite the feat though!
- underseacables 2y agoI think it is grossly unfair what happened to the pilot. He followed orders, followed procedure, followed the damn manual. Wholly inappropriate response by the marine corps. I can only assume that it got political and the brass got embarrassed.
- renewiltord 2y agoI can understand this reaction normally but VMX-1 appears to be some sort of test division? I imagine it’s fair to say this guy isn’t test pilot stuff if he panics and ejects the second the book says he can. It’s not like he stopped being a pilot if I understand it right.
- snitzr 2y agoThere is no such thing as "human error."
- fritzo 2y agoSeems like the root cause was that the pilot was a human. A UAV would have been less expensive and less of a media fiasco to lose.
- mmooss 2y agoHas this become a politicized, viral, ideology thing? I keep seeing this story pop up in several places, but it doesn't seem like its impact merits the attention. I'm not trolling and please don't bring the politics and ideology here. I am asking factually. (I'm here because I prefer to avoid those things and as a result can be ignorant of them.)
- taurath 2y agoOne could imagine an unpiloted F-35 flying 65 miles in a random direction before crashing itself is probably more of a safety issue than an issue of idiology
- ChumpGPT 2y agoThe plane could have crashed into a populated center, taken out a neighborhood, etc. I imagine the pilot's priority is to stay with the aircraft and not bail at the first sign of trouble or until they can no longer control it and are sure it will crash in an unpopulated area.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 2y agoAnything that makes the US look bad is sticky around here.
- mmooss 2y agoUntil this thread, I've never heard that and didn't notice it. People criticize government all the time, everywhere (unless censored), if that what you mean.
- some_random 2y agoHating the F-35 in general has been a thing for the Anti-American crowd, mainly driven by western peaceniks who don't see a point in military might (largely depleted now) and the pro-Russia/China/etc crowd who need it to be shit so their fighters can seem competent. As is usual the latter "inform" the former.
- 2y ago
- neilv 2y agoThere's too many comments here making assertions that seem to be based on misreading the article. Too many to respond to individually. Please, especially if one is criticizing someone else's judgment, one should show the good judgment of getting one's facts straight.
- not_a_bot_4sho 2y agoWhen articles like this are posted, I'm always surprised to learn the majority of HN commenters are pilots.
- johnklos 2y agoThink about it - a single plane costs anywhere from 1/8 to 1/10 of a billion dollars. Anyone flying one should try pretty darned hard to save it.
- torlok 2y agoI would hope that there's more to it than money. Loss of a plane can have a wider impact, but surely the gear is the expendable part. This isn't Warhammer 40k.
- johnklos 2y agoNobody is saying that people are expendable. I'm saying that if you're responsible for a machine that costs as much as 250 families' homes, you should know that that machinery and you should try damned hard to make it work. After all, that's what everyone else does in every non-military airplane because you can't eject from non-military airplanes.
- le-mark 2y agoIt’s unfortunate neither the Navy nor the Air Force want anything to do with the close air support role. The Marines are the smallest arm of the US military but they “do it all”, except tanks, they got rid if they’re Abrams some years ago.
- the__alchemist 2y agoThe USAF has done, and continues to do CAS as an important mission. Edit: I will clarify. USAF multirole fighters (And the A-10) train to, and execute CAS in combat regularly. Even bombers do from time-to-time.
- le-mark 2y agoThey do it because if they don’t the Army will get it, and a fixed wing aircraft budget which will come out of the Air Force purse. AF sees it as a distraction from what they want to be doing; air dominance.
- tolerance 2y agoI couldn’t imagine being middle-aged regularly zooming and through the sky at speeds I’ve only come close to hearing of in razor commercials for a living. This was a cry for help.
- didibus 2y ago> “As a commander you serve at the pleasure of the commandant,” Del Pizzo said I think us software engineers should remember the same :P
- WalterBright 2y agoMy dad was reprimanded for not following orders ejecting when the engine on his F-86 failed. He did the calculations and figured he could make the field, which he did. They said the pilot was far more valuable than the airplane.
- tzs 2y agoPlanes were cheaper then. I wonder if the higher costs of today's planes results in any pressure to try to save planes that in your dad's day would have been considered not worth the risk? An F-86 ranged from $180-$580k in 1950 dollars, depending on the model. That's around $2.4-7.8 million now. That's quite a bit lower than the statistical value of human life that is currently used by the government for regulatory analysis, which is $13.1 million. An F-35 is something like $80-$110 million. Even if we add the cost of training for the pilot, which Google tells me is $10.1 million for an F-35, to the statistical life value we only get $23.2 million which is only 21-29% of the cost of the plane.
- qingcharles 2y agoI look at, say, the war in Ukraine, where they have a fresh supply of planes from allies, but their roster of pilots is diminishing. In this situation the pilot is far more valuable than the plane. And probably always the case during war when aircraft production is at a maximum.
- lenkite 2y agoOut of curiosity, is there a source for the "statistical value of human life" at $13.1 million ?
- coolspot 2y agohttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_of_life https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_of_life
- tzs 2y ago“HHS Standard Values for Regulatory Analysis, 2024” [1] [1] https://aspe.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/documents/cd2a1348ea0777b1aa918089e4965b8c/standard-ria-values.pdf https://aspe.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/documents/cd2a1348e...
- exabrial 2y agoThere’s got to be some sort of backstory here we’re missing.
- dmix 2y agoEven if there was the military has a way of making these sorts of head scratching authority decisions all the time. There’s plenty of appeal to the rulebooks and process but it’s ultimately a human choice, very political, very high levels of (sometimes arbitrary) standards.
- ldargin 2y agoMaybe he didn't have the stick-and-rudder skills needed to ace that emergency; he's not like Sullenberger. But he prioritized saving his own life over that plane, and that's the real, unspoken problem.
- fastball 2y agoYou shouldn't be flying an F-35B if you can't fly it without the HUD (assuming functional flight controls).
- burnt-resistor 2y agoThere are no steam gauge backup instruments in the F-35 and there is no HUD either, everything relies on the HMDS and the MFD. If the MFD happened to not work, that would be fatal because (almost) everything depends on it because it's like a almost like a Tesla console. GFL piloting an F-35 without an MFD in IMC. https://www.codeonemagazine.com/images/media/Front_Office_01_1267828237_9142.JPG https://www.codeonemagazine.com/images/media/Front_Office_01...
- caseyy 2y agoThis reminds me of how in the 18th century, captains in the Royal Navy wouldn't call to abandon ship because that would have career-ending consequences. So there were cases like HMS Tribune in 1797, where it is claimed that only 12 of the 240 seamen survived because the captain Scory Barker, even having ample time, was effectively prohibited from abandoning the vessel. Four survivors who escaped early were seen as mutineers, whereas the 228 that died and 8 that survived on the ship have been heavily commended in history for their discipline. Modern practices are different, there is now a lot more emphasis in not needlessly risking lives, especially when abandoning vessels is done by the book. But dying in the line of duty is still weirdly seen as good leadership - call it bravery, honor, commitment to the cause, gumption, etc. We mostly praise those who do, rarely criticize them for maybe sacrificing themselves and others unnecessarily. But I would think we wouldn't threaten people who don't put themselves at unreasonable risk with career consequences anymore. I guess this ejection is an example of modern marines acting with 18th century principles. P.S. The historical record on Royal Navy's informal code of conduct in the 18th century is a bit limited. I think what I say is not disputed by many historians, but there is some room for debate.
- njtransit 2y agoComparing going down with the ship to dying for a cause seems like a false equivalence. When a ship sinks, the outcome is more or less the same whether people are onboard or not: in either case the ship will sink. The only difference is whether or not the passengers / crew survive. Fighting for a cause, on the other hand, generally requires that people sacrifice themselves. If no one is willing to die, then the fight is very unlikely to be successful. Being willing to die (and sometimes dying) has the ability meaningful change the outcome.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- Supermancho 2y ago> seems like a false equivalence. When a ship sinks, It seems that way, but that's a subjective stance. This is during a time when ships were the armies of the time. It's not complicated to understand that 250 men were worth less than a ship for the purposes of late 1700s warfare. Dying for a sinking ship was a heroic thing, in that it was an attempt to hold on to an immense power for their country. How many untold millions have died to defend a parcel of land? The value of trying to save a ship is contextual, equating to defending your country, even in the face of insurmountable odds.
- karaterobot 2y agoSo he'd lost the ability to see, the cockpit warnings were blaring, the flight manual says to eject in that situation, but he's supposed to trust the instrumentation and fly it anyway. He lost his command without technically doing anything wrong. So glad I didn't join the military, and instead work in an industry where leadership doesn't make bad decisions oh wait. Anyway, it's a good thing it's super easy to replace elite, highly decorated pilots oh wait.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- gorfian_robot 2y agoas I read it the issue is command of VMX-1 which does test and evaluation. the commandant is saying he doesn't think this guy is a kick ass test pilot. test pilot is role which involves a lot more skills and expectations and to be the commander of the squadron everyone should think you are the next Chuck Yeager (USAF, yes I know)
- gorfian_robot 2y ago(also seems weird that a $100M airplane can't figure out how to land itself if the pilot ejects ...)
- vessenes 2y agoThat’s exactly how I read this: did the Marine general staff think, on review, that this guy had “the right stuff” to lead their test pilot division? Nope. The plane situation sounds shitty in the extreme, and an F-35’s electronics fritzing sounds, um, real bad, and sadly, not shocking, but the Marines’ elan and doctrine at its core involves dealing with stuff like this successfully, in the field, with little support. I imagine that the people around him felt fairly similarly, and so, end of story. He won’t be moved up to general staff, he’ll get some fine deployments until he decides to head out, which given his age, he’s opted out of a couple times, it’s fine, and he’ll be fine. Just, unfortunately, like you say, he wasn’t Chuck Yeager when it came down to it.
- bubaumba 2y agoSimilar case from soviet era: On 4 July 1989, a pilotless MiG-23 jet fighter of the Soviet Air Forces crashed into a house in Bellegem, near Kortrijk, Belgium, killing one person. The pilot had ejected over an hour earlier near Kołobrzeg, Poland, after experiencing technical problems, but the aircraft continued flying for around 900 km (600 mi) before running out of fuel and crashing into the ground.
- Mistletoe 2y agoIn case anyone was wondering, he sent 109 million dollars into the great beyond.
- black_13 2y ago[dead]
- SoftTalker 2y ago49 years of age strikes me as pretty old to be piloting an F-35B. Even civilian commercial pilots have to retire at 65.
- grbrr 2y agoIt’s probably decent policy to simply fire any pilot who ejects. The cost of training a pilot is much lower than the cost of an aircraft and it will make people really think hard about whether they need to eject.
- burnt-resistor 2y agoThe JAGMAN (confidential legal investigation) and MIR (open, no blame aviation investigation) on this have been beaten to death by the retired military flying community on Youtube. https://youtu.be/hjewU9uN9Iw https://youtu.be/hjewU9uN9Iw https://youtu.be/g8PBA7k6vP8 https://youtu.be/g8PBA7k6vP8
- m3kw9 2y agoSounds like he panicked and didn’t try long enough to exhaust his options before ejecting. The right call for the demotion
- the5avage 2y agoHe was at 1900 feet and could not be sure in which direction the plane was going. If the plane would fly towards the ground with mach 1 it would have hit it in 1.5 seconds.
- acyou 2y agoIf you're familiar with USA military history, the Americans are (were) famous for not doing things by the book for the right reasons, and letting common sense prevail, as well as incentivizing good outcomes. “A serious problem in planning against American doctrine is that the Americans do not read their manuals, nor do they feel any obligation to follow their doctrine.” “The reason that the American Navy does so well in wartime is that war is chaos, and the Americans practice chaos on a daily basis.” So heavily simplifying things and with 20/20 hindsight this pilot essentially didn't do the right thing, even if through no fault of their own, and apparently in the US Navy you don't get rewarded for doing the wrong thing. This is what keeping incentives aligned looks like.
- wiseowise 2y ago[dead]
- petre 2y agoHe did the right thing. He's alive and well, fired from his command instead of deceased like the other servicemen in the OV-22 and FA-18D.
- GaryNumanVevo 2y agoThe jet was fine, it kept flying for 64 miles. He probably ejected because there had been a recent osprey crash with causalities and he was scared.
- fragmede 2y ago64 miles sounds quite far, and I've gone quite fast on my motorcycle, but the top speed of the F-35B (that they tell us) is 1,200 mph. At that speed that's just over 3 minutes.
- ExoticPearTree 2y agoAccording to the report, the jet flew for at least 11 more minutes. No one flies fighter jets at max speed unless absolutely necessary.
- fastball 2y agoSounds like Colonel Del Pizzo let himself become a child of the magenta line[1]. (if you haven't seen this amazing talk, you should definitely give it a watch) [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ESJH1NLMLs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ESJH1NLMLs
- veunes 2y agoThis incident brings up a lot about the complexity and high stakes of military aviation
- the5avage 2y ago> The investigation report said the F-35′s transponder failed as a result of the electrical malfunction So there is serious electrical malfunction and the pilot loses communication and also some of his displays multiple times. In hindsight we know it wasn't that serious and the plane could have kept flying. But how can the pilot figure that out, while flying the aircraft? One needs to evaluate decisions based on the information available at the time the decision was made.
- Timshel 2y agoAnd as a bit of context it's mentionned at the end that: >It was the Marines’ third aviation crash in six weeks, following the August crash of an F/A-18D Hornet in southern California, which killed its pilot, and an MV-22 Osprey crash in Australia that killed three Marines.
- konschubert 2y agoBut I don’t think THIS dude flew all these planes?
- crossroadsguy 2y agoYou mean, could he be from among the three plus one who died in previous crashes? Seriously doubt it.
- mmsc 2y agoIt would have stated "the Marine's" (singular third-person) in that case, not the plural third-person "the Marines'".
- maronato 2y agoNo, but 3 crashes in 6 weeks looks bad, and he was the only one that survived. That makes him a prime candidate for under-the-bus throwing by leadership.
- adastra22 2y ago> But how can the pilot figure that out, while flying the aircraft? Looking out the window.
- DidYaWipe 2y agoAnother F-35 fiasco. Shocker.
- DeathArrow 2y agoSo a piece of iron is more important than a human life? They should say so before recruiting pilots.
- walrushunter 2y agoA 110 million dollar fighter jet is worth an order of magnitude more than a human life, yes. And that doesn't even mention the potential for civilian casualties from the plane crashing.
- fredgrott 2y agothe un-written rule is that you wait to eject until the plane is coerced into over the sea instead of residential for navy and marine pilots.....dying if required...
- arethuza 2y agoC.W. Lemoine, who is a former military pilot, did a fairly detailed video going through the mishap report: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjewU9uN9Iw&t=13s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjewU9uN9Iw&t=13s
- ChicagoBoy11 2y agoIt all makes sense, but it must have a chilling effect on any military aviator reading this who finds themselves in a position to consider doing the same.Z Cirrus flight instruction uses the military statistic that historically military aviators have had a really strong negative bias to ejection during training compared to in combat. Part of the rationale was that of course ejecting during combat is easy to save face, whereas in training far more pilots would try to save a rapidly eroding flight. The lesson for Cirrus pilots was that CAPS is there to save your life, and this attitude of "but I can make it" really is just a strong predictor for killing yourself in an otherwise saveable situation. Here, it is acknowledged he followed the procedures, but there's an implication that he could have reasoned his way into realizing it wasn't as serious as he thought. Well, to acknowledge he "did everything right," but it wasn't right enough, and therefore negatively impact his career, doesn't bode well for other pilots who'll find themselves in his situation. Of course the one asterisk is to all of this is if you fundamentally believe that at this particular job all this reasoning should inherently not apply.
- NoMoreNicksLeft 2y agoIs this just the consequences of rapidly ballooning costs of modern fighter jets? At a tenth of a billion dollars each, there's not much room in the budget for what are even understandable aircraft losses. If I'm not mistaken nothing else is nearly as expensive except the B2. In some ways, losing one of these things is getting pretty close to losing a naval vessel. Acknowledging this to be the case might help people to understand why they're demanding perfection even if it's risky for the pilots.
- BiteCode_dev 2y agoI'm already surprised that they are not looking at the number, realizing that pilots cost much less to train than planes to build, and draw conclusions from there. The army has been more cynical in the past.
- fatbird 2y agoIt's not that he could have reasoned his way to not ejecting, it's that the standby instruments were still functioning, and are there for just this moment. He could have continued without ejecting based on that alone. Reading between the lines, he flinched, and while that was in line with the manual, the manual wasn't good enough, and as someone below said: the position from which he was dismissed was one where they evaluate, criticize and extend the manual. Ejecting too soon wasn't a failure of due diligence, but it disqualified him from a position where "in line with the manual" isn't good enough.
- smurpy 2y agoI see this discussion as failing to touch on two main points. This coverage does a poor job of conveying whether he could tell that the craft was climbing, though evidently it was. A crucial detail in his situation was whether the vehicle was responding to his control directions and whether its trajectory was upward, hence without an immediate threat of crash. There is a faint indication that he should have known that his aircraft was in fact climbing and that, as a consequence, he was going to have time to problem solve. It sounds like the group he led is tasked with establishing the limits of and determining the norms for the operation of the various craft they fly. This suggests that a greater spirit of discovery and exploration of the letter of the rules was in order than he happened to exhibit on that occasion. He had that command taken away, not his flight privileges, because the shortcoming he exhibited was indicative of his personal unsuitability for exploring the limits of his vehicle and the policies for its operation — in short for doing that particular, exceedingly demanding job. He gets his choice of other posts, but not continuing that crucial and complicated role for which he evidently did not have the right stuff. No shame. Peter Principle avoided. Everybody did the right thing, including his commanders.
- lucidphreak 2y agoStandards and Evaluation pilots are almost like test pilots.. They are expected to stick with their aircraft perhaps a little longer than normal. However, if a pilot has no outside reference to the horizon (the rain storm he was in), and his sensors/instruments are deemed unreliable, I would have done the same thing. Its one thing to lose a jet, which can be replaced - its another to lose a pilot where countless hours of training have been invested ... Sucks for him, but at least he is still flying and gets the pick of the littler for his next assignment. I would assume he will do another tour and then retire. People will be "funny" around him going forward and he will not enjoy the camaraderie that he has grown used to in the Corps.
- drweevil 2y agoOn reading the incident report it becomes apparent that the flight display system contributed significantly to this incident, not just in failing, but also by its design. It reminds me a lot of the collision incidents in the Sea of Japan, where touchscreen displays were implicated. In this case, among other things, losing the PCD meant losing the backup radio. From page 35 of Pt. 1 of the incident report: >"a. Discussion: MP experienced a failure of COM-A and COM-B. The Backup Radio was still functional; however, with a PCD failure, MP would have been unable to change frequencies via the PCD. The F-35B has radio knobs as an alternative; however, they are notoriously unreliable. Most pilots resort solely to changing frequencies via the PCD. This increases pilot workload and decreases situational awareness because pilots must access this feature via a drop-down menu which covers half of one portal. Changing frequencies this way is especially difficult in high workload situations such as when flying formation and/or in instrument meteorological conditions. The F-35 is also equipped with a voice activated communication control system that has not functioned since 30P05 software was installed." Wow. So, when losing main coms, the pilot could not easily change to the backup radio in a timely and safe manner, to, say, tell his wingman to take the lead. He couldn't use voice commands, which should have been there, but oh well. The PCB was down, but even if up it is cumbersome to access the backup radio. The knobs weren't "reliable", per report. It is legit hard to understand how this is possible in such an advanced and costly aircraft. I'd think that the Commandant of the USMC has bigger fish to fry than the pilot. Oh, and I'd love to see the recommendation but it is redacted.
- calmbonsai 2y agoI'm amazed by the volume of opinions on this matter. If you've never been a military pilot, I don't think you can give a qualified opinion on this incident.
- bumby 2y agoSurely, other opinions can have relevance. Do you think an aerospace engineer can have no opinion? What about an avionics tech that works on display and comms systems? What about an aviation safety officer or a commercial pilot? These are all people with relevant perspectives.
- calmbonsai 2y agoOn certain topics related to a confluence of judgment for real-time decisions and lived experience, no. Any aerospace engineer could credibly comment on the avionics. Any pilot could comment on basic emergency procedure compliance. Any ATC could comment on route planning. But, no one aside from another military pilot could judge the totality of that military pilot's judgment on that day. The same would apply to subjects like emergency trauma, combat, firefighting, an all professional athletic competitions.
- bumby 2y ago>Any aerospace engineer could credibly comment on the avionics. This is central to the claim about the airworthiness of the aircraft. (And FWIW, aerospace engineer is generally not the same as someone who works on, or designs, avionics. The latter are typically more aligned with electrical engineering.) >no one aside from another military pilot could judge the totality of that military pilot's judgment on that day. I think this is being needlessly constrained. I would take the opinion of someone familiar with the specific comm/nav avionics of the F35 than, say, a military pilot that has never flown that airframe. I may even prefer an avionics tech’s opinion over that of the pilot, depending on the pilots technical knowledge. Given what we know about human psychology and memory, I don't even know if that specific pilot can give the most accurate representation of what was going on in the cockpit. A pilot can give great insight into crossing aspects, like human factors engineering, but they are not always the best at understanding the full system. It’s like when you talk to a high-level race car driver and find out they don’t actually know much about automotive engineering; sometimes their job doesn’t actually require that to perform at a high level. I do agree with your overall sentiment though. All it takes is coming across a HN thread about something you're actually well-versed in to understand these types of forums are saturated with comments with more confidence than sense.
- acyou 2y agoDuring military conflict, preserving lives of valuable and highly trained personnel has been paramount for USA. With a huge amount of resources and manpower available to the US, effectively the entire western world, materiel is essentially replaceable but pilots and crew are extremely finite. They can just make another plane. Yes, it's 100 million dollars. But when you print dollars and the entire western world serves to make these jets (2% of GDP), the pilots are going to be the limiting factor. I think every aspect of the plane's production can simply be fairly rapidly scaled up, except for the pilots and the forgings. What also hurts is damaging the plane's reputation. That is costly beyond calculation.
- Mejdi_ch 2y agoWow, that's a tough situation. It’s clear he followed the procedures, but it’s crazy how something like this can still impact a career. Hopefully, he finds a new path forward after all his years of service
- h_tbob 2y agoI know someone who was in the air force. He told me they are more likely to hire you if you have a bunch of speeding tickets. 'nuff said.
- perseysinowatz 2y ago[dead]