You refer to the Mountain Home Crash I assume.
The difference in altitudes at Nellis and Mountain Home may have contributed to the pilot's error. The airfield at Nellis is at 2,000 feet whereas the one at Mountain Home is at 3,000 feet. It appears that the pilot reverted back to his Nellis habit pattern for s aplit second. Thunderbird commander Lt. Col. Richard McSpadden said Stricklin had performed the stunt around 200 times, at different altitudes during his year as a Thunderbird pilot.
McSpadden says Stricklin is an exceptional officer. "He is an extremely talented pilot. He came in here and made an honest mistake," says Lt. Col. McSpadden. But that mistake has cost Stricklin his prestigious spot on the Thunderbird team. "He's assigned to Washington D.C.," says McSpadden. "He's working in the Pentagon there in one of the agencies."
The maneuver the pilot was trying to complete is called the "Split S Maneuver." The stunt requires that the pilot climb to 2,500 feet. Investigators say Stricklin only climbed to 1,670 feet before he went into the spinning roll.
The board determined other factors substantially contributed to creating the opportunity for the error including the requirement to convert sea level altitude information from the F-16 instruments - to their altitude above ground and call out that information to a safety operator below.
But the Air Force has now changed that as a result of the crash. Thunderbird pilots will now call out the MSL (mean-sea-level) altitudes as opposed to the AGL (above-ground-level) altitudes.
Thunderbird pilots will now also climb an extra 1000 feet before performing the Split S Maneuver to prevent another mistake like the one on Sep.14, 2003 from happening again.
Captain Chris Stricklin has been in the Air Force since 1994 and flew with the Thunderbirds for the first season now. He has logged a total of 1,500+ flight hours and has received numerous awards. He served as a flight examiner, flight instructor and flight commander.