EA-18G COCKPIT ICING-

[CONSO]

Navy investigating incident that left crew from Whidbey naval air station blind, freezing

Originally published February 28, 2018 at 8:16 pm
The cockpit temperature of an EA-18G Growler reportedly plunged to minus 30 degrees Fahrenheit. Ice-coated flight instruments and windows, forced the plane’s two-person crew to land using a Garmin watch and spoken instructions from air controllers.

https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/navy-investigating-incident-that-left-crew-from-whidbey-naval-air-station-blind-freezing/

[KenV]

According to the article:
the crew suffered serious injuries from frostbite, including severe blistering and burns on their hands.

But the same article also stated:
One of the crew members has since “returned to a flight status,”

Those sound like mutually exclusive sentences to me. What am I missing?

[M609]

I was one month ago. Not beyond the realm of possibility to heal up some frostbite in that scope.

[CONSO]

https://www.defensenews.com/breaking-news/2018/02/23/flying-blind-and-freezing-navy-investigating-terrifying-ea-18g-growler-flight/The fog inside the aircraft iced over the instrument panel, forcing the pilot and electronic warfare officer to use a Garmin watch to keep track of their heading and altitude while air controllers began relaying instructions to the crew. The pilot and EWO were forced to use the emergency oxygen supply, which was completely depleted by the end of the flight.


SLF here ---except for mt raineer and adams and baker - they could have descended to 11,000 feet on their route back to Whidbey- something doesn't seem to add up in the description re flight level and oprt emegency ox ??

[West Coast]

Lower altitude increasing burn. If they weren’t able to see displays or outside, they may have needed a GCA recovery meaning they needed NUW.


Or perhaps as you suggest there’s more to the story.

[CONSO]

Lower altitude increasing burn. If they weren’t able to see displays or outside, they may have needed a GCA recovery meaning they needed NUW.


Or perhaps as you suggest there’s more to the story.

According to the story - they were about 60 miles south of seattle- seattle to NAS Whidbey is about 30 miles - so at worst- IF story is correct-less than 200 miles to return to Whidbey allowing for air traffic issues around seattle- and from their supposed location to NAS whidbey there are three major airfields- Jpint base lewis mcchord and seattle tacoma or Boeing field within the ' 60 miles '

my point is simply that many other factors either were not known by reporters or simply not understood or not divulged.

[West Coast]

Do any of those three airports have ground controlled approaches (GCAs)? If as the piece indicates the aircraft’s displays were unusable, a PAR would be a logical solution to that, potentially to a trap if zero viz. The USAF was moving away from GCA’s when I left active duty, no idea where they are with them now, potentially taking McCord out of contention. Could also be things weren’t as bad as made out to be and they wanted to recover to home base.

[glad rag]

Remember this happening, total cabin heating failure, to a F4 [FG1] QRA crew on east of Iceland, back in the day...think they eventually recovered.

[Stitchbitch]

Lessons: Dress to survive...and don't cut the fingers off your flying gloves :E