C130 and FA-18 incident off the coast of Japan
 

1:30~2:00 am, sounds like tough training. Hope they find more survivors.

Sadly not found alive, one crewman dead the other just injured

https://www.marinecorpstimes.com/new...still-missing/

Would the C130 crew have the option of parachutes or not ?

I would suggest that, even if parachutes were worn, the timescale involved would be unlikely to allow the crew to escape.

When we operated the RAF C130 tanker we did carry parachutes. They were the old WW2 chest types with a harness to go with it. We also carried so called quick don immersion suits.
They were stowed on a stretcher forward of the fuselage tanks on the starboard side. In the event of an incident like the one under discussion we could never have even reached the parachutes much less put them on. Even if we had fitted them egress from the a/c would have been nigh impossible. Going out through the crew entrance door would probably have only resulted ind hitting the props and gaining access to the para doors with the a/c in a dive well nigh impossible. It was always a constant risk in the tanker of being 'nurfed ' by a receiver.

Ken,
that was exactly my argument as to why we needed to carry them. If you could ,in extremis, ditch then you had the comfort of two MS26 liferafts to climb in to. Why would you want to jump into the water otherwise ?
In the early days of the RAF C130 tanker we were driven by the 'Marham Mafia' in respect of operating our tanker. This is why we carried parachutes (the Victor had them) and the HDU panel was fitted above the Nav station. The 'spare' Nav in the Victor operated the panel which ideally should have been affixed to the forward face of the HDU frame.There were other irritations.
Remember this is the same school of thought that had an escape exit cut into the VC10 tankers on the port side of the fuselage.

In the 1960's the USAF had a novel idea....they equipped their aircraft that had tactical troop seats with enough parachutes for all occupants and one got a brief on the use of the parachute should it become necessary for all to exit short of the intended destination.

My experience with that was on USAF Reserve C-119's.

In days of old>>>


The 1966 Palomares B-52 crash, or the Palomares incident, occurred on 17 January 1966, when a B-52G bomber of the United States Air Force's Strategic Air Command collided with a KC-135 tanker during mid-air refueling at 31,000 feet (9,450 m) over the Mediterranean Sea, off the coast of Spain. The KC-135 was completely destroyed when its fuel load ignited, killing all four crew members. The B-52G broke apart, killing three of the seven crew members aboard.

SASless,
it would seem to be a solution.But the Hercules with the ability to rerole from pax to anything else then brings up the problem of storage. All those 'chutes take up space and payload. We did not have the RAF bases nor the storage facilities to store them down route. Not to mention the damage and theft. We used to lose a lot of LSJs.

I once guested on a USAF Rammstein based C130, whilst they flew in the UK LFS. There was a rail of back pack parachutes behind the normal entrance door. They said they could be used if everybody on board was trained!

Million pound dustbin
 

When the VC10K entered service, it was fitted with an absurd 'escape system' which those of us on the first few courses were taught how to use... One of the prototypes had flown (briefly) with the chute extended, but such was the buffeting that it soon landed.

Having decided to abandon aircraft, the first task was to depressurise. No special system; the pressurisation was turned off and the cabin pressure then rose until the max diff at which the chute could be extended was reached. Meanwhile individual crew members were supposed to struggle back to the pax compartment using walk round oxygen bottles, change to bone domes, don immersion suits and parachutes plus dinghy packs. One pilot was supposed to fly the aircraft from behind his seat, leaning over whilst wearing bone dome, parachute and dinghy pack - with the added fun of the large portable oxygen bottle. Then the chute was to be extended; the sealing strip would probably have been ingested by no.1 & no.2 engines, which RR said would probably lead to uncontained failures...

After 3 of the 4 crew had escaped, the 4th was then supposed to let go of the controls and make his way to the escape chute before jumping out. Whether the loss of 2 engines would have allowed this was open to conjecture.

Needless to say, this expensive farce was soon de-modded and the chute became a convenient place to stow the large blue rubbish bags we used to carry for galley rubbish etc. - hence it became known as the 'million pound dustbin'. On my VC10K course, we all refused to have anything to do with the stupid system, as I told some wandering Air Wheel once (knowing that he was the person who had specified the nonsense), much to the chagrin of my Flt Cdr who was giving me 'please shut up' looks. "Hmmph, I think you chaps are very important and should have an escape system", mumbled the multi-starred one. "But not so important as to have Martin Baker seats?", I queried.... "Places to go, people to see, good morning" came the reply.

There was also a low level override button which enabled the air engineer to transfer all tanker fuel to receivers when operated. Quite who dreamed up that daft idea, I do not know as no-one in their right mind would ever use it - if it was a choice between a receiver running out of fuel or the tanker giving it all away and having to ditch, well, the receiver crews all had bang seats!

The Douglas A-3 Skywarrior only had a slide for mid-flight departures for the crew. Its Air Force brother B-66 had "leave the scene" seats..

The Valiant had a 100% giveaway capability, but I think this was a legacy feature and not a deliberate design.

The KC135 had a hole in the floor bailout chute and I think this was carried forward to the E3. I suppose an uncontrolled engine fire or combat damage might have made a n Irving descent preferable to a crash landing - in theory.

Beags,
shades of what I called the 'Marham Mafia' approach of trying to install totally unsuitable and unworkable Victor features and procedures on other a/c. They could not seem to accept that the RAF Hercules tanker was so different in so many ways.

Not quite.

Max fuel of the BK1 was 80,165 lb with under wing and bomb bay tanks. The Pilots Notes give:

'The tanks used for transferable fuel have a total capacity of 46,248 lb, but 1,160 lb is not transferable. This gives a total of 45,088 lb of fuel which can be transferred from the Tanker to the Receiver.'

In theory On the RAF Hercules tanker we could give away all of our fuel by pumping it up into the wing tanks and hence out via the HDU. We could only dispense fuel via the wing tanks so the fuselage tanks were used to keep the wing tanks topped up. Max fuel plus or minus SG etc was 63000 lbs in the wings and externals and 28000lbs total in the four fuselage tanks.A full load made the a/c rather heavy !
We originally carried boiler plate bolted to the floor forward of the tanks for C of G reasons but this was later removed and 'ballast fuel' was meant to be left in the forward tanks to compensate. Once had to use this little extra !

Does anyone have an official update to the progress with this sad accident search/rescue please?

OAP

Flew in an all weather attack squadron out of Iwakuni many years go. Also have refueled from kc130s many times and also have a small amount of flight time as a pilot of kc130 and have flown refueling missions. I am curious to know if anyone knows why the accident happened at 0200? Suspect that this was not local time? We often scheduled refueling refresher training for dusk in order to get day and night QUALS in one sortie.

the normal routine for refueling evolution is; 1000 FOOT VERTICAL separation until visual, then cleared to observation position, 1000 foot above and 1000 foot abeam the most rearward tanker in the echelon, if multiple tankers, then cleared to the stabilize position behind a specific tanker and drogue, then cleared to plug.

on the kc130, we always had chutes. They were never worn except possibly by the crewmembers assigned as observers at the rear doors. These guys got to see some real airshows. I recall a flight between Hawaii and wake island. I was flying a6 intruder. The tankers had to work to find a spot for a track between CBs. Even after that we were in and out of cloud, at night and vertigo was impossible to avoid. Add to that, the aircraft bow wave causes the drogue to deflect away and you have to aim at the point youthink it is going to be. It is not easy.
.

Thanks ORAC.

OAP

[accuracy] 62,900 lbs ;) [/accuracy]

ExAscoteer,
I will join you in Pedant's Corner. IIRC the book figure was 62920 lbs !

abdunbar,
the RAF C130 tanker was totally different to your KC 130. Our single hose went out through a hole in the cargo door and we therefore dispensed our fuel whilst unpressurised.
The loadmaster lay on the (closed ) ramp and gave a running commentary of the antics of the receiver. It was a very 'interesting' place to be. No doubt if you are interested someone can put up pics as there are lots.

Funny the things that stick in the mind. As soon as I saw "63,000 lb", I instantly thought "62,900". I last flew Lockheed's finest in 1975.

Very sad news. Many military flying tasks retain a significant level of risk. However, it is still sad to learn of this loss. There will be many military aviators respecting the endeavour of those killed in this accident. RIP.

OAP

Sad indeed. Looks like a RAAF P-8 helped. They are forward deployed to the area monitor Kim J's ocean going activities.

Alert 5 » How the Marine Corps Failed Squadron 242 - Military Aviation News

How the Marine Corps Failed Squadron 242

ProPublica investigates the fatal crash of a F/A-18D and a KC-130J off Japan last year and found that problems that were identified at VMFA(AW)-242 persists.

Orac,

Thank you for posting that.

To add some context to this tragedy.....if you recall the mid-air collision of two USMC CH-53's off the coast of Hawaii a couple of years ago....with the loss of all aboard....the very same factors (less the blood alcohol level thing) were identified in that investigation.

Lack of parts, U/S Aircraft, lack of training, no training, lack of currency exactly being noted in your video were listed in that tragedy as well.

The human cost of the Marine Corps failure to conduct operations in a safe manner is what gets glossed over sadly,

To add a real and personal touch to what I am talking about......a close friend lost her Son in the Hawaii crash.

Knowing the reasons behind his loss only makes it so much harder to accept.

You notice the Squadron Commander got removed from Command.....why not his superiors who ALL knew of the problems and did nothing to correct or resolve the problems?

The blame goes right straight to the Commandant and Secretary of the Navy for sure.

At some point, even in the USMC, you have to stand tall and refuse to carry out orders that if not illegal.....are flat stupid.

Otherwise....good people die for no good reason.


https://www.usmclife.com/2016/10/inv...lack-training/

Agreed. I'm generally against a culture which reflexively sacks commanders in instances such as these because it is too easy for superiors to portray it as decisive remedial action and deflect blame which logically, in many cases, goes all the way to the top. In this case, though, it really does seem as if the buck should stop somewhere above the unfortunate CO (given the wider failure to apply lessons of previous occurrences) and below POTUS (given his non-ordering of the fateful exercise).

One must also note the current POTUS has been the driving force behind increasing the funding of the US Military.....something that was absent under the previous administration that was in control for eight years.

Sequestion budget cuts that harmed the military's funding was a direct result of Congress being unable to arrive at a budget and the White House's gross failure to work towards a better funding level for the military.

What we are seeing in all of the military services is the "cost" of inadequate funding despite very high levels of operations throughout the World.

We have had two good years of funding increases and assuming it does not get squandered on needless or useless projects and programs.....we shall see some improvement in Readiness and levels of training.

The down side is we are seeing a retention problem which results from too high an operations tempo and a booming civilian economy with historic low un-employment and increasing wages and salaries.

I think I've heard something similar at one or two UK locations too!