Pilot criticised over Puma crash
 

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has the AAIB report been released yet????

Do the AAIB issue reports on military accidents? I didn't think they did. I thought it was all 'handled' internally by the military.

The 8-second ride.
 

In the 35 years since I left the Puma fleet nothing much seems to have changed except that we are now using CVRs and mobile phones to record the activities of those with 'cowboy traits'.

'When will they ever learn, when will they ever learn?'

My condolences to the families left behind; my disappointment I reserve for 'the leaders' of the helicopter force. Surely they must understand that the carpet is no longer big enough to sweep these issues under it anymore.

I wonder what height this crew were authorised down to? As I remember it, before any sortie, let alone a low-level one there was a senior member of a Squadron who would "authorise" the flight - a system that was supposed to ensure appropriate briefing and suitability of the pilots concerned for the job in hand.

In the CVR replays it was evident that the AVAD was giving a warning of low height. What is this set at? In the civvy world this is usually 100ft and was devised and mandated to prevent "Controlled flight into terrain or water" as a result of the Scillies CFIW 30 years ago. Not much use in a tactical military support helicopter, which you would expect, operationally, to be at about 20-50ft AGL.

I can't believe the coroner's report that said the "pilot was not trained" for this type of sortie. He was 28 and on a front line military support squadron, if he wasn't trained he wouldn't have been there. Perhaps the sub-text was he wasn't very well trained?.. or out of practice?.. or he wasn't competent at what he was doing?.. or he ignored his authorisation?

Low height is a variable setting made by the crew up to 2000ft on some aircraft, 500ft on others. From this we can be 'certain' only that he was below 2000' and maybe below 500'.

I suspect that it's terminology. After all, if the flights are supposed to be authorised by a senior officer, then it must be assumed that there would be occasions when authorisation would not be given, i.e. the experience of the pilot is not sufficient for the task e.g. would require further training ergo, "not trained" (in layman's terms).

More like he wasn't current.

Cheers

Whirls

I doubt that he wasn't "current", Whirls.

Military currency isn't the same as civvie rules; or at least wasn't in my years of flying and instructing on the Puma. There is a mandatory monthly training requirement for basic skills exercises (BSE), tactical support training (TST) and instrument flying (IF), which in my day took priority over tasking.

The pilot was flying under designated powers of auth. In other words, a supervisor was not available to deploy on the "det" and the captain was given temporary powers of auth by a senior supervisor at Benson.

I was lucky enough to have a number of experienced SH navs on the Sqn when I was a junior shag - therefore although I would go on such mini-dets as captain, I was left in no doubt by the Sqn staff who was in charge of the det and who would authorise every sortie. This was an effective check and balance allowing me to accrue captaincy experience with a supervisory hand on my collar. Shame that the SH nav is almost extinct.

Times newspaper report here RAF under fire over 'Top Gun' Puma crash that killed three servicemen - Times Online

John

Just looks like showing off and hot-dogging that went wrong, like the Mcrae crash.

Windowseat...........
 

.........those were my thoughts exactly as soon as I read the report. Showing off with aircraft, cars and fire-arms continues to kill many innocents. Tragic, sad and inexcusable. Let's hope that management structure at Benson really has been sorted.... and that lessons are learned by all our armed forces. bm

I'm not making excuses for what happened in this incident, but before blaming the Forces for all of this you should look at the Govt's part in this. War on 2 fronts, massive overstretch and guys leaving, consequently loads of experienced guys have gone.

And that has what, exactly, to do with some numbskull hotdogging his aircraft to the point of killing his crew and destroying a good airframe?

Zip. That's what.

Hedge36

A lot.

Because the coroner made lots of wild wide ranging criicisms of the RAF in general not just the pilot who died. The dead young pilot you see fit to call a numbskull.

There but for the grace of God.
He did something stupid and it went badly wrong.
Maybe you never did anything stupid when you were young. :rolleyes:

Lets hope that every new pilot that joins the RAF learns from the mistakes seen here.

Our choice of vehicle is very unforgiving at times.

:sad:

Most of us in the military have done our share of wazzing and zooming in the past and lived to tell the tale - why? - because we left ourselves some margin for error and knew when to knock it off.

Unfortunately, some young men will always think they are better at things than they really are and believe themselves to be gods of aviation - you could call it the Top Gun syndrome. The same attitude kills lots of young people in cars every year but shouldn't kill people in military aircraft because the training and supervision should prevent a pilot who is incapable of exercising judgement and self-monitoring from being in charge of an aircraft.

There were lots of other factors in this tragic accident and lots of opportunities for any of the crew or pax to prevent it but it still comes down to the numbskull with his hands on the controls trying to perform manoeuvres he was not skilled enough for and which were wholly inappropriate for the task in hand.

This was tragic, and we must be sympathetic to the families of those who have lost loved ones, and to those whose lives have been blighted by this avoidable event.
From the reported ages of the 3 crewmembers, it would seem that they were all of a similar experience level. There is potentially a systemic flaw here. Even in the mid-late 70s when I was on the Puma fleet (and then, mostly single pilot ops, except for NI) a junior pilot would not normally be crewed with a 'junior' crewman. And this was before anybody had thought of a formal concept of CRM. If the jp started to step off the line, the experienced crewman would exert his influence: regardless of the rank gradient. It doesn't always work: I can think of another avoidable tragic low-flying Puma accident where it should have.
Incidentally, the training progression then for pilots was:
OCU: 30 hrs (35 for a first-tourist straight from AFTS) out after 6 weeks with D cat/Limited Combat Ready.
Squadron: Initial check, then 3 months of flying on tasking with a QHI/LTC; after 3 months, allowed off on simple tasks (like the Catterick one) as Pi/c, but with a SP as Det Cdr and Authoriser. After 6 months on the squadron re-cat to C/CR (the 'working standard') and, of course, still learning. With luck and a bit of hard work, one could aspire to becoming a 'B' cat.
It is unfortunate that the Press has not taken the trouble to find out about the current training process and presented the pilot as being on his 'first flight without an instructor'.
Lastly, I think it inexcusable that the audio-visual material of the final moments of the flight was released to public broadcast. This was, in my opinion, an abominable lapse of taste and judgement by those concerned with its publication. It should be pointed out to HM Coroners, senior Service personnel, and to the Press and Broadcasting authorities, that this material is analagous to the CVR data, which, if my memory serves correctly, has confidentiality protected by one of the Ottawa Conventions.
I am sure that all the potential systemic flaws in this accident will have been looked at and mitigated well before the Coroner's findings. Quite simply, this accident was a rare lapse of professionalism: it is a sad and severe blow to a truly professional, hard working, and overstretched Support Helicopter force.

My thoughts entirely. The only good thing about it is that there was a CVR in the first place - clearly the Mull Chinook lessons (in respect of data recording) have been taken on board!

:ouch:Crab: you just don't get it, do you. I see very clearly that you have been protected for far too many years in your company on the old philosophy on blame allocation

In a more modern way of approaching accidents than you are demonstrating, you don't stop asking the question "why" until you get no further. but in this case the "whys" might hurt your beloved RAF, doesn't it? The fact of the matter is that the management of the RAF let this accident happen, without doing anything to stop unacceptable behaviour. Policy, selection, training, monitoring, assessments, briefings, debriefings, etc. - the tools were there. Why do I say let happen? - read James Reason's writings on Organizational Accidents.

Your references to "Top Gun" is totally uncalled for unless you are meaning the movie.
I was trained by the USN Fighter Weapons School and I take offence that you even think for a minute that the attitude demonstrated by those in the Puma represent anything even close to what Top Gun stands for.

An old friend of mine once said, and now it is part of his company thinking (not my company):

• All accidents are preventable
• Management is the art of control