That bit of moisture, on a dry day, caused that 2 billion dollar plane to crash on take off.
I say tell the pilots to fly their own damn plane and not leave it to autopilot to get the plane into the air, then forehead slap the damn manufacturer engineers for allowing the computer to get that bungled up because of moisture
In 2008 a US Air Force B-2 Bomber stalls and crashes after liftoff from Andersen AFB, Guam with both pilots safely ejecting. The cause of the crash was moisture that had seeped into and interfered with the plane's computers causing a false takeoff speed and a negative angle of attack on takeoff.
https://www.reddit.com/r/aircrashinvestigation/comments/f85x3z/otd_in_2008_a_us_air_force_b2_bomber_stalls_and/
After years as a safety inspector I can guarantee you that there were at least three things that shouldn't have happened, (but did) that led up to this class A mishap. Case in point, at Loring AFB we had a B52G that was very nearly a write off. It had just come back from depot inspection and repair so it 'should' have been in tip-top condition. But, there was a problem with the main landing gear down and locked switch, which was replaced-but incorrectly, the NCO who was supposed to inspect the repair pencil wippped the form. On the next launch, the crew was just at v-1 and had a failure of the #8 engine, they aborted the take off (problem 1). They then throttle back and hit the main landing gear down and lock switch-but the main gear did not lock down but began to retract as the aircraft settled down (problem 2). Unbeknownst to anyone, the depot technicians had installed a jumper wire to test the landing gear retraction, this resulted in the forward gear retracting but not the aft gear (problem 3). The end result was the aicraft struck the runway nose down, breaking the back of the fuselage as it skidded off into the overrun. It was eventually repaired and put back into service a year and half and 5 million dollars later, and it really all came down to a pencil and three inches of wire.
ReplyDeleteDamn... those cheap little parts that when failing, cause millions of dollars of damage
DeletePlus, people who get lazy and don't check and double check the repaired and replaced systems ought to be left in the desert for coyotes to feed on
Its what the Vietnam era pilots called the 'golden BB' i.e., that one tiny little thing hitting the wrong place at exactly the right time that brings down the most expensive and high tech weapon the world has ever seen. I've lost count of the number of mishaps I've seen where laziness, incompetence and assumptions that 'someone' is handling a task gang up to bring big destruction.
DeleteIt's not autopliot. A B2 is totally unflyable without the help of computers.
ReplyDeletewhat about emergency manual backup mode?
DeleteHuman is unable to fly such plane without work of multiple support systems. All control surfaces are constantly moving, pilot mostly give a command where he want to fly and onboard systems decide "how" plane will do that. It's a somehow an illusion that pilot is actually flying a plane. And B2 is a flying wing, that's whole new level of complications. I would say with 90% of being sure... if onboard computers go down... you go down.
DeleteWhat Shas said. Same thing goes for UAV's, they have two sets of computers for take off and landing, and two sets for the mission/flight parameters. Yet there have been incidents where one fails and the other doesn't respond in time, or is improperly programmed.
DeleteThat's the cost of the Ferrari about a thousand fold I'd imagine
ReplyDelete2 Billion, and a strategic military asset that is irreplaceable.
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