Flight Accidents in the 21st Century U.S. Air Force: The Facts of 40 Non-Combat Events

202 Pages·2018·4.619 MB·English

by  Henry Bond

Flight Accidents
in the 21st Century
U.S. Air Force
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Flight Accidents
in the 21st Century
U.S. Air Force
The Facts of 40 Non-Combat Events
H B
enry ond
McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Jefferson, North Carolina
All images have been publicly released by USAF
and carry the credit USAF/Public domain.
LiBrAryoFCongreSSCATALogUing-in-PUBLiCATiondATA
names: Bond, Henry, 1966– author.
Title: Flight accidents in the 21st century U.S. Air Force : the facts
of 40 non-combat events / Henry Bond.
description: Jefferson, north Carolina : McFarland & Company, inc.,
Publishers, 2019 | includes bibliographical references and index.
identifiers: LCCn 2018053974 | iSBn 9781476674025 (softcover :
acid free paper)
♾
Subjects: LCSH: Airplanes, Military—Accidents—United States—
History—21st century. | United States. Air Force—History—
21st century.
Classification: LCC Ug1243 .B66 2019 | ddC 363.12/493—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018053974
BriTiSHLiBrAryCATALogUingdATAAreAvAiLABLe
ISBN (print) 978-1-4766-7402-5
ISBN (ebook) 978-1-4766-3350-3
© 2019 Henry Bond. All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form
or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying
or recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publisher.
Front cover: emergency responders at the scene of a C-5 galaxy
crash, April 3, 2006, at dover Air Force Base, delaware (U.S. Air
Force photo/doug Curran)
Printed in the United States of America
McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Box 611, Jefferson, North Carolina 28640
www.mcfarlandpub.com
Acknowledgments
Thankstorobertingram—AirForcein-
stallation and Mission Support Center JBSA–
Lackland, nicolas Bourriaud, Andrew Brown,
John Armitage, Tariq goddard, Hannah
Knowles, Anthony Lam, ingrid Pollard, Julian
rodriguez, emily Tsingou, Chris Turner, and
Sean Wyatt.
v
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Table of Contents
Acknowledgments v
Preface 1
The Accidents
1 Pitch up 9
2 number 3 engine idle 13
3 Landing strut 18
4 Caught a tailwind 21
5 Fly-by 25
6 Zero-g parabolas 29
7 Arctic Thunder 32
8 C-Bleed hot 36
9 ground-rush in germany 41
10 Flameout volk 45
11 Mist-up Airventure 48
12 Warthog seizure 52
13 Walan rabat 57
14 overshoot Shank 61
15 Paddy field 65
16 Communications mast 69
17 Titanium fire 73
18 Belly flop 76
vii
viii TABLEOFCONTENTS
19 Cut-up wake 80
20 Fuel-line shutoff 83
21 Flaps gone 87
22 roll off the top 92
23 Spatial d 96
24 dutch roll 100
25 Stockton impromptu 104
26 okinawa corkscrew 108
27 Birdstrike Luke 112
28 Lights-out intercept 116
29 racetrack gun pattern 120
30 Fuel-line leak 124
31 Cley goose strike 128
32 domestic object 132
33 down to Louisiana 136
34 ghostrider 139
35 Fire by the microwave 143
36 Unseen traffic 147
37 goggles case 151
38 Three-out takeoff 156
39 inadvertent shutoff 160
40 eject, dude 165
Conclusions 169
Sources 183
Index 191
Preface
ThesuppositionthattheU.S.military,ortheU.S.“military-industrial
complex,” exists as an astounding overlord of the earth, the absolute impe-
rial power of the age, or “the world’s policeman,” is not really controversial.
The concept, the philosophy, or simply, the reality of American postwar
militarism or at least militarization—the foundation of any successful state
should be a strong military that assimilates advances in technology as vital
to retaining a fighting advantage—has been set out and theorized fre-
quently since the 1950s (see for example: Barnet, 1969; Fulbright, 1970;
Hooks, 1991).
Within the scene of contemporary critical theory, thinkers as diverse
as Jean Baudrillard (2008; 2014), Paul virilio (2007; 2008) and noam
Chomsky and edward Herman (1995) have discussed U.S. military power
at length.
The U.S. military mega- machine exists: that has been firmly estab-
lished, it seems, but as a machine it remains remote from scrutiny by the
curious—if not exactly hidden, then at least disguised; and certainly not
accessible to the ordinary person. We might catch the occasional glimpse
of a U.S. warplane coming or going, but we know little about the nature
and purpose of its mission.
The U.S. military often seems to exist in the mode of a “parallel uni-
verse” as set out by French theorist Jean Baudrillard in his essay “in Praise
of a virtual Crash,” published in a collection of essays, Screened Out(2014).
For Baudrillard, certain aspects of modern life have begun to function
quite independently of life as it is lived and experienced by the ordinary
person—they have become instead orbitalized and virtualized. Bau-
drillard’s examples include developing world debt, activity on the major
stock markets, and nuclear weapons. Under the phenomenon of virtual-
ized- orbitalized activity, these technologies and activities seem to bear
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