Special ops commander relieved of duty after Osprey crash in Florida

by Jack Murphy · June 22, 2012 · Posted In: AFSOC

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21 comments

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SEAN SPOONTS

Apparently the pilot of the crashed Osprey at Eglin, Maj. Brian Luce was the co-pilot of the Osprey that crashed 2 years ago in Afghanistan killing four people. He's a very unlucky guy.....

Old PH2 moderator

@SEAN SPOONTS Sounds like a jonah.

kevinnash69

is just me or are these birds not stable enough to be operational? these things crash while flying in the clear skies of florida. imagine you being a passenger on this bird in the middle of the desert while taking gun fire?

@kevinnash87 The platform is designed to be inherently unstable, much like our 3-5th generation jet fighters. These fly by wire Airframes have seen tough times during development. But we too soon forget the losses of our past. Look into the F-100 Super Saber and it's control oscillation problem, look at the Lockheed F-104 Starfighter(Widow maker). Over the years there have been quite a few losses to the USMC AV-8 Harrier as well. Time change and people forget the price of military aviation.

Bottom line, these birds have been in development since the 1950's, technology has finally caught up to the demands of our DoD. There has been and will continue to be some failures, no excuses, we have to cowboy up and get it right!

Ashter

There definitely has to be more to this story. A loss of confidence is not something that is stated very often, in fact I can't remember a time where I saw a Sq CC relieved of duty for that.

That Sailor

I do hope the platform does get to deploy to Japan. It is a real force multiplier for naval forces.

And it is good this month's crash wasn't fatal ; so the AF skipper firing has to do with his operation being unsafe.

Hmmm. A crash is not generally enough to get a squadron CO relieved of command. My bet would be that the crash investigation team came up with something in the logs that related to the crash, like the maintenance gaps or whistle blowers coming forward saying that they were signing off on work they didn't do at the order of higher ups. Maybe complaints of this kind proceeded the actual crash.

Reeling back my comments on servicing issues. I have a buddy who was career Air Forces, E-8, maintainer, flight engineer instructor, Gagillion flight hours. He says maintenance is under a separate command structure that the CO can't influence directly(unlike Navy Squadrons where the maintenance officer is on the CO's staff). While he acknowledges that a Special Operations squadron might be set up differently with maintenance under the the CO's purview it's probably done the regular Air Force way as a matter of operational standardization. He's going to look into it and let me know.

@SEAN SPOONTS Reading between the lines it sounds like Maint. Control has been pencil whipping 3M requirements. The Skipper, the Maint. Dept. O and the E-9 running the Maint dept. may need a serious look. Of course, I forget, the USAF runs maint. SQRN's instead of in house like the USN/USMC. Talk about the shit hitting the fan. You would think the USAF would have learned not to repeat the USMC failures from the early V-22 days back in Yuma.

LeeMoore

I hated this thing from the beginning. The crashed and killed how many Marines and the program still goes forward. One crashes and kills Air Force guys then they realize something's wrong? Sounds kinda like some lives were worth more than others to higher ups. Working on these turds increased the hate.

@LeeMoore Recall the H-53? wikipedia page totals accidents with these numbers:

from 1969 to 1990 200 fatal accidents occurred for all types within this airframe. A 21 year span.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sikorsky_CH-53E_Super_Stallion#Accidents_and_notable_incidents

It appears that the V-22 has 36 fatalities from 1981 until present a 21year span.

The comparison speaks to the newer sensitivity of military aviation losses.

@Old PH2 @LeeMoore That's a good point. During my time in the Navy the service lost about 12 helos...A YEAR. The Osprey does some incredible things compared to a helicopter. Like lift a 12 ton of payload something like 900 miles at 300mph. That SAR in Libya of the downed Air Force guy was an hour and a half start to finish with a 300 mile round trip.

Ben K

Oh, it wasn't just the maintenance hours the Marines were padding out as far as the Osprey was concerned. There was a book about that, I think it was called The Dream Machine.

ajkmidget96

@Ben K great book, they fabricated a good deal of the safety records for these planes.

jrexilius moderator

hmmm.. I hope this was nothing more than bad maintenance caused by a bad boss. USAF (like other services) is not above witch hunts and sacrificial lambs. Very glad the team on the aircraft survived.