This reminded me of Taffy Holden, UK's RAF technician, who in 1966 accidentally took off in Lightning after making an error. English Electric Lightning was one of the fastest fighter jets of its time.
>The account has been widely published across the internet, but we make no apology for running the story here, as it’s a fascinating tale and it’s good to hear the original account of how Taffy Holden, an RAF Engineering Officer, accidentally selected reheat, then managed to fly several circuits in the Lightning jet fighter, position it for an approach and then land it with only minor damage. The flight in Taffy’s own words is reproduced in full below.
That quote makes it sound more deliberate and less a terrifying accident.
The Lightning was a high speed interceptor tasked to shoot down nuclear bombers, to say it was fast is an understatement.
He wasn't certified to fly that aircraft and was troubleshooting an electrical problem that couldn't be reproduced in the hanger. So he was taking short taxis down a closed portion of runway without a canopy. The equivalent of a car mechanic reving your engine in the parking lot.
The reheater (aka afterburner) on the Lightning was the last position on the throttle and there was a lock once engaged.
He wasn't having any luck reproducing the issue and so was going faster with each attempt. He accidentally engaged the reheater and went flying down the runway.
Before he could manage to disengage the reheater he had to avoid another aircraft and after that the runway ran out so he had to choose between crashing and taking off.
Once up it took him 4 approaches to bring it down without a canopy.
On a related note, I saw a video at the Pensacola Naval Air Museum of the USS Forrestal fire. Not a maintenance error, but an electrical anomaly caused a Zuni rocket on a McDonnell Douglas F-4B Phantom to fire, striking an external fuel tank of a A-4 Skyhawk. The flammable jet fuel spilled across the flight deck, ignited, and triggered a chain-reaction of explosions that killed 134 sailors and injured 161. Future Senator John McCain was on deck and barely escaped the flames.
We had to watch that video during naval basic training. IIRC, McCain was not merely on deck, but was strapped into his airplane.
I also remember that they were pushing fighter jets overboard rather than attempt to extinguish them as there was magnesium on fire that could not be put out quickly with the resources they had and they were afraid they would just melt through the ship, like thermite.
We watched it too - and since I worked on the fight deck I saw it many more times.
How the Forrestal fire was handled is a case study in how to do it wrong and the high number of casualties was the very sad cost of how poorly prepared the crew were.
Brilliant! That's the kind of people and story we need more of.
But he wasn't a technician, he was an engineering officer and qualified pilot (though not on the Lightning) and commanding officer of the unit in question.
Normally if there a bug or other ticket I will write the root cause into the comments or notes of that ticket after its solved.
It makes it useful for future referencing and is searchable. Unlike writing it up in a word doc and uploading it to something like sharepoint where it is forgotten
I took a look at the US Air Force subreddit[0] and lots of people who maintain these jets are skeptical as to the accidental nature of this incident. According to several comments there are many physical failsafes that would need to be deactivated in order for this to happen. The incident occurred in Belgium but it’s hard to believe their F-16s are significantly different.
Well, if it's true, we finally have a real live answer to the age-old question in Iron Eagle: "Dad, will the Maverick fire if we're still on the ground?" [1]
The military leadership in belgium also commented that it had to be a very unlucky combination of circumstances, but they didn’t want to say more without further investigation.
Note that the belgiam army wants to buy new war planes sooner or later and that the whole buying procedure has been affected by mismanagment, unclear pressures, etc. (as reported in the local news). So this could be done on intent to discredit the F16, etc.
I wouldn't call the F16 critical. They might even never have been used for an actual mission within Belgium. That nuclear plant though, that is something else. Perhaps also not critical from a 'need this or no more electricity' point of view, but safety-wise this a couple of magnitudes worse than an F16. Word on the street, apparently originating from people working there, is that it has something to do with Engie/France showing off they can do whatever they want.
Think about all the jokes you make against Canadians. Belgians and the Dutch have a similar “brotherly friendship”. We’ll make fun of each others customs but are pretty good friends.
Could always be a personal conflict with other technicians/personnel, of course - or a curious form of sabotage.
However, on the political front, renewing the F16s in Belgium has been a point of some controversy. The other EU countries (and the US, through the NATO) expect us to stay up to date with military hardware, but Belgian politicians are hesitant to actually spend the money, as it puts the budgets under heavy pressure (and because - presumably - large parts of the public will claim that we did not actually need them, so that we spent billions 'for nothing', billions we could have spent on 'more useful' items). The military is not too happy with this hesitation, so if some speculation is allowed: this situation might move some in the military to take (potentially strange kinds of) action.
I was in Belgium last year (visiting where dad fought at Elsenborn Ridge[0]) and something I was curious about - after Belgium had been occupied in WW-I, and it became obvious during the inter-war years[1] that Germany was rearming, why didn't they launch a crash defense program?
With Russia now becoming increasingly aggressive, I would think the time to prepare a deterrence is now.
They mobilized 20% of the male population, built large modern fortifications and had a strong air force. The germans just had better weapons and better tactics and rolled over them in 18 days.
My Flemisch grandad was in the second WW. Back then all official things in Belgium were in French. Can you imagine a Flemisch farmer getting French instructions? Must have been real chaos I suppose.
So many nationalities served in so many armies with officers that didn't speak their own language (think of the USSR, the Italian colonies, the French colonies, the British colonies, the French enlisted in the RAF in WW2...). It isn't so hard to understand military orders when you're doing it on a daily basis.
Belgium was bristling with defenses in WW2. In the same way France, Poland and the Western front of Russia were. They had networks of expensive forts with numerous gun turrets on them.
Wars tend to expose obsolete military doctrines. Big fortresses on land and sea (battleships) that can bombard targets many miles away are great if the enemy doesn't just fly in.
Afaik governments usually don't insure such mishaps. They have pretty much unlimited funds in comparison with insurers. Subcontractors couldn't insure themselves for these kinds of liabilities. No insurer would go that high in liability. Insuring military apparatus itself, well kind of beats the point. Insuring machines of mass destruction against destruction... On the outliers of 'crazy' insurance that I know are things like (private) sattelites and of course the global nuclear pool.
As rutgerv said, there is some controversy about what the future of Belgian air force looks like. Do we maintain current planes? Do we buy new ones? If yes, which ones? Does Belgium even need these weapons? Very difficult political questions.
I'm not saying this has anything to do with it. But at least that's the context.
These are not difficult political questions. The US through NATO are forcing Belgium to buy F35s, and that'll be that. Out of all the jets allegedly in the running, only F35s can be used to drop US nukes. The very same US nukes which have been sitting around in Belgium for decades. The worst best kept secret in the country. No politician is willing/allowed to go on record about this, so they all pretend other jets are beinv considered.
It sure is silly to buy an expensive military plane if one cannot produce all parts including the engines domestically... how is hauling spares from across the Atlantic going to work in a hot situation?
Actually the Belgian F-16s were probably produced in Belgium. There were 2 European production lines, one in the Netherlands and one in Belgium, and Norway produced some parts and subsssemblies. Everybody understood the strategic importance of having redundant (and local) manufacturing capability, as well as the importance of sharing defense technology among allies.
Not many countries are capable of building their own fighter jets. Many use hand-me-downs from the US or Russia. Some more 'favoured' partners can buy them outright, but terms & conditions apply...
There are rumours about US intervention/approval being required when loading the F35 computer with mission details..
But in Europe there are several fighter programs. These include JAS 39 (from SAAB in Sweden), Eurofighter Typhoon (from BAE, Airbus and Leonardo; Great Britain, Germany, Spain, Italy), Raphael (from Dassault in France).
They are not strictly 100% European manufacture, I suppose, but could very well be.
There being several domestic European options, obtaining hardware from USA seems counter-productive. The F35 are very expensive, their quality seems supect, they are pushed through not on their technical merits but through political pressure (e.g. Norway), there are strings attached. All this is somewhat alarming. Also, any political guarantees attached to the purchase of the F35 are suspect, as this weeks promises may change next week - we all know the new administration is rather dynamic, in good and bad.
Could one buy a few for political reasons? Maybe, but maybe one or two would not be enough and with a larger block the cost becomes an issue.
The F-35 is vastly superior compared to any of the planes you listed (due to much better sensors, stealth (way lower radar cross section, meaning radars will only detect it once it is much closer vs a non stealth fighter), radar, sensor fusion, datalink with other aircraft, payload(due to having massive internal fuel tanks and much better sensors, while 4th gen fighters need to carry external fuel tanks and a targeting pod to complete air to ground missions)) as well as being cheaper than all but the Gripen (with the Gripen currently being the least capable).
Even we (the UK) can't (or least couldn't at the time) get access or permission to modify the source code on the F-35 and we (as a minor but only Level-1 project partner) partially build it.
IIRC the only country that can is Israel and they got a specific exemption.
Honestly I find the way our government rolls over to the US frustrating at times, As the customer we should hold a firmer line - flip side is though that arms deals are often a proxy for general diplomacy so we take it in the shorts on specific deals for long term advantages - It's all in the (great) game.
The UK government boxed themselves into a corner by designing their new aircraft carrier to only handle STOVL aircraft. And the only such aircraft available is the F-35B. If they had designed their carrier with catapults like the French did then they would have had a couple other aircraft options, and thus more negotiating power.
A CATOBAR setup was included in the designs at one stage but later scrapped for cost reasons. Building a carrier with a ski-ramp is a lot cheaper.
The disadvantage is as you point out, severely limited types of aircraft for operations. The advantage of the cheaper design was that two carriers could be produced - France, with a similar economy and military to the UK size-wise, has only one fixed-wing carrier.
Two carriers is a game changer, as it allows year round operational readiness. For the Charles de Gaulle it spent ~900 days at sea in its first six years[0] - less than half the time.
Always having a carrier ready with "compromised" aircraft has many advantages over a lower availability with better aircraft.
A CATOBAR setup was included in the designs at one stage but later scrapped for cost reasons.
I don't believe it was ever really included in the design. EMALS was undeveloped at the time, and where would you get the steam for a conventional catapult, with no reactor and no boilers? And where were the compartments to physically put the (huge) catapults and arrestor gear? And even if EMALS was available where would you get the electrical power to run it (no reactor remember) when the (gas turbine) engines full output would be needed to head into the wind for launches?
It was a tickybox, that's all. Because BAe could never take the risk that the UK would chose Rafales or Super Hornets, they had to make the F35-B, which coincidentally they also have a finger in the pie of, the only option.
This happens all the time. A country sells weapon systems to a second country, but will only maintain them if the relationship stays to the former's liking.
Seems unlikely we would see a war where shipping lanes between the US and Europe are blockaded for any length of time. Such a war would presumably turn nuclear pretty quickly, at which point getting spares for your F35s is a moot point.
US-designed, but partly Belgian-manufactured. These things are always political/economic horsetrading, and as part of the deal, Belgium got one of the F-16 production lines placed in Charleroi: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Dynamics_F-16_Fighting...
Well, when the news is all about security and Chinese hacks and untrustworthy hardware I find it strange to rely 100% on foreign hardware for one's airforce.
Europe isn't an American colony. If anything it should be the other way round.
I might be stating the obvious here, but why is maintenance work being done on a fighter jet that is loaded with sharp ammunition? You wouldn't do maintenance on a gun when it's loaded, why would you do it on a multi million dollar fighter jet?
Base on years of using and cleaning guns for hunting and target shooting and from reading several hundred reports of gun cleaning "accidents", "gun cleaning accident" is polite fiction for "I shot myself (or someone else!) playing with my gun". Although, to be fair, some of them are suicides and possibly the occasional murder.
Normally guns only need cleaning if they have been fired or have somehow gotten wet or contaminated. The procedure to clean a gun goes like this:
1) Remove ammunition
2) Partially disassemble gun (depending on model)
3) Scrub a cleaning rod and brush through the barrel and chamber
4) Reassemble
Removing the ammunition has to happen, otherwise you cannot run the brush though the barrel because the ammunition is in the way. So shooting yourself while cleaning a gun because you didn't know it was loaded is like driving off without your car keys. Not too plausible.
On the other hand, it's pretty easy to have an accident playing with a gun, and apparently shooting yourself is deeply embarrassing so it's not uncommon to lie about "I was cleaning it". I don't know why the police accept this story, just a social nicety I guess.
Of course this story works best if the "accident" happens in the home. A surprisingly common variation in cases where the gun owner shoots themselves in a parked car or suchlike (often with a newly purchased gun) is that a "black man ran up/drove by" and shot them for no reason. Sometimes the assailant was "wearing black clothes" and/or "driving a "black SUV". The police tend to be more skeptical about this although not always. [0] [1]
I agree that shooting yourself while cleaning a gun sounds impossible, but there are enough guns in this country that the occasional absurd mistake is going to happen. You could accidentally shoot yourself before completing step 1. You could accidentally shoot yourself during steps 2 or 3 if you skip step 1.
The brush won't go through the barrel if ammunition is in the way, but that doesn't mean the cleaner won't keep trying.
Nope. Unloading is a separate step from cleaning, and shooting yourself during it would be incredibly hard (shooting something else may and does happen after a series of serious mistakes). The gun is physically incapable of shooting beyond commencing step 2. If the brush can’t get through due to being loaded, the obstacle is at the very beginning of the barrel and visible by eye. Even if you were a complete moron and kept pushing at it, that simply can’t fire the bullet. It’s basic mechanics of how a gun works.
I agree with OP: this is polite fiction. You can hurt yourself during cleaning with some guns (a spring snapping on your fingers, for example), but shoot yourself? Nah.
Many of those "gun cleaning accidents" are actually suicides. When there's any doubt the authorities often record the incident as an accident to spare the family some pain and make it easier for them to collect life insurance.
I'm not sure I understand your point, surely people shoot themselves by accident because they neglect to remove ammunition from the weapon, proving my point? It's not a "series of failures", it's the exact opposite, it's literally one failure.
In the case of firearms it might be 3 or more rules you'd have to break simultaneously to experience a negligent injurious discharge: Don't point the gun at something you don't intend to shoot, don't keep a gun loaded unless necessary, don't put your finger on the trigger until preparing to shoot, and use the gun's manual safety if it has one.
Sure. I wanted to avoid the argument over Cooper rules versus NRA rules; I wanted to emphasize that regardless of the rules you use, you need to break multiple rules. The rules interlock.
>they needed to do something stupid or the weight-on-wheels switch needed to malfunction.
Actually, the F-16 has a switch to override the 'weight on wheels' (WOW) safety for the weapons. It's used for doing checks and maintenance on the ground. Switch was probably flipped and it did what it was supposed to do. You can see the procedure here:
The correct manual for Belgian F-16s will be either a GS (general system; theory of operations) or JG (job guide; step-by-step procedural instructions) technical order of the form T.O. 1F-16AM-2-x where x = [system][GS or JG]-[subsystem]-[manual].
If memory serves correct, F-16 WOW switch override is strictly an external affair and cannot be performed from the cockpit.
It has to be done from outside the cockpit, but is not unusual as a prerequisite step for a variety of avionics systems tests and repairs (source: I'm an ex-USAF F-16C/D avionics maintainer). They may have had it overridden for a check, or if deliberate, done so prior to entering the cockpit.
Thanks for corroborating. Former 2A3x2 back in the day as well, albeit assigned to the F-117 after Sheppard and never toured Osan/Kunsan, so F-16 details were all but lost in the details of life after service.
Not sure. An ariane 4 rocket exploded due to a leftover cleaning rag in a water line. I would guess the launcher + payload price would top the price of an F16?
Surely there must be a checklist to follow before maintenance like this that involves either locking the fire buttons, unloading the ammunition or with some kind of reliable software switch.
Either possibility, that such a procedure is not followed, or that there is no such procedure, is worrying.
Yeah, for accidentally hitting a button... I wonder if that characterization is accurate. Cost would be up there with the economic cost of Hawaii’s accidental missle alarm button click.
I thought these sorts of planes would have a safety.
And if the safety is designed in such a way without i.e. interlocks and such that you can fire off guns accidentally by poking around in the wires/connectors, that's a little sad.
Now I don't know about fighters, but I used to work on C-130s. Countermeasure systems (flare and chaff) rely on a weight on wheels microswitch completing a circuit when the aircraft is in the air, safety pins being removed from a panel to arm the system, an on switch, and a guarded switch being activated before the system can be used.
Now sometimes the weight on wheels switches need to be bypassed for testing a wide range of aircraft systems. Perhaps the aircraft was on jacks (tyre replacement?) or some sort of EMI occurred... But ultimately there really is a great deal of safety layers that had to be compromised for this to happen, including human factors.
Like with software development, you can't predict every possible action of your users (air or ground crew), and sooner or later you'll encounter an edge case nobody had considered.
There is an “arm” switch.[1] This certainly shouldn’t have happened and indicates a break down in safety procedures. Significant maintenance should not be performed on an aircraft with ordnance. The plane never should have been armed. The maintainer should have been careful around the trigger. And a plane loaded with forward firing ordnance should not be pointed at another plane. This seems like a Commanding Officer gets fired type accident.
Woah, what kind of burst was that? Surely it couldn't have lasted more than a second or so (while the jump-scare wears off of the technician :) yet the plane is torched. Thought they are a bit more resilient.
I don't know the exact variant but the F16s have/had a 6 barrel 20mm canon which fires about 100 shells per second. That's a bit more than a few rounds from small arms and more than plenty to destroy the 'target' aircraft. It possibly only took one or two hits to do that damage.
As the other reply said, even if the gun was just triggered for a fraction of a second it's likely that several dozen shells were fired. I'm not sure if NATO uses the same cannon rounds as the US military, but they almost certainly use some form of high explosive incendiary ammo.
Because any system which attempted to prevent that would have a nonzero chance of preventing shots while in the air, and it's quite easy to imagine the cost of that being much greater than what is saved by the intended effect.
That's not to say that there shouldn't be safety systems that would prevent accidental firing, just that “never shoot if system thinks we're on the ground” is very likely not a good one.
> Shot down 35 miles NE of Bruggen, West Germany by a Sidewinder missile accidentally fired from 92 Squadron Phantom FGR2 XV422. The pilot ejected safely. The master armament switch in the Phantom had not been taped in the ‘safe’ position and the pilot inadvertently rendered ‘live’ one of the two main safely switches. The pilot and navigator of the Phantom were court martialed and found guilty of offences of neglect.
My landlord works on military aircrafts as well, maybe he wasn't working on these specifically. But I'm gonna ask him whether he knows the people. Should be interesting haha.
In Russian media it's always portrayed that a professional pilot must be in the cockpit during any maintenance operations to avoid exactly such things.
I wouldn't be surprised if technicians trained on a specific piece of equipment are more broadly skilled at operating the controls than a pilot or other operator.
>The account has been widely published across the internet, but we make no apology for running the story here, as it’s a fascinating tale and it’s good to hear the original account of how Taffy Holden, an RAF Engineering Officer, accidentally selected reheat, then managed to fly several circuits in the Lightning jet fighter, position it for an approach and then land it with only minor damage. The flight in Taffy’s own words is reproduced in full below.
http://www.historicracer.com/aviation/accidental-fighter-pil...