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I was ON the Crash Recovery team for this and I had never seen any of this footage. Not sure how you got it, but I thank you. Glad Capt Wilson got out safe, it took us 20 days to clear the site, he was back flying in nine.
I was at Spangdahlem when we lost a brand new F-16 on its ferry flight, crashing in New York. It was deteriorating weather and the plane ran out of gas. it had like 20 hours on the airframe.
Flights during IFR Conditions flights become critical when you lose all your availability Avionics and the F-16 can be replaced and the Airforce Pilot survived this and his training that save him .
@@cptkirkpyro5656 the air force would most definitely not replace a pilot than equipment. If youre talking about the high end equipment, accidents almost never happen because they are top of the line pilots
These aircraft have dedicated emergency standby instruments with independent power source (battery). This is practiced in the SIM. Would like to know why those failed.
@@jmp.t28b99 They most likely did not. Pilot error. Edit: just read the safety report. All standby equipment was normal. Even the primary airspeed and altitude instruments were normal.😮
Worse time to have problems is when you fly into IMC especially when one loses instruments. You have no artificial horizon, VSI, airspeed indicator. At least pilot is alive to fly another day
@@nattybumppo4151 were those guaranteed to be reliable no matter the situation? is it an analog system or some type of redundancy separate from the other instrument failures? too many stories of aircraft with the physical ability to keep flying either being flown into the ground or into a stall...
@@xisotopex Yes. They are a separate system. The chances of both failing at the same time is basically zero percent. The report said the standbys were functioning properly. The pilot was simply unable to transition to standbys.
@@nattybumppo4151 wouldnt the standbys be right in front of his face? as available outside of his HUD within his very field of vision? something someone would be able to acquire within milliseconds?
At one point he came 1-2 seconds away from slamming into the ground and pulled up hard moments before impact. Im sure that did not help his mental state
i was stationed at Spangdahlem AB in 1993, 23rd FS; I was a crew chief there and received those block 50's brand new from GD in 93 into 94. I lived in Orenhofen so this wasn't too far away from there.
As soon as the failure started, he immediately lost all awareness of altitude. Watch starting at 3:29. He went from about 4,400, up to 4,700, then quickly down to 3,140 and nearly hitting the trees. Yanked back and climbed and ejected as well as nearly stalling. Had he declared an emergency and just focused on climbing above the clouds he could have troubleshoot the issue or diverted to an airport with non-IFR conditions. He had a wingman to help out. Sure appears like he lost focus and panicked and ejected. Definitely needs some more emergency training in the sim to build confidence.
@@jcheck6 I wasn't implying they join up before they were VFR. He had non-automated guages like an altimeter to use to keep climbing when his electronic HUD failed. He needed to focus on getting to clear air before doing any troubleshooting or messing with the HUD. He nearly killed himself by letting himself get distracted when he only had a partial failure. The aircraft was flyable as it was.
You are probably right, but... in IMC, close to the ground at fairly high speed, it's time to make a selfish decision. Capt Wilson did the right thing. There are thousands of F-16, but only one Captain Wilson family... The fact that he was flying again (less than two weeks later?) shows the professional view of the USAF. The learning effect is enormous. Saving his life was priceless. My five cents from the comfortable seat in VMC.
Flying on instruments is not a trivial thing to do. Flying on instruments that give you mismatching information without a failure indication while near the ground at low level in a high performance aircraft ....no, I don´t want to be in that position. I´m sure that guy was and is fine to fly on the standby horizon alone, but that was not the case here. He lived, so it definitely was not a wrong decision to bail out.
Yeah sounds like his scan broke down. Edit: after reading the safety report, he was unable to transition fully to the standby instruments. He just didn’t have the skill to make it happen. No worries, the Air Force is hemorrhaging pilots so he gets to keep his job!
@@nattybumppo4151 That’s what I was trying to figure out, why he couldn’t do that, even find straight and level or anything. Probably has to do with overall experience level too, these guys are really low time as far as overall experience, but they can follow instructions really well and get ordinance etc where it needs to be.
@@pinkdoughnut869 I’m aware of spatial d, but that’s where you’ve got to overcome your feelings and focus hard. I was wondering why he wasn’t able to do it.
"the pilot to become spatially disoriented at low altitude and in IMC ... [...] ... following two instances of visually acquiring trees below the 500-foot ceiling, the [pilot] successfully [ejected]" The pilot is alive by miracle!
so conflicting info from standby and primary systems, electrical failure, trees and low altitude, clouds and spatial disorientation caused the crash? engine still fine?
Looked like IMC but still, you would have thought there are standby instruments to find somewhere with VMC? I guess electrical issues could affect a lot more than just instrument in a FBW aircraft thou...
He had a standby ADI and also altitude and airspeed. That’s all he needed to recover. He was unable to because of a lack of skill and expertise unfortunately. The AF is at an all time high in Class A mishaps due to lack of training and experience.
Hard to say without much more info but as a pilot myself if you're in full IMC at low altitude moving as fast as the aircraft do, I could see how losing half your cluster could be a real clincher. In a split second you have to make a decision whether you're punching out or not and it would be difficult to tell which set of instruments is malfuctioning and which set isn't, if they aren't all malfuctioning and remember, you can't trust your body to tell you what the plane is doing when you can't see outside. I think that ejection was the safest bet for the pilot and I highly doubt this was an inexperienced pilot issue. There's specific protocol for these types of situations and he had to make a decision NOW. Freezing and working out the problem a couple thousand feet off the deck in full IMC at over 300mph is a good way to auger in and out happens fast. It would've taken him 2-3 seconds to hit if he had been in an unusual attitude. Better to get away if you aren't sure what your real attitude is. The USAF can buy another plane, but you can't buy another life. I'm the end, even if you're wrong, better to walk away with an ass chewing alive than second guess yourself and ride the plane into the dirt. I see no problem with this call.
@@nattybumppo4151 read the description please. The primary instrumentation failed but this wasnt properly indicated for some reason. So the pilot had two sets of data to choose from and maybe thats not the situation you would like to be in when split seconds are separating you from death. In a different circumstances he would have time and altitude to figure out what was going on. Here it was die or live.
@@LaggerSVK Saying he had two sets of data to choose from is a bit misleading. Only 1 instrument in his cockpit was providing incorrect data(initially), and that was his primary ADI. The rest were either blank or operating normally. And the pilot himself from his testimony understood that it was frozen and unreliable. Here is a list of Instruments that were working correctly: - Primary Airspeed Indicator - Primary Altitude Indicator - Standby Attitude Indicator - Engine Instruments With these instruments, any qualified AF pilot should have been able to climb the 15,000 feet to get above the weather. I don’t fault the pilot for punching out. He understood he did not possess the skill/training needed to survive the situation. I blame the AF.
I find myself somewhat confused. Were the round gauges still working or did they fail as well? I don't mean to jump to conclusions but was that dude that much of a hud cripple that he couldn't go back on the conventional instruments? Instead opting for the needle, speed and rip chord let down? If so wow.
I just read the safety report. All standby instrumentation was normal. He was unable to transition to standby instruments due to lack or skill/training.
@@nattybumppo4151 I was there... also I have the report, I've read it multiple times, among other lines supporting a failure include: "Additionally, his primary ADI, SAI, and EHSI were not responding as expected when he made flight control inputs" While I concede we were all relatively suspect of it, avionics specialists never really could explain how the pneumatic-based round dials would fail and did think that nerves and fear played a role, but the oversimplification of it was that a low ceiling mixed with instruments that at worst failed, at best were reacting in a way he couldn't trust led to the decision. I'm not sure if you somehow got a more detailed copy of the report than I have, but if you do I'd love to see it. This incident was a major moment in my career and life to this point so I am happy to track anything further that comes out.
@@2011SoxMD36 Sounds like the same one. I’m not talking about his primary instrumentation. The report says that failed. The STANDBY instrumentation the report says was operating normally. He was unable to transition to them fully like he should have. He was unable to transition to them due to lack of skill/training. I blame the Air Force completely.
When the F-16 that crashed into a warehouse across from my base a couple years came down, there was no explosion either. They don’t always explode! This was at March AFB that I’m talking about.
That blue screen reminds me of when I accidentally took a double dose of an antidepressant and started tripping balls. When I went outside, the sky was blue, and I remember looking up at it, and thinking that reality had crashed, and then I fainted in my front yard, waking an hour later, dizzy but okay.
I bought anti depressants and because depression was too high, I decided to chew them (because my mom used to tell me that when you chew Panadol you heal fast) ..... After chewing antidepressants, It was one of my worst mouth pains I've ever felt.. I spent 3 weeks unable to taste even honey or candy...
Hey guys, of course this pilot knew how to read and fly on standby instruments. They train for it and have check rides every year. I am sure there was a reason for the ejection. As far as the taxpayer and financial comments.......that's just pure lack of intelligence and just pure trolling. At least this guy had to option to eject. Hundreds of pilots have died during spatial disorientation events. This is not a joke or a time to make Laim comments.
Go read the safety report my friend. He had full standby instrumentation. He was unable to transition to these instruments because of lack of skill/training.
@@nattybumppo4151 Fair enough, but I still don’t agree with all the comments about how it was a waste of money, or how the pilot sucked. We all make mistakes and 25 million is nothing for the US government. It’s like 50 cents for us, or maybe even way less. To me, all that matters is accidents happen and I’m glad the pilot survived and no one was hurt on the ground.
@@737Maxter We can agree that it’s a good thing no one was hurt but at the same time question why the pilot of a $25M airplane wasn’t able to transition to standby instruments that were operating normally. Again this is a systemic problem in the Air Force.
@@nattybumppo4151 I had not seen the link for the final report, now that I have I see where it indicates the standby instruments were still functioning... But can understand that after seeing some conflicting indications and being at the crucial point of flight and especially not know what was correct indications and not... I can understand the choice of safely exiting the aircraft before it wasn't an option (safely for pilot or surrounding factors)... Tough choice to have to make quickly..
@@james94582 As I’ve said on other posts, ultimately I blame the AF. We would expect a fully qualified F-16 pilot to be able to transition to standby instruments. But because of training syllabus slashes and hemorrhaging experienced pilots to the airlines, the AF has no other choice than to fill cockpits with non-proficient pilots. Edit: Oh and also discharging fully qualified and skilled pilots because their religious/philosophical views don’t line up with the AF agenda.
He took the easiest route. Fuck the airplane, im not doing the hard work im payed for. Went away from the hard work needed. And yes I have flown multies with partial panel and go down to 300 feet agl. At about 400 hours of flying singles only, i had to ferrry an Aztec to over a big lake 130 miles wide. The day turned to be bad with rain all over. My instrument rating and multi was only a couple of months back. I was dying to fly the aztec, which was a bigger brother of the Piper Apache i tooke my multi a few weeks before. In Colombia 1975.
@@paigewilson7893 To an extent. Spending hundreds of billions of dollars every year on the military industrial complex doesn't keep us "safe". Neither does sending 50 billion to Ukraine or Israel.
Says the dude comparing a Cessna in VMC with a 4-ship of F-16s taking off in the weather and dealing with a wingman that's spatially disoriented/ejected.
Instrument mismatch with no fault indications is a helluva hard thing to process at 300 knots and less than 5000 feet in IMC. That's the thing I think most people will miss - there were *no* fault indications on the primary instruments. The pilot had maybe 30 seconds to figure out which ones were reading right and which weren't and get himself good without hitting the ground. Once you get Spatial Disorientation, it takes a lot longer than that to get yourself back right, even with excellent training. I've had partial panel failures in little single-engine airplanes and it takes time to work out which is good and which isn't because the standby can fail too, especially if it's an electrical issue. I'm lucky because I don't fly them more than in nice weather so I can just look outside, but you still get the idea of "man if this happens in the real weather, this would be very bad" when you see it happen before you.
