I didn’t read the mishap report on the S-3 which crashed near Jacksonville, Florida in the fall of 2005 event, which strangely enough accounts for the fact that I can discuss it – the mishap report contents are “privileged” to ensure that every witness or participant in a mishap freely discloses what they know without fear of punishment or legal consequences. But from an article in the Miami Herald today, it appears as though the mishap – which took the lives of two naval aviators – was indeed weather related:
A downdraft related to a thunderstorm caused a Navy jet to crash into a park near Jacksonville Naval Air Station, according to a report.
Lt. Cmdrs. Scott Bracher and Thomas Blake died from smoke inhalation when their S-3B Viking crashed and caught fire in September 2005, according to a 465-page report obtained by The Florida Times-Union through a Freedom of Information Act request.
The flight was delayed earlier that day due to weather conditions, which forecasters had difficulty predicting, the Navy investigators’ report said.
A microburst is a thunderstorm-related phenomenon in which a powerful but localized downdraft is generated by the internal dynamics of cumulonimbus clouds. When the downdraft hits the ground, the air mass expands radially away from the burst center. It normally occurs in the clear air mass ahead of a storm, and can impact the ground up to 15 miles away from the T-cell which spawned it.
Aircraft on approach to landing can get conflicting signals on their performance instruments as a microburst occurs: During approach the crew is normally trying to slow the aircraft down to approach speed. A microburst in front of them will result in a rapid and unwelcome increase in airspeed coupled with a decreasing angle of attack as the airmass washes over the aircraft. If the crew responds inappropriately and eases power further they will often find themselves fatally underpowered just as they reach the centroid of the phenomenon – a situation which is not improved moments later as the vector of the airmass reverses, changing what had been a headwind into a tailwind. This can occur so rapidly and with such force that the wingfoil stalls, causing the aircraft to crash.
Microbursts are difficult to predict and can last for many minutes. Pilots are trained to recognize the warning signals – an unexplained increase in airspeed and decreasing angle of attack in the proximity of heavy weather, and react – full power on all engines and rotate to maximum obstacle clearance angle of attack. Nevertheless, a mircroburst which occurs aft of an aircraft’s wingline on or shortly after takeoff is particularly challenging – there are few if any visual cues, the aircraft is typically at or near its maximum weight loading, is already at full power and is probably very close to a performance limiting angle of attack. There aren’t many options left at those margins.
The fact that these poor guys died of smoke inhalation rather than blunt force trauma leads me to believe that they hadn’t gotten very far in their takeoff procedure before being overcome by the windshear.
It isn’t always enough to be good – sometimes you have to be lucky.
After a few years on “the boat” I thought I had seen some hairy stuff, but I’ve never seen anything like the Delta 737 that (stupidly) flew themselves into an obvious gust front wind shear on final at CLT. I’ve never seen a jet come out of the sky like that and all I could think was “I’m going to watch 100 people die.” They didn’t, which is good.
The Airbus products have a “protection” called Ground Speed Mini which maintains a minimum GROUND speed for your approach weight. If the wind picks up, so does your airspeed (thus maintaining the same ground speed) so instead of doing what you talk about and sucking off power when encountering increasing performance, (which will soon be followed by rapidly decreasing performance) it adds power.
It is a good system, but plays havoc with ATC when there are lots of jets on a long final. Everyone else is playing nice and flying their assigned speeds and the Airbusses are speeding up and slowing down willy-nilly.
N
My son-in-law belongs to that squadron, and helped search for all the debris. Doug said he never, ever wants to do that again. The aircraft went down very close to the end of the runway, less than a mile away.
Byron,
I was involved in several post-crash recoveries both as a civilian and in the military. It’s never a good thing. I take some poor satisfaction inthat I was able to do a job that demands both attention to detail and respect, but to be candid, I wouldn’t want anyone else to have to see the sights I’ve seen.
I have the deepest respect for first-responders, and I can never understand how they are able to deal with some of the things they witness. I still have some boxes in the back of my mind that I keep shut tight and filed deep away from concious thought. Hard are the times when you personally know some of the casualties. Harder still are when young’ns are involved.
Still….. someone has to do it. I was, fortunately, able to call upon that good Navy Aviation training that lets you compartmentalize things and concentrate on the task at hand, ruling out everything else until the job is done. It’s the afterwards, though. The next day, or week, or year. The darned thing is, I still can’t listen to taps anymore. I just can’t.
Respects,
Shipmates,
Also, on a related theme, we used to joke (black airdale humour, et al) that if a crew had to punch out of an S-3, it would be easy to ID the AW. He’d be the one with the legs gone from the knees down……. I never trusted that keyboard and panel to stay folded up and outta my way when I was in a hurry to, er, disembark…
FWIW, I had the words “Dig Here” stencilled on the top of my helmet. The skipper thought it was an excellent joke… The PPC, not so much…
Respects,
I was about a mile to the west of the runway when that happened. My first thought was microburst because of the wind direction and speed and the way the front was moving.
Don’t remember which squadron it was. I flew S-3As in VS-22 and VS-32 back in the day out of NAS Cecil. Of course we had dual runways for both East/West and North/South. NAS JAX is limited to East/West with a (much) smaller runway running Northwest/Southeast. I don’t remember if they even use it for Tac jets and Per Diem Threes.
Sight. Cecil had (has) cardinal heading dual runways 18/36- 09/27.
Tread lightly on this one folks…. Remember Lex mentioned accident vs mishap? Zone 5 may not have helped…
I have no idea which report the press has acquired via the FOIA, but methinks the SIR isn’t complete.
b2
While predicting the occurrence of a specific microburst is really beyond the state of the science, there is usually enough information out there to warn of the conditions conducive for them, particularly in the southeast.
On those silky smooth, clear, and pretty early mornings that the wx guessers are predicting dire things (Aw, they never know what they are talking about. Just a bunch of CYA)…Its when “It will come out of nowhere!!“.
Ask your friendly AG about “inverted V profiles”, and CAPES. On such days when those conditions are present, cast a very wary eye towards each and every TCU because any one of them could turn into an aluminum eating monster in a heartbeat.
Also, see if you get a chuckle from your briefer if you tell them they live in a world, “behind a theta-e ridge while cloaked in their CAPES”.
Nose, you have hit upon an insidious problem that is almost wholly unrecognized. While you in the military have a dedicated weather briefing system,the passenger airlines-with only two exceptions-have dispensed with in house meteorology departments. And in this day and age, most in GA get their briefings via home computer. Added to that is the fact that tools that were once the sole province of meteorologists are now available to all who wish to slip the surly bonds(like satellite and radar imagery)…Yet no regulatory framwework is in place to formally learn and comprehend what is in our face.
Its a situation that gurantees people will augur in due mainly to innocent ignorance.
Don’t believe me? Casually ask your average feathered friend at the briefing computer in any FBO if that image he is basing a$$ on is a base or composite reflectivity image…
And see if he thinks it will show him where icing conditions are…
errata:
Its a situation that gurantees people will augur in due mainly to innocent ignorance, but will probably be pegged as the usual pilot error.
FYI, I am not a meteorologist…
“The Airbus products have a ?
“The Airbus products have a “protection” called Ground Speed Mini which maintains a minimum GROUND speed for your approach weight.”
You must be ‘bus driver Nose…
Have you given any thought about how this system may act in the chaotic wind field of a tropical storm as opposed to the realtively linear one of a microburst environment, or have flown with it in those conditions?
Just curious, and instead of wasting the good Captain’s bandwidth with some esoteric minutiae, could you email me at sidishus@yahoo.com?
sid
Lex, Bob, et al.
Did anyone recieve any training in how to fly your jet out of windshear? I’m sure we talked about it in Metro class but I don’t recall any pracitcal flight training wrt windshear.
Bob, if the press got it through FOIA, it has to be the JAG. SIR is not releasable, even under FOIA – just like Lex said, it is based on priveledged info and that makes it for for official use only and unreleasable.
Nose
On the off chance any are interested into delving into some of the latest efforts to get ahead of this problem, check these out:
http://www.orbit.nesdis.noaa.gov/smcd/opdb/kpryor/mburst/wmsipaper/wmsi.html
(warning, big file, dialups may choke)
http://www2.ncsu.edu/eos/service/pams/meas/sco/research/nws/training/assorted/evans_fcstg_damaging_winds_rdu.ppt
Nose,
Yes, and yes I know.
Like I said above I’ve read even zone 5 sometimes won’t help even if you can recognize the condition as Lex narrates. Sometimes despite the word mishap there are A.O.G.s..
If you fly, be afraid of MB, be very afraid.
But of course technology trumps all if it’s installed on the ground or even on the aircraft like certain airlines mandate. On the other hand If you’re in a helo or something light un underpowered-adios. As a commercial pilot you know all that…Your que Sid. Hit the links. Lasers, etc……
b2
B2, I will opine its really an over reliance on magic bullet solutions that keeps us behind the weather.
The biggest bang from the buck…and the only path to true gains in saving money and lives vis a vis the weather… is through education.
In the civil aviation world, weather training standards are little changed from the 1950s. And all too often the culture gap that Earnest K Gann captured so well in the opening pages of The High and the Mighty hamstrings efforts to fix the problem.
Makes Cdr Salamander’s latest Sunday Funnies pretty appropos…
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/138/348784976_f8c9ad31e8_o.jpg
I’m pretty sure this thread is dead, being below the fold, and all. But just a quick comment.
Bob is right, in some bad cases, WS will suck you in so bad, it doesn’t matter how much thrust you got, you are gonna be a rocks kill.
Sid is also right, it’s all about edumacation. You have to know what the warning signs are and respect them. In my first reply above, I talked about watching some genius Delta captain almost ruin the day for a lot of people. What I didn’t mention was that the three Captains before him declined the approach and no one on the ground (about 15 of us on 18L) wanted to try to takeoff. It was painfully obvious (virga, approaching thunderstorm cell, etc) that it was not a good place to be flying!
N
N-
And in them big jets you’ve got color wx radar, possibly wind shear (laser) detectors (or not) and you’re more often than NOT, at an airfield where a wind shear detection system has been installed and the tower/controller will often put the word out…
Not so everywhere…See?
re the edumacation- I know it, but sometimes, w/MB it’s super insidious. Only way to 100% avoid it is to be 100% VFR, all the time.. you know that won’t work in our world.
B2
(sweeping the cobwebs away, and ignoring the smell of the long dead, mightily flogged, equine carcass, sid gets on his favorite soapbox…)
Its not a question of getting to 100 pct perfection…Just some real gains beyond the ’50s knowledge level hobbling us now.
As described above, some days are more conducive to wet microbursts than others, and the only way to know is to become somewhat conversant with terms like CAPE. You don’t have to know how to measure it, but when you are looking at that satellite image, or trying to divine more than is possible from that radar image (neither of which I will paycheck bet you haven’t beeen formally trained to use for safety of flight decisions), it would behoove you to have an fundamental understanding of the processes at work.
Having that kind of foreknowledge can save lives…Does it mean that nobody will get nailed? No.
But what it can mean is that you are thinking about the windshear recovery profile (instead of the hot F/A in the back, or the lousy hotel, or the third mortgage)that you last practiced in tne sim as you ponder a greasy TCU which is busting trough its Pileus Cap…Don’t know what that is?
You really, really, should if you fly in conditions where wet microbursts can swat you into the dirt…
http://www.stormeyes.org/tornado/SkyPix/pileus.htm
and another thing…)
http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/business/16533365.htm
“The thunderstorm event of Dec. 29, 2006, that spread almost the entire length of Texas was one of the most unusual weather circumstances we’ve seen in 20 years,” said Tim Wagner, a spokesman. More than 80 flights were diverted from D/FW that day.
Well, this is crap is several ways. First off, Mr Wagner has no clue what an MCS is, or how they behave.
Anybody who flies really oughta, given the significant impacts these storms have on the Natioanl Airspace System:
http://cimss.ssec.wisc.edu/goes/misc/970708.html
It was an MCS (and a fundamental misunderstanding of its nature) that had a whole lot to do with an MD-80 finding its way into the Arkansas River a while back…
http://cimss.ssec.wisc.edu/goes/misc/990602.html
Seems some lessons are still unlearned…
But anyway, YIR (Your Irascible Ranter), was aware of this the chances of a significant aviation impact from this storm -an MCS- days before.
How?
Well, even though its apparent my grammar ain’t the best, I can read and comprehend these:
http://www.spc.noaa.gov/products/outlook/archive/2006/day3otlk_20061226_1100.html
…THE POTENTIAL FOR NEAR SURFACE-BASED STORMS WITH DAMAGING WINDS SHOULD INCREASE AS SURFACE LOW DEVELOPS EWD AND FORCING ACROSS THE WARM SECTOR AND ALONG THE WARM FRONT INTENSIFIES
FROM THE RED RIVER SWD ACROSS TX. THIS POTENTIAL APPEARS MOST LIKELY TO UNFOLD THROUGH EARLY FRIDAY MORNING.
They shouldn’t let Mr. Wagner discuss the weather…
[...] If you’re serious about the bidness, you really ought to revisit this comment thread on the subject of aviation weather and especially microbursts. Although we in naval aviation are still graced by the service of professional weather guessers aerographers, apparently getting the straight skinny on the GA side is growing to be?Ǭ
[...] If you’re serious about the bidness, you really ought to revisit this comment thread on the subject of aviation weather and especially microbursts. Although we in naval aviation are still graced by the service of professional weather guessers aerographers, apparently getting the straight skinny on the GA side is growing to be a more complex proposition. Thanks especially for the last two comments – and links – provided by occasional reader sid. [...]
Sid,
“Rita”- http://www.caribbean-on-line.com/hurricanes/archives/2005/09/
Now, add the date/time of the accident/mishap (and also put 2 faces on the story):
http://www.news4jax.com/news/5007103/detail.html
Go at it Columbo.
b2
I am woefully unqualified to add to this discussion, but that never stopped me before… I’m currently working on my IFR ticket (helicopter) and GA training takes microbursts very seriously. As far as the weather briefs go, http://www.aviationweather.gov has pretty much everything that the military gets (unless things have changed recently) with the exception of fewer PIREPS. The FAA requires you to get a weather brief, but does not require it to be from DUATS or the FSS (where that fact that you got a brief is documented). That being said, it’s up to the pilot to use the tools. Since I’m flying in the Phoenix area we generally have clear indications of microburst conditions so it’s pretty easy to avoid the situation. A helicopter is going to respond a little differently to the windshear, but I have no interest in being swatted out of the air like a bug.