Never once did hal think: you know I can see an ILS and I've been descending a while... the wheels are out... maybe I shouldn't be in a speed hold at 202 this close to the ground.
@@KutWrite it can obviously flip a few on its own. The look of the cockpit makes it seem like everything is touch screen, as well, so it *could*. I'm pretty sure the pilot would rather it told him he wasn't ready for a landing and he'd have gone around much earlier.
Pilot wrecks jet, it sticks with him his whole career and shakes him to his core. Tanker writes off tank, laughs like a kid, gets new tank, no crayons for desert.
Well it's simple math really. It's like how when you smoke your life insurance premium goes up, the tank has already hit the ground so the chances of a crash is already substantially higher... Not anyone's fault really...
I spent decades in software development and what I saw over the past twenty years was a steady decline in developer's ability to think (comprehensively) of how applications/systems were used and how they go can wrong. Paired with this trend has been a corresponding decline in the perceived value of test engineers to the point many companies have rid themselves of quality and test teams. While I have no direct experience of this jet's software - it fits a pattern that's all too prevalent in commercial software and now appears to be arising in mission critical systems. A very disturbing trend.
While I don’t entirely disagree, you have to also take into the account that the complexity of the systems these programs are managing has skyrocketed. It’s just not humanly possible to test all states and possible outcomes. That’s the inevitable economy of these things. It’s actually quite interesting to look at it in broader picture - for longest time we thought that things like computer controlled driverless cars or planes will make most of the accidents disappear. But it seems that due to sheer scope and complexity there’s a limit where further attempts to introduce programs that supposedly make things safer actually increase chance of failure. Case in point, 737 Max.
@@gtpk3527 was about to add the 737 max is a great similar example here. We have clearly reached that ethical question mark, what should computers do and what should pilots do, in both cases we have two pilots metaphorically shouting at each other as they input juxtaposed movements. If I was a pilot, I would be worried that I could get in an aircraft and in certain conditions my inputs would be ignored on the basis that a programmer and developer had deemed my inputs incorrect while sitting at a computer screen, and or office boardroom. Those developers and programmers, simply do not know what it is like to be in the pitch black at night, traveling hundreds of miles an hour in a 80m dollar plane, they might think they know what “right” and “wrong” inputs are, but in reality they can’t know because they are not there. Yes statistics would be on the developers side, but it’s only one case that needs to go wrong where a pilot is killed for that to come into question.
My job designed a new tracking system for us to use, it is aweful and designed by the IT department. Its too technical and not user friendly. I think when systems are designed they should be designed to be used by someone with no tech background. Thats the point, to have the system work for us not the other way around.
@@TheBenchPressMan That actually wasn't exactly my point. First, the MAX situation is bit more complex. It's been often presented by media as 'computer trying to be more clever then pilot' but the truth is that in both cases, what has happened was that both pilots and the computer were presented with conflicting information that neither was able to accurately evaluate. In Ethiopia case, the pilots actually switched the computer off, then back on again, because they didn't know what to do. And we actually have some comparison here because even before widespread FBW and things like MCAS, we had accidents where pilots lost some important flight data instruments and it resulted in crash nonetheless. It's easy to bash the programmers and developers for trying to be more clever than pilots, but the truth is, that in many cases they are. We read about MCAS and incidents like these but we don't read about thousands of other incidents where activation of some form of protective equipment or intrusion of computer saved lives. Sullenberger's landing on Hudson will be one of those. Everyone praises him, and rightly so, for doing what he did, but it's also true that it was only possible because how superbly the Airbus' FBW system worked, allowing him to fly the plane in stable, near stall condition without actually falling into a spin. It's insanely good engineering. What I meant is slightly different conundrum. That by adding more and more layers of systems that are supposed to provide safety, we add more and more layers where the systems can fail. It's not by incompetence or anything else. There seems to be some sort of marginal utility function to this, that once you reach certain point, you have rapidly diminishing returns on safety, but you increase the risk of failure. Hope it makes sense like this. I'm not sure how to change it. Probably it'll require fundamental change in how we evaluate safety. For now, the paradigm is that more safety systems is good, without exception. But we seem to start to reach a point where the returns on safety diminish and the failure coming from complexity increases, and the latter is greater than the former.
Fixated and task saturation can be brutal.. Been there and done that during my Instrument rating training. It's really hard to overcome.. Mostly involves keeping your scan of instruments going.
I find it pretty amazing that shortcomings in the flight control system weren't considered a bigger factor. It seems if the pilot's brain gets saturated, its the pilot's fault, but if the computer's brain gets saturated, its... also the pilots fault.
I’m a little unsettled that although he made previous errors on approach.....after pulling aft stick for 3 seconds the aircraft did NOT do what he asked it to do.. This is nuts to me as someone who drives cars on a racetrack.. no response for 3 seconds at the limit is an ETERNITY..
As a 35 year Navy AE and retired electrical/ECS Air Guard maintainer on a variety of military aircraft , mostly fighters , I love the reviews and your insight on these accident reports. Your military flying experience really gives an educated description of what happened and how. Your humbleness really shines by not putting total blame on the mistakes the pilot may have made. I totally cannot believe the design of the ejection system that blows the canopy material into a million pieces instead of separating it from the aircraft. I am really shocked about that. All of the aircraft I worked on or had a ride in had the Martin Baker or Aces II ejection system. I’m glad the pilot is o.k. and is still flying. Have a great Thanksgiving Mover. (Bill from Slidell)
@@FirstDagger The amount seems to change based on how much of the development cost is included. And at some point the engines were procured separately, so were not included in the F-35 'cost'
What's amazing to me is that these pilots make life-changing decisions in just seconds. I realize that is what they are trained to do, but, imagine trying to do anything going that fast in just a few seconds or less. So glad he made it out. I've watched enough Mover vids to know that they don't always end up with a good ending...minus the $175 million lost.
Drive a bike at high speeds and try doing a corner with inconsistent information, its similar ( not comparing aviation and biking). You have millisecs to improvise if anything goes wrong, at times your initial input is wrong and millsecs are max u get, sometimes not even that
This is awesome. I was flying that night landing at Duke Field (10 miles north of Eglin) and didn't see it, but we landed and Mx ran out asking if we saw what happened on NVGs. I said "no" and they said they heard a loud boom and yellow flash. I've since separated from the military so I'm just now seeing this. I want to clarify one thing about him not flying many sorties and having fatigue. Basically through all of April, nearly all training flights at least at Eglin, Duke, and Hurlburt were suspended due to Covid-19. So there was very little flying happening at that time. And then, out of nowhere, (I don't know if this was across all squadrons or just us) we were told that we were still expected to fly out our annual hours for the fiscal year which meant playing catch-up. As a lineflying loadmaster in a squadron with several DNIF people, I think I logged 20 hours in all of March and April combined, to suddenly flying 50 hours hours a month for June, July, and August.
Great wrap up of an AIB report. I love your reviews of these. And so happy the pilot got out. That's the biggest thing at the end of the day. That said, I see automation as the problem here. Specifically automation that can't be overridden by the PIC. I've been flying for 20 years, mostly in the military. I came from Herks, where everything is manual, and now I'm a contractor flying MQ-9s. The automation is a huge benefit as well as hurdle. I can, and have had to, override 90% of the automation to land the airplane. We land the Reaper with minimal input from the computer, and I listened to your commentary from a position of a pilot fighting with a computer sometimes. I know what that's like. The difference, it sounds like, is I have a boldface series of buttons (two pushes, with my hand on the stick) to kill 90+% of autopilot input and have full control of the aircraft. A second boldface procedure (one switch) gets the plane away from cumulo granite and into a go-around maneuver, without any input from me. As a "real pilot" I hate the way the MQ-1 and MQ-9 were designed, but it sounds like they have better control interface for landing than the F-35.
@@ajwilson605 you mean should have... because it was designed to do that? Or it should have because it ‘should’ have been designed to operate that way? In my humble opinion... if the KCAS isn’t right it’s the pilots job to turn the automation off and hand fly the throttles and stick as much as the airplane allows.
@@prancer1803 201 knots CAS plus 6 knots per 1000kg above empty weight. Prescribed landing speed for a TORNADO MRCA with wings being stuck back in 67 degrees. Not really a desirable landing configuration, but do-able on a preferably extra long runway... with maybe a departure end cable? Definitely less than 3 degrees glidepath and no flare at all! Tire speed limit of 240knots Ground speed was the factor! I never had to do it for real but in the simulator it was not too bad... Just keep it rolling straight and drop the hook on time - HA!
@@solarwizzo8667 well thank you for that it was enlightening. Never knew production aircraft... could be designed to land so fast. That’s pretty quick. Not much flair I guess... and the pilots would need to be careful to not overrotate during the flair.
It's interesting about the O2 system. Firefighters' Positive Pressure Self Contained Breathing Apparatus is the same way, you have to push to exhale. That will wear you out in addition to everything else that is wearing you out when you Don one.
Interesting. The Navy had positive pressure O2 in the early 70s and discarded it. I think part of the reason was increased pilot fatigue, constantly fighting against that pressure just to breathe. Maybe a different congressman's brother got the contract this time.
Probably similar to what German Eurofighter pilots have. Overpressurizes the lungs and the G-vest compresses your chest. It is described as tiring and "not very healthy" but at least the pilot can pull 9Gs all day lol
@@ajwilson605 still though... if it’s going 202 knots it’s time for a go around. Can still see the KCAS shown in the cockpit/HMD right? I mean am I missing something?
Listening to the report describe "spent 2 seconds doing this" and "after 3 seconds did that" and I'm counting off in my head and saying "I'd still be cussing at the CLAW for another 6 seconds before doing anything". Props to the pilot for making lemonaid
Remember the Airbus crash at the Paris Airshow many years ago. Pilot wanted to do a 'down-n-dirty' show pass then called for a go around but the aircraft ignored him and continued to land...in the trees. Nothing would feel more helpless than giving commands that the aircraft ignores. Glad he survived and lessons were learned. Great dissection as always Mover.
@@agostonbazmajer1100 Thanks! Hoping for Growlers, but would be happy with any jet and probably P8s after that. Worst case I get Helos, but that still means I get to fly so I'll be happy either way!
not to be a downer, but that was really only true in the days of fighters rolling off the line like hotdogs. from a logistics perspective people arent that expensive.
@@ravener96 how inexpensive is a person when they might have been the one to avert a war, or save a president, or a country. Planes can’t do that, only aviation professionals. I’ll take an ejected pilot over a hunk of expensive metal any day, thanks.
@@XJapa1n09 the guy who fills his shoes could also be that guy. that isnt a reason. an ejected pilot isnt worth much if you dont have a plane to put him in, and while we might get new planes in peace time, the replacement cost is still higher for the plane. in war time the plane is almost certainly more valuable, as current plane production is glacial while modern air combat is faster than ever. the reason we care about a pilots life has nothing to do with logistics, we just dont like people dying, so we try not to let our guys die.
During my AF career I was attending the Society of Experimental Test Pilots annual meeting when one of the early Airbus aircraft was in development. One of the company engineers briefed us on the airplane and explained how the flight control computer would not let the pilot over G the aircraft under any circumstance. I had just read how a Canadian F/A-18 pilot was executing a split-S maneuver to intercept another aircraft and had to pull 11 Gs to keep from hitting the ground. The aircraft got bent but the pilot landed the aircraft and walked away. Beware of the “computer knows best” engineering attitude.
Mover, This mishap is similar to the 1992 crash of the prototype F-22 Raptor, landing at Edwards Air Force Base in California. This crash was linked to actuator rate limiting, causing the pilot overcompensate for pitch fluctuations. Thanks for sharing with us your professional perspective about this mishap.
In the Navy Nuke Power Program, they send out "Nuc Notes" that discuss learning points for any mishaps, big or small. Sounds like AF does similar by broadcasting the findings of Safety Boards. Never feel you are above learning from someone else's f-up. Similarly, you aren't 6ft tall and bulletproof. Eventually we all f-up. If you learn from it and someone else can also, then it wasn't as much of a waste of taxpayer $$. If a couple other F-35 pilots (or aviators) read the same mishap and it sticks in the back of their head and prevents them from overloading CLAW during a landing and tossing another $176M jet into a runway bonfire, or into a carrier's bow wave, then the system just paid for itself. BTW - Absolutely spot-on and frickin hilarious with the Toy Story CLAW reference ... I bet that makes it into F-35 memes globally.
Just recently where I live there was an F/A-18E that was stationed in Lemoore that crashed near China Lake here in California. The pilot ejected safely thankfully, but it almost crash landed on highway 178 and highway 14.
Grew up in FWB, been to Eglin and Hurlburt a bunch, but went Navy. The Aegis cruisers could automatically shoot missiles at targets with little to no human input, through something called Command and Decision (C&D) but we never trusted it because It could also prevent shooting them. I worked cruise missiles, so my concern was about it either ignoring the input to shoot or commanding to shut the launcher down if there was a fire or similar problem. If we had to do our job for real, we had a directive to disable it's interface so it wouldn't ignore our input to shoot a missile. We rarely trained with it enabled, though we did test it periodically to make sure it worked. We also trained to be very clear in our communication to manually shut down only a portion of the launcher (VLS) if possible. CLAWS, like Boeing's MCAS and C&D on Aeigis cruisers, not sure about the destroyers, sounds like it has similar edge cases where knowing about it, being prepared for what it can do, and how to respond when it does that edge case thing is very very important. Training in all kinds of scenarios is important, especially the ones where something odd happens, like a pilot landing too fast, to flesh out these computer issues.
What you said at the end rang true with me. In was mulling over our over dependence on automation during the video and I do think it’s a wonderful thing.. as long as we always keep the basics and are aware of how we can still remain connected enough with our aircraft, with the world, so that hopefully things like this can be avoided. I am no expert but that is something I have noticed. There is a degree of connectivity that needs to remain in the pilots domain to avoid or overcome as many situations like this as possible.
@@dohabandit Also a major base for procurement and testing of new weapons systems. So yeah, to your point, there's a reason why Eglin's numbers would be higher than average.
Fail to succeed, works for SpaceX , usually commies complain about expense , since their “hero’s “ prefer to steal it rather than research and innovate, without truly achieving an improved design
Low time in ACFT. Negative learning. Seen the same before many years ago on a class A with fatality. Low 30/60/90 day flight hour totals. Fatigue. Use of HMD as a primary flight instrument. Problems with HMD. Little night time. No AoA/Airspeed cross check...Scan breakdown...Land fast...yes those 1000 ft markers go by pretty fast at 202kts. Uggh... Certainly a cascade of failures that got him on deck at 202kts. Then PIO and FCS computer mismatch failure, uggh 2. Fly by wire control laws I hope are updated based on this incident. And canopy particles in skin and eye with ejection at 202 kts? Wow. I'd certainly hope they are looking at the ejection system...And I agree...a lot of LL. And OBOGS---I'm NOT A FAN. I may not like having to maintain the LOX system but I sure didn't have these issues in my day with fatigue and some of the physiological issues they seem to be having with OBOGS! (Retired F-14A RIO). Last-I've studied my fair share of mishaps as a former safety officer and I've had enough close calls myself to recognize that I would not be surprised if this person is still flying...hard to throw stones as we've either been there or dodged (by the grace of god and luck) something similar sometime in our careers if you fly enough in combat aircraft.
I was working the line when this jet came down, none of us waiting to recover our jets coming back saw the pilot ejection, so we all had a sigh of relief when we were told he was alright
If you can walk away from a landing, it's a good landing. If you use the airplane the next day, it's an outstanding landing. -Chuck Yeager Mr. Yeager couldn’t of said it any better. And he’d know best of this.
Glad I watched this. If my teammates and I are ever tasked with a F-35 VR simulator like some of the others we are doing for the USAF I would want to be able to replicate this setup in it.
Really surprised there wasn’t some kind of config warning once he got to minimums, secondly, somewhat worrying that 3 seconds of full aft stick wasn’t long enough for the FCS to get the idea and give the pilot some form of control. If the FCS had behaved he probably would have been able to get airborne again and come back around for another try.
When I met the fighter pilot pastor and started playing at his church, I was so excited. Then he told me they were getting the F-35 here at the unit, replacing the F-15. And my enthusiasm faded a little lol. Thinking of stuff like this. Still excited to fly, though
With less then 200 hrs in a new jet for him, there may be the the factor that he 'automatically' fell back into habits from the F-15E when his confusion levels rose....including no 2nd crewmember to task manage with.
Great job Mover... you explain these investigations absolutely brilliantly...by far one of the best aviation investigator explainer on the internet and even several NTSB investigations Ive sat in on...this explains why youre books are awesome! Ive been looking for the small model jets for you to use and demonstrate the aircrafts position during these investigations but cant find any decent size F14, 15, 16,18, or 22 models... any chance if you have any laying around, are you can use them in these investigations explinations for the others who are unsure of aircraft positioning during incident etc etc? Keep up awesome work! Cheers Frank 🇦🇺
I was actually driving on Okaloosa island/HWY.98E omw to work from Fort Walton Beach to Miramar Beach in Walton County and saw the fireball across the bay. Knew immediately it was bad news and assumed it was either a flight line related explosion or an aircraft crashing. I have been part of many in flight emergencies on the ground as a security policeman back in the 90's, but have never witnessed an actual crash/explosion before. Nose gear failure on two A-10's at Osan A.B. Korea, but never a full out crash.
I fully appreciate all the contributing factors that led to the pilot touching down fast and in the wrong flight control system mode. This is a classic Swiss cheese accident scenario and the flight control system weirding out at the end of it was the cherry on top of the sundae. Let’s talk about why the FCS didn’t keep the airplane flying. The F-35 is unstable by design so it is not possible to turn the flight control system off. Therefore, it is the responsibility of the FCS designers to accommodate all possible faults that can occur and keep the aircraft under control. Based on the simulator not behaving like the aircraft, I would suggest that the simulator does not have a correct model of the landing gear dynamics and therefore the FCS design team may not have ever seen the PIO during the FCS development. When the aircraft bounced it was configured improperly, not in PA mode, and that probably means the flight control laws and gains were not proper at touchdown. Typically, in PA mode when an aircraft touches down, weight on wheels switches inform the flight control system which, in turn, may set the gain on the pitch integration error to zero. If you don’t zero that gain, the control surface will eventually go full up or down and get stuck there. We can’t tell from the accident report, but Lockheed knows, whether the integrator error not being turned off because of PA mode not being selected contributed to FCS holding the elevator trailing edge down. In any case, the Lockheed’s FCS development simulator should be upgraded to include a correct landing gear simulation and accident behavior should be duplicated. Only then can a practical FCS fix can be developed. But remember this is a fix not for an FCS error, but for a pilot error that was induced by a bunch of constructing conditions. Please don’t compare this incident to MCAS. In this case the pilot operated the aircraft improperly. In the case of MCAS, Boeing fielded a flight control system that could crash an aircraft being operated correctly by the crew in the event of a single point failure of an angle of attack probe.
I've heard stories of Vietnam era pilots turning things off because it was more distracting than helpful. Does this happen now? Isn't there a certain amount of pilot preference in what they choose to use in the aircraft?
Excellent review sir! Very informative and fair - you're experiences do much to clarify some of the jargon and issues which we non-pilots might have otherwise struggled with. I always enjoy listening to your accident reviews. Thanks! Stay well!
While the pilot did make mistakes such as overreliance on automation and failure to check basic numbers such as AoA and air speed, I think his attempt to recover from a bad landing when all the confusion is going on is quite remarkable. He first tried to compensate for the oscillation, and when that didn't work he quickly switched to hitting the burners to bring the plane back up again, which I think is a very good call.
You said exactly what I was thinking half way through, Go Arounds are always free. On approach at night and something seems janky with the HMD, should have been an instant go around and troubleshoot up and away. It may be the fact that I only fly with DT, but that mind set is ingrained in our squadron.
I fully agree with you, automation has gone too far. It is good that some automation has arrived, but what happened to normal airmanship ? I understand times have changed since I flew during the cold war, but to change to the point that someone cannot function anymore if his mission is changed is beyond ridiculous. And then to have a plane which does not even allow you to use your basic flying skills is even more ridiculous. Having aids on board is nice, can be helpful, but they should never become the objective. When performing the mission these aids are perfect if they can reduce the work load and make you more effective. But when you have to land the plane, there should be a switch with which you can simply switch them all off and revert back to what you are trained for: to be a pilot, meaning you flying the jet instead of the jet flying you.
Like John below I really enjoy these, the "inside baseball" commentary is super interesting. Not to mention a break from politics. I'm kind of stunned about the "oversaturation" condition on the flight control computer. any real time operating system will have priorities set to favor control inputs over other less time critical commands. sounds like a 1201 alarm that they got on the moon landing. Your comments about the MCAS are exactly right. Pilot was saturated by inputs and over complication of the software contributed to the mishap. I am glad he got out and is more or less OK. Thank you Mover !
Maybe it's the Software Engineer in me, but it seems like the software greatly exacerbated the issues with this situation. There is ZERO excuse for a FCS to be "Over-Saturated" in a 200 million dollar fighter jet at the most critical point of flight. Likewise if the FCS happens to be Over-Saturated the inputs from the PILOT should be given higher priority than to be ignored or dampened. Likewise the $400k helmet can't auto-dim, or even manually dim when necessary?
We have been here before. When Armstrong landed on the moon, program 062 was to help land. Don’t quote me on the exact number. But they kept getting interrupted by a reset error. Turns out buzz had a monitor program running to display flight attitudes. This program kept forcing a hard reset during landing. Never came up in the sim. Turns out a faulty input from a radar was overwhelming the CPU. Workaround was to turn the monitor program off. Later on, they turned the radar off during decent.
As a former military helicopter pilot myself, I certainly understand how you can get disoriented at night and when tired. The whole helmet issue would be overwhelming and disorienting and I bet that had more to do with it than anything else. I recall that when one of our test pilots was flying the ARH Tiger (the Australian Army) over open fields and he managed to get so disoriented with the helmet displays that he actually flew the helicopter into the ground at night and destroyed the aircraft. He hit the ground at such a shallow angle that neither of the pilots were badly injured, but they had no idea they were flying along in a shallow decent until they hit the field, bounced and sheered off the tail boom and shredded the main rotors.
Really, really good coverage of this. Thank you! Very glad the pilot was able to punch out and fly again. I'm a pilot, little planes, and fully expected this to be simple 'pilot error' for the first third of the video. But you brought up some really good points. I can't imagine being on final at night and having what's supposed to be my primary set of instruments blinding me with green light, going 200 knots with a guy behind me in the pattern. So I'll summarize what I caught from this: guy's display is blinded and completely out of alignment. without looking at the numbers - and maybe he couldn't see it - 200 knots probably looks a lot like 150 knots. He'd flown that fast before in the sim, and it worked. The plane has flight modes that the pilots were never aware of. That means he's a test pilot, and doesn't know it. So as the FAA would say, a chain of events led to this. Crazy stuff. Spot on, on double checking speeds and angles (or altitude). Not knowing anything about the plane, I'd be tempted to fly a visual landing, but I don't even know if that's possible in that plane.
Excellent work sir. Sounds like the F-35 isn’t as easy to fly as some would lead you to believe. So glad the pilot is ok & back flying. Thanks for sharing 👍🏻👍🏻🙃🙃
The pilot had not flown a lot IRL recently, what had he done instead? Trained with simulator? If > 200 kts landings are not punished in simulator it is easy to learn a bad habit...
I wonder if aircraft testing included 202 knot landings with shallow AOA. I.E. with testing, expand the flight envelope AND the landing envelope even if the pilot is never supposed to land at 202 knots.
*F-35A has stopped working* A problem cause the aircraft to stop working correctly. Lockheed will ignore the problem and notify noone if a solution is available. [EJECT PILOT]
Great thing that the pilot survived and nobody else got hurt, back in June F15 went down of UK's coast, unfortunately in this case it ended up in tragedy...Lets hope that lessons will be learned
On the heels of the “children of the magenta line” comment, I wonder how many software engineers at Lockheed (or Boeing, or NG, or...) have any flight experience. I wonder if control software would be written differently if they had to occupy a pilot’s helmet on a go-around. Glad no one died in this one. Happy Thanksgiving.
The old adage "it's generally a series of events that leads to most accidents" is nowhere truer than this accident. When there's a helmet fire, go back to basics airspeed/attitude. Etc..... .I feel for this pilot. As you say "any given Sunday"
I started my flying in gliders over Boulder, Colorado. I have been told by more than a few Instructors that gliders pilots are no fun when they throw distractions like shortened approaches, power failure either powerplant or electrical. That's because I never stray very far from absolute flight and contr basics. As a brief career CFII/CFIIG, my most frequent instructions were to master the instruments and logic registers in glass cockpits, and then GET THEIR HEADS AND EYES OUTSIDE!!!!. I am glad your Eglin F-35 mishaps is still with us.
@Krister Lagerström Or if a certain autopilot mode or some kind of switchology setup is prohibited or unsafe (and it's actually pointed out in the manual) there should really be a configuration warning.
@Krister Lagerström if I were to get my hands on that source code I grantee you I could still find some refence to a system like that in a comment or even commented out coded that did it that was dropped because It didn't work for what ever reason
@Krister Lagerström solutions often cause more problems than they fix. I am sure it will be done now and I am also sure that they trjed in the past and gave up on because it was on the nice to have list and not the this is essential to make it work list.
>Spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to train a pilot >Spend hundreds of millions of dollars to make the aircraft >Put pilot in aircraft >Let aircraft decide to suddenly not let the pilot do pilot things ...Brilliant
That was terrifying...I had two roommates that were on the apron when that 35 crashed... the first thing they heard was his wingman go into AB and curve off and then in a split second heard the crash and saw a big ball of fire....that whole night, they worried they just watched a pilot die on the runway....scary stuff.
The same happened to me when a 22 went belly sliding down a runway...we didn't know if they were okay till 2 days later. As maintenance, all that went through our heads were "f**k, did we work on that aircraft? was this our fault?" Maintenance is just as involved in aircraft incidences as pilots or Ops. Everyone gets questioned and drug tested immediately, and all most of us hope for is that one of us didn't kill a pilot...
I am not a subject matter expert, the following is my personal opinion as an aviation enthusiast: MP could have died as a result of the oscillations and lack of control. I wish the board opinion summary had identified the flawed fly-by-wire software response as the primary cause of the accident. MPs mistake to initiate the oscillation by bumping off the runway is - in my opinion, without knowledge of aircraft characteristics - not sufficient to cause the total destruction of the aircraft moments later; and, had the onboard software allowed the pilot to do so, I am sure he would have recovered from the oscillation and initiated go-around, saving the aircraft and preserving his physical wellbeing. Furthermore, a simple OVERSPEED warning when the gear is out would likely have prevented the accident altogether. Does anyone agree?
Fatigue can also be a result of not being adjusted after switching to a new aircraft. When you have allot of practice doing one job, many processes become automatic and this results in much less fatigue.
The cost of an F-35 is CHEAP compared to a life. So glad the pilot survived and glad he's still flying. As a lifelong software developer and a private pilot, this is exactly what bothers me about fly-by-wire airplanes--inputs to the computer being in ranges not accounted for by the software developers. In this case it was because the pilot did something the developers didn't account for and other times (737 max) it could be from erroneous inputs from a sensor. I can test software for days and find nothing wrong with it and then turn it over to a user and they will break it in 5 minutes...Fortunately for me, when I have a bug in my code, $135 million airplanes don't crash and people don't die.
That is exactly why the sim could NOT duplicate the error. The report stated the aircraft FCS reached a 'saturation' of inputs (processor probably too small) and delayed the pilots input from being accomplished. The sim could not duplicate this because the sim never reached 'saturation' to slow down its processing. IF (a BIG word) the plane had actually done what the pilot finally commanded, immediately, it might have averted this crash completely. The pilot 'aft sticked' and slammed the throttles to full (the right thing at that time to do). This SHOULD have popped him up and away to retry after he sorted out his Helmet Display problems. Sadly, the processor was running slow (saturation) and did NOT follow the pilot commands. I sincerely hope the Navy is looking at this processor slow-down problem! Mainly because that is exactly what a pilot HAS to do immediately, when he misses the arrestor wires - or he and his plane are going swimming!
@@Doc_Dolan Not so sure about it being processing power saturation. More like Integrator saturation, or Integrator Windup as we call it in control systems.
@@NarutokunJB Got it. Thank you. I have been out of the field for about 14 years now ... I know a lifetime in computer science ... and that was what popped into my head right away. Either way ... seems like that should be preventable, no?
@@Doc_Dolan I would think so. I think this is one of those things where they never really considered all possibilities to account for it, that in hindsight it should have been obvious, but as they say hindsight is always 20/20.
First thing good that the pilot walked away! I find it concerning that there is so much automation reference some of the H.A.L 2001 comments below. Also the test pilot not knowing about the system should also be of a concern. I hope Lockheed Martin looks at this incident very closely! We don't need a MAX military incident. You have a safe and happy Thanksgiving.
Will you be doing the AIB Report on the fatal F-15C crash in the North Sea in June this year? They just released the report this week I believe. Its a tragic crash and a hard reminder of how dangerous the job actually is.
Pilot: Tries to land
F-35: I’m afraid I can’t do that Dave
sure i can!
2001: A Space Odyssey
Never once did hal think: you know I can see an ILS and I've been descending a while... the wheels are out... maybe I shouldn't be in a speed hold at 202 this close to the ground.
@@deSloleye: This HAL can't move the switch himself.
@@KutWrite it can obviously flip a few on its own. The look of the cockpit makes it seem like everything is touch screen, as well, so it *could*. I'm pretty sure the pilot would rather it told him he wasn't ready for a landing and he'd have gone around much earlier.
A) Glad the pilot made it out alive.
B) Glad he’s able to return to flight status again.
Pilot wrecks jet, it sticks with him his whole career and shakes him to his core. Tanker writes off tank, laughs like a kid, gets new tank, no crayons for desert.
Kinda harsh with the no crayons but ok.
Better to stick with them for their whole career than it being the end of life.
Well it's simple math really. It's like how when you smoke your life insurance premium goes up, the tank has already hit the ground so the chances of a crash is already substantially higher... Not anyone's fault really...
My Nephew was a Tank Driver his first time in, they told him to drive it like he stole it. Some of the Jumps he got 10-15ft of Air.
@@Len_M. Sir, I don't understand this tank reference. Can you explain for me?
I spent decades in software development and what I saw over the past twenty years was a steady decline in developer's ability to think (comprehensively) of how applications/systems were used and how they go can wrong. Paired with this trend has been a corresponding decline in the perceived value of test engineers to the point many companies have rid themselves of quality and test teams. While I have no direct experience of this jet's software - it fits a pattern that's all too prevalent in commercial software and now appears to be arising in mission critical systems. A very disturbing trend.
While I don’t entirely disagree, you have to also take into the account that the complexity of the systems these programs are managing has skyrocketed. It’s just not humanly possible to test all states and possible outcomes. That’s the inevitable economy of these things. It’s actually quite interesting to look at it in broader picture - for longest time we thought that things like computer controlled driverless cars or planes will make most of the accidents disappear. But it seems that due to sheer scope and complexity there’s a limit where further attempts to introduce programs that supposedly make things safer actually increase chance of failure. Case in point, 737 Max.
@@gtpk3527 was about to add the 737 max is a great similar example here. We have clearly reached that ethical question mark, what should computers do and what should pilots do, in both cases we have two pilots metaphorically shouting at each other as they input juxtaposed movements.
If I was a pilot, I would be worried that I could get in an aircraft and in certain conditions my inputs would be ignored on the basis that a programmer and developer had deemed my inputs incorrect while sitting at a computer screen, and or office boardroom.
Those developers and programmers, simply do not know what it is like to be in the pitch black at night, traveling hundreds of miles an hour in a 80m dollar plane, they might think they know what “right” and “wrong” inputs are, but in reality they can’t know because they are not there.
Yes statistics would be on the developers side, but it’s only one case that needs to go wrong where a pilot is killed for that to come into question.
My job designed a new tracking system for us to use, it is aweful and designed by the IT department. Its too technical and not user friendly. I think when systems are designed they should be designed to be used by someone with no tech background. Thats the point, to have the system work for us not the other way around.
www.stroustrup.com/JSF-AV-rules.pdf
@@TheBenchPressMan That actually wasn't exactly my point. First, the MAX situation is bit more complex. It's been often presented by media as 'computer trying to be more clever then pilot' but the truth is that in both cases, what has happened was that both pilots and the computer were presented with conflicting information that neither was able to accurately evaluate. In Ethiopia case, the pilots actually switched the computer off, then back on again, because they didn't know what to do. And we actually have some comparison here because even before widespread FBW and things like MCAS, we had accidents where pilots lost some important flight data instruments and it resulted in crash nonetheless.
It's easy to bash the programmers and developers for trying to be more clever than pilots, but the truth is, that in many cases they are. We read about MCAS and incidents like these but we don't read about thousands of other incidents where activation of some form of protective equipment or intrusion of computer saved lives. Sullenberger's landing on Hudson will be one of those. Everyone praises him, and rightly so, for doing what he did, but it's also true that it was only possible because how superbly the Airbus' FBW system worked, allowing him to fly the plane in stable, near stall condition without actually falling into a spin. It's insanely good engineering.
What I meant is slightly different conundrum. That by adding more and more layers of systems that are supposed to provide safety, we add more and more layers where the systems can fail. It's not by incompetence or anything else. There seems to be some sort of marginal utility function to this, that once you reach certain point, you have rapidly diminishing returns on safety, but you increase the risk of failure. Hope it makes sense like this.
I'm not sure how to change it. Probably it'll require fundamental change in how we evaluate safety. For now, the paradigm is that more safety systems is good, without exception. But we seem to start to reach a point where the returns on safety diminish and the failure coming from complexity increases, and the latter is greater than the former.
Tragedies in aviation are always a terrible thing, but i do want to say I really enjoy you going over the AIB reports.. Thank you for the content!
While not a “good story” I really enjoy these Mover breakdowns on the AIB reports.
Even though probably 99% of the subscribers have no idea wtf he’s talking about lol
I agree.
@@GooseBurt He explains it really well. The report itself is fairly tough to read but he really simplifies it and breaks it down.
Fixated and task saturation can be brutal.. Been there and done that during my Instrument rating training. It's really hard to overcome.. Mostly involves keeping your scan of instruments going.
Apparently, flying the F-35 builds skills which will transfer to civilian life, flying the 737 Max
Brutal
I find it pretty amazing that shortcomings in the flight control system weren't considered a bigger factor. It seems if the pilot's brain gets saturated, its the pilot's fault, but if the computer's brain gets saturated, its... also the pilots fault.
I’m a little unsettled that although he made previous errors on approach.....after pulling aft stick for 3 seconds the aircraft did NOT do what he asked it to do.. This is nuts to me as someone who drives cars on a racetrack.. no response for 3 seconds at the limit is an ETERNITY..
As a 35 year Navy AE and retired electrical/ECS Air Guard maintainer on a variety of military aircraft , mostly fighters , I love the reviews and your insight on these accident reports. Your military flying experience really gives an educated description of what happened and how. Your humbleness really shines by not putting total blame on the mistakes the pilot may have made. I totally cannot believe the design of the ejection system that blows the canopy material into a million pieces instead of separating it from the aircraft. I am really shocked about that. All of the aircraft I worked on or had a ride in had the Martin Baker or Aces II ejection system. I’m glad the pilot is o.k. and is still flying. Have a great Thanksgiving Mover. (Bill from Slidell)
Wrecking a 175 million dollar aircraft is probably considered as not a good day in the office.
It's frowned upon.
175 million? Did he crash an initial early production number. They should be around 85 million.
@@damianketcham ; F-35A AF-64 (Local serial 12-5053) built in 2015. So yes, early production number.
@@damianketcham I would think the replacement cost is what would be relevant not what it cost to build the jet that was lost.
@@FirstDagger The amount seems to change based on how much of the development cost is included. And at some point the engines were procured separately, so were not included in the F-35 'cost'
What's amazing to me is that these pilots make life-changing decisions in just seconds. I realize that is what they are trained to do, but, imagine trying to do anything going that fast in just a few seconds or less. So glad he made it out. I've watched enough Mover vids to know that they don't always end up with a good ending...minus the $175 million lost.
Drive a bike at high speeds and try doing a corner with inconsistent information, its similar ( not comparing aviation and biking). You have millisecs to improvise if anything goes wrong, at times your initial input is wrong and millsecs are max u get, sometimes not even that
This is awesome. I was flying that night landing at Duke Field (10 miles north of Eglin) and didn't see it, but we landed and Mx ran out asking if we saw what happened on NVGs. I said "no" and they said they heard a loud boom and yellow flash. I've since separated from the military so I'm just now seeing this.
I want to clarify one thing about him not flying many sorties and having fatigue. Basically through all of April, nearly all training flights at least at Eglin, Duke, and Hurlburt were suspended due to Covid-19. So there was very little flying happening at that time. And then, out of nowhere, (I don't know if this was across all squadrons or just us) we were told that we were still expected to fly out our annual hours for the fiscal year which meant playing catch-up. As a lineflying loadmaster in a squadron with several DNIF people, I think I logged 20 hours in all of March and April combined, to suddenly flying 50 hours hours a month for June, July, and August.
Which plane do you fly?
Great wrap up of an AIB report. I love your reviews of these. And so happy the pilot got out. That's the biggest thing at the end of the day.
That said, I see automation as the problem here. Specifically automation that can't be overridden by the PIC.
I've been flying for 20 years, mostly in the military. I came from Herks, where everything is manual, and now I'm a contractor flying MQ-9s. The automation is a huge benefit as well as hurdle. I can, and have had to, override 90% of the automation to land the airplane. We land the Reaper with minimal input from the computer, and I listened to your commentary from a position of a pilot fighting with a computer sometimes. I know what that's like. The difference, it sounds like, is I have a boldface series of buttons (two pushes, with my hand on the stick) to kill 90+% of autopilot input and have full control of the aircraft. A second boldface procedure (one switch) gets the plane away from cumulo granite and into a go-around maneuver, without any input from me.
As a "real pilot" I hate the way the MQ-1 and MQ-9 were designed, but it sounds like they have better control interface for landing than the F-35.
I can’t imagine having wheels touch down, on any airplane, at over 200 knots.
@@prancer1803 202kts in "speed hold", the FCS should have sounded off and discontinued speed hold as soon as the gear was dropped.
@@ajwilson605 you mean should have... because it was designed to do that? Or it should have because it ‘should’ have been designed to operate that way?
In my humble opinion... if the KCAS isn’t right it’s the pilots job to turn the automation off and hand fly the throttles and stick as much as the airplane allows.
@@prancer1803 201 knots CAS plus 6 knots per 1000kg above empty weight. Prescribed landing speed for a TORNADO MRCA with wings being stuck back in 67 degrees. Not really a desirable landing configuration, but do-able on a preferably extra long runway... with maybe a departure end cable? Definitely less than 3 degrees glidepath and no flare at all! Tire speed limit of 240knots Ground speed was the factor! I never had to do it for real but in the simulator it was not too bad... Just keep it rolling straight and drop the hook on time - HA!
@@solarwizzo8667 well thank you for that it was enlightening. Never knew production aircraft... could be designed to land so fast. That’s pretty quick. Not much flair I guess... and the pilots would need to be careful to not overrotate during the flair.
This could have all been avoided if Merlin was in the back yelling "we're too low Cougar, we're too low Cougar, pull up, pull up, more power".
At 202 kts, he definitely didn't need MORE power! But there is that one good reason for a passenger in a fighter.
Time for R2D2 in the back.
@@VanquishedAgain *ROHHHHOWWW*
The F-14's safety record is one of the worst of the teen fighters, especially in the pattern.
@@VanquishedAgain In this case, the entire FIGHTER is R2D2.
It's interesting about the O2 system. Firefighters' Positive Pressure Self Contained Breathing Apparatus is the same way, you have to push to exhale. That will wear you out in addition to everything else that is wearing you out when you Don one.
Almost sound like the way a CPAP machine works for those of us who deal with sleep apnea.
Interesting. The Navy had positive pressure O2 in the early 70s and discarded it. I think part of the reason was increased pilot fatigue, constantly fighting against that pressure just to breathe.
Maybe a different congressman's brother got the contract this time.
Probably similar to what German Eurofighter pilots have. Overpressurizes the lungs and the G-vest compresses your chest. It is described as tiring and "not very healthy" but at least the pilot can pull 9Gs all day lol
@@JSFGuy true. just like a G-suit, it is just another device to delay G effects. 9G is still hard on the body regardless.
Flapless Q400 lands at 160kts and it feels hella fast. Can't imagine what 202kts must have looked and felt like. Glad the driver is okay.
It looked terrible. That’s why it was way too fast
No visible reference....the glow of his HMD kept him blind to the outside of the aircraft.
@@ajwilson605 still though... if it’s going 202 knots it’s time for a go around. Can still see the KCAS shown in the cockpit/HMD right? I mean am I missing something?
@@prancer1803 He was fixated on the HMD issue, probably didn't even look at his airspeed at all.
@@agostonbazmajer1100 no excuse imo
I can only barely begin to comprehend how difficult it is to do what you guys do... Especially at night. Thank you all for your service.
Listening to the report describe "spent 2 seconds doing this" and "after 3 seconds did that" and I'm counting off in my head and saying "I'd still be cussing at the CLAW for another 6 seconds before doing anything". Props to the pilot for making lemonaid
Remember the Airbus crash at the Paris Airshow many years ago. Pilot wanted to do a 'down-n-dirty' show pass then called for a go around but the aircraft ignored him and continued to land...in the trees. Nothing would feel more helpless than giving commands that the aircraft ignores. Glad he survived and lessons were learned. Great dissection as always Mover.
Love your videos, Mover! Headed to NAS Pensacola for Navy Flight School when I commission in the Spring.
Congratulations!!! Enjoy Via de Luna if you can. 👍🇺🇲🙏
Good luck! What's your dream platform?
@@agostonbazmajer1100 Thanks! Hoping for Growlers, but would be happy with any jet and probably P8s after that. Worst case I get Helos, but that still means I get to fly so I'll be happy either way!
@@Goatlover1027 great mindset. Growlers are beasts, nothing like hunting the hunters! God Speed!
Aircraft can be replaced - Pilots can’t!! Glad he “walked away” safely
Actually a pilot is much cheaper to replace than a fighter jet
@Jonathan Perry the plane cost was 176 millions
not to be a downer, but that was really only true in the days of fighters rolling off the line like hotdogs. from a logistics perspective people arent that expensive.
@@ravener96 how inexpensive is a person when they might have been the one to avert a war, or save a president, or a country. Planes can’t do that, only aviation professionals. I’ll take an ejected pilot over a hunk of expensive metal any day, thanks.
@@XJapa1n09 the guy who fills his shoes could also be that guy. that isnt a reason. an ejected pilot isnt worth much if you dont have a plane to put him in, and while we might get new planes in peace time, the replacement cost is still higher for the plane. in war time the plane is almost certainly more valuable, as current plane production is glacial while modern air combat is faster than ever. the reason we care about a pilots life has nothing to do with logistics, we just dont like people dying, so we try not to let our guys die.
During my AF career I was attending the Society of Experimental Test Pilots annual meeting when one of the early Airbus aircraft was in development. One of the company engineers briefed us on the airplane and explained how the flight control computer would not let the pilot over G the aircraft under any circumstance. I had just read how a Canadian F/A-18 pilot was executing a split-S maneuver to intercept another aircraft and had to pull 11 Gs to keep from hitting the ground. The aircraft got bent but the pilot landed the aircraft and walked away. Beware of the “computer knows best” engineering attitude.
Always have to have an off switch.
@@flyflyaway75flyfly Agree ... know which C/B to 'pull' !
F-35A Sex Panther. 60% of the time, it works every time.
🤣
“That doesn’t make sense...” 😄
@@johns.7609 it's a movie quote from Anchorman, I think.
@@rotyler2177 he was continuing the movie, lol
And the cockpit smells like a rich mahogany
Mover,
This mishap is similar to the 1992 crash of the prototype F-22 Raptor, landing at Edwards Air Force Base in California. This crash was linked to actuator rate limiting, causing the pilot overcompensate for pitch fluctuations.
Thanks for sharing with us your professional perspective about this mishap.
Liked the CLAW reference! Lol another great video Mover thank you
In the Navy Nuke Power Program, they send out "Nuc Notes" that discuss learning points for any mishaps, big or small. Sounds like AF does similar by broadcasting the findings of Safety Boards. Never feel you are above learning from someone else's f-up. Similarly, you aren't 6ft tall and bulletproof. Eventually we all f-up. If you learn from it and someone else can also, then it wasn't as much of a waste of taxpayer $$. If a couple other F-35 pilots (or aviators) read the same mishap and it sticks in the back of their head and prevents them from overloading CLAW during a landing and tossing another $176M jet into a runway bonfire, or into a carrier's bow wave, then the system just paid for itself.
BTW - Absolutely spot-on and frickin hilarious with the Toy Story CLAW reference ... I bet that makes it into F-35 memes globally.
Just recently where I live there was an F/A-18E that was stationed in Lemoore that crashed near China Lake here in California. The pilot ejected safely thankfully, but it almost crash landed on highway 178 and highway 14.
Grew up in FWB, been to Eglin and Hurlburt a bunch, but went Navy. The Aegis cruisers could automatically shoot missiles at targets with little to no human input, through something called Command and Decision (C&D) but we never trusted it because It could also prevent shooting them. I worked cruise missiles, so my concern was about it either ignoring the input to shoot or commanding to shut the launcher down if there was a fire or similar problem. If we had to do our job for real, we had a directive to disable it's interface so it wouldn't ignore our input to shoot a missile. We rarely trained with it enabled, though we did test it periodically to make sure it worked. We also trained to be very clear in our communication to manually shut down only a portion of the launcher (VLS) if possible. CLAWS, like Boeing's MCAS and C&D on Aeigis cruisers, not sure about the destroyers, sounds like it has similar edge cases where knowing about it, being prepared for what it can do, and how to respond when it does that edge case thing is very very important. Training in all kinds of scenarios is important, especially the ones where something odd happens, like a pilot landing too fast, to flesh out these computer issues.
Dave:"I'm going around." HAL: "I can't do that, Dave."
What you said at the end rang true with me. In was mulling over our over dependence on automation during the video and I do think it’s a wonderful thing.. as long as we always keep the basics and are aware of how we can still remain connected enough with our aircraft, with the world, so that hopefully things like this can be avoided. I am no expert but that is something I have noticed. There is a degree of connectivity that needs to remain in the pilots domain to avoid or overcome as many situations like this as possible.
I like these breakdowns a lot!
That pilot didn't ...
Seems like they have some problems with 5th gen fighters crashing down there at Eglin
@@dohabandit Also a major base for procurement and testing of new weapons systems. So yeah, to your point, there's a reason why Eglin's numbers would be higher than average.
Fail to succeed, works for SpaceX , usually commies complain about expense , since their “hero’s “ prefer to steal it rather than research and innovate, without truly achieving an improved design
Interesting AIBR review. Thank you for explaining it so well. You are very respectful of the pilot. I enjoy learning something new every day.
Low time in ACFT. Negative learning. Seen the same before many years ago on a class A with fatality. Low 30/60/90 day flight hour totals. Fatigue. Use of HMD as a primary flight instrument. Problems with HMD. Little night time. No AoA/Airspeed cross check...Scan breakdown...Land fast...yes those 1000 ft markers go by pretty fast at 202kts. Uggh... Certainly a cascade of failures that got him on deck at 202kts. Then PIO and FCS computer mismatch failure, uggh 2. Fly by wire control laws I hope are updated based on this incident. And canopy particles in skin and eye with ejection at 202 kts? Wow. I'd certainly hope they are looking at the ejection system...And I agree...a lot of LL. And OBOGS---I'm NOT A FAN. I may not like having to maintain the LOX system but I sure didn't have these issues in my day with fatigue and some of the physiological issues they seem to be having with OBOGS! (Retired F-14A RIO).
Last-I've studied my fair share of mishaps as a former safety officer and I've had enough close calls myself to recognize that I would not be surprised if this person is still flying...hard to throw stones as we've either been there or dodged (by the grace of god and luck) something similar sometime in our careers if you fly enough in combat aircraft.
having only slept 4 hours the previous night and flying a jet? Could he take himself off the flight schedule?
I was working the line when this jet came down, none of us waiting to recover our jets coming back saw the pilot ejection, so we all had a sigh of relief when we were told he was alright
If you can walk away from a landing, it's a good landing. If you use the airplane the next day, it's an outstanding landing.
-Chuck Yeager
Mr. Yeager couldn’t of said it any better. And he’d know best of this.
Except when he's landing a T-6 Texan.
Yeager is a badass!
5053 used to be our jet in Nellis AFB. thats crazy...
Aircraft can be replaced - Pilots can’t!! Glad he “walked away” safely
Your measured view on this is commendable. Thank you.
Love your reports, CW, and your additional comments and thoughts and explanations for those of us who never flew a jet fighter. Thanks much!
Glad I watched this. If my teammates and I are ever tasked with a F-35 VR simulator like some of the others we are doing for the USAF I would want to be able to replicate this setup in it.
Really surprised there wasn’t some kind of config warning once he got to minimums, secondly, somewhat worrying that 3 seconds of full aft stick wasn’t long enough for the FCS to get the idea and give the pilot some form of control. If the FCS had behaved he probably would have been able to get airborne again and come back around for another try.
More lines of code for that jets computers left to be done
This is exactly why I signed up for infantry.
When I met the fighter pilot pastor and started playing at his church, I was so excited.
Then he told me they were getting the F-35 here at the unit, replacing the F-15. And my enthusiasm faded a little lol. Thinking of stuff like this.
Still excited to fly, though
With less then 200 hrs in a new jet for him, there may be the the factor that he 'automatically' fell back into habits from the F-15E when his confusion levels rose....including no 2nd crewmember to task manage with.
Great job Mover... you explain these investigations absolutely brilliantly...by far one of the best aviation investigator explainer on the internet and even several NTSB investigations Ive sat in on...this explains why youre books are awesome!
Ive been looking for the small model jets for you to use and demonstrate the aircrafts position during these investigations but cant find any decent size F14, 15, 16,18, or 22 models... any chance if you have any laying around, are you can use them in these investigations explinations for the others who are unsure of aircraft positioning during incident etc etc?
Keep up awesome work!
Cheers
Frank 🇦🇺
I was actually driving on Okaloosa island/HWY.98E omw to work from Fort Walton Beach to Miramar Beach in Walton County and saw the fireball across the bay. Knew immediately it was bad news and assumed it was either a flight line related explosion or an aircraft crashing. I have been part of many in flight emergencies on the ground as a security policeman back in the 90's, but have never witnessed an actual crash/explosion before. Nose gear failure on two A-10's at Osan A.B. Korea, but never a full out crash.
I fully appreciate all the contributing factors that led to the pilot touching down fast and in the wrong flight control system mode. This is a classic Swiss cheese accident scenario and the flight control system weirding out at the end of it was the cherry on top of the sundae. Let’s talk about why the FCS didn’t keep the airplane flying.
The F-35 is unstable by design so it is not possible to turn the flight control system off. Therefore, it is the responsibility of the FCS designers to accommodate all possible faults that can occur and keep the aircraft under control. Based on the simulator not behaving like the aircraft, I would suggest that the simulator does not have a correct model of the landing gear dynamics and therefore the FCS design team may not have ever seen the PIO during the FCS development. When the aircraft bounced it was configured improperly, not in PA mode, and that probably means the flight control laws and gains were not proper at touchdown. Typically, in PA mode when an aircraft touches down, weight on wheels switches inform the flight control system which, in turn, may set the gain on the pitch integration error to zero. If you don’t zero that gain, the control surface will eventually go full up or down and get stuck there. We can’t tell from the accident report, but Lockheed knows, whether the integrator error not being turned off because of PA mode not being selected contributed to FCS holding the elevator trailing edge down. In any case, the Lockheed’s FCS development simulator should be upgraded to include a correct landing gear simulation and accident behavior should be duplicated. Only then can a practical FCS fix can be developed. But remember this is a fix not for an FCS error, but for a pilot error that was induced by a bunch of constructing conditions.
Please don’t compare this incident to MCAS. In this case the pilot operated the aircraft improperly. In the case of MCAS, Boeing fielded a flight control system that could crash an aircraft being operated correctly by the crew in the event of a single point failure of an angle of attack probe.
Pilot: Land the plane HAL!
Plane: I cant do that Dave.
I've heard stories of Vietnam era pilots turning things off because it was more distracting than helpful. Does this happen now? Isn't there a certain amount of pilot preference in what they choose to use in the aircraft?
Excellent review sir! Very informative and fair - you're experiences do much to clarify some of the jargon and issues which we non-pilots might have otherwise struggled with. I always enjoy listening to your accident reviews. Thanks! Stay well!
While the pilot did make mistakes such as overreliance on automation and failure to check basic numbers such as AoA and air speed, I think his attempt to recover from a bad landing when all the confusion is going on is quite remarkable. He first tried to compensate for the oscillation, and when that didn't work he quickly switched to hitting the burners to bring the plane back up again, which I think is a very good call.
You said exactly what I was thinking half way through, Go Arounds are always free. On approach at night and something seems janky with the HMD, should have been an instant go around and troubleshoot up and away. It may be the fact that I only fly with DT, but that mind set is ingrained in our squadron.
I fully agree with you, automation has gone too far. It is good that some automation has arrived, but what happened to normal airmanship ? I understand times have changed since I flew during the cold war, but to change to the point that someone cannot function anymore if his mission is changed is beyond ridiculous. And then to have a plane which does not even allow you to use your basic flying skills is even more ridiculous. Having aids on board is nice, can be helpful, but they should never become the objective. When performing the mission these aids are perfect if they can reduce the work load and make you more effective. But when you have to land the plane, there should be a switch with which you can simply switch them all off and revert back to what you are trained for: to be a pilot, meaning you flying the jet instead of the jet flying you.
Thou shall not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind.
Like John below I really enjoy these, the "inside baseball" commentary is super interesting. Not to mention a break from politics. I'm kind of stunned about the "oversaturation" condition on the flight control computer. any real time operating system will have priorities set to favor control inputs over other less time critical commands. sounds like a 1201 alarm that they got on the moon landing. Your comments about the MCAS are exactly right. Pilot was saturated by inputs and over complication of the software contributed to the mishap. I am glad he got out and is more or less OK. Thank you Mover !
Maybe it's the Software Engineer in me, but it seems like the software greatly exacerbated the issues with this situation. There is ZERO excuse for a FCS to be "Over-Saturated" in a 200 million dollar fighter jet at the most critical point of flight. Likewise if the FCS happens to be Over-Saturated the inputs from the PILOT should be given higher priority than to be ignored or dampened. Likewise the $400k helmet can't auto-dim, or even manually dim when necessary?
Why do you peopleckeepvsaying its 200M its not !
this is one of my favorite kind of videos on this channel
We have been here before. When Armstrong landed on the moon, program 062 was to help land. Don’t quote me on the exact number. But they kept getting interrupted by a reset error. Turns out buzz had a monitor program running to display flight attitudes. This program kept forcing a hard reset during landing. Never came up in the sim. Turns out a faulty input from a radar was overwhelming the CPU. Workaround was to turn the monitor program off. Later on, they turned the radar off during decent.
A "minor physiological event" might be the greatest description of dropping a deuce ever.
As a former military helicopter pilot myself, I certainly understand how you can get disoriented at night and when tired. The whole helmet issue would be overwhelming and disorienting and I bet that had more to do with it than anything else. I recall that when one of our test pilots was flying the ARH Tiger (the Australian Army) over open fields and he managed to get so disoriented with the helmet displays that he actually flew the helicopter into the ground at night and destroyed the aircraft. He hit the ground at such a shallow angle that neither of the pilots were badly injured, but they had no idea they were flying along in a shallow decent until they hit the field, bounced and sheered off the tail boom and shredded the main rotors.
Really, really good coverage of this. Thank you! Very glad the pilot was able to punch out and fly again. I'm a pilot, little planes, and fully expected this to be simple 'pilot error' for the first third of the video. But you brought up some really good points. I can't imagine being on final at night and having what's supposed to be my primary set of instruments blinding me with green light, going 200 knots with a guy behind me in the pattern. So I'll summarize what I caught from this: guy's display is blinded and completely out of alignment. without looking at the numbers - and maybe he couldn't see it - 200 knots probably looks a lot like 150 knots. He'd flown that fast before in the sim, and it worked. The plane has flight modes that the pilots were never aware of. That means he's a test pilot, and doesn't know it. So as the FAA would say, a chain of events led to this. Crazy stuff. Spot on, on double checking speeds and angles (or altitude). Not knowing anything about the plane, I'd be tempted to fly a visual landing, but I don't even know if that's possible in that plane.
Can you put all of crash analysis videos on a playlist, so they are much easier to find? Same with your cockpit video analysis videos.
Excellent work sir. Sounds like the F-35 isn’t as easy to fly as some would lead you to believe. So glad the pilot is ok & back flying. Thanks for sharing 👍🏻👍🏻🙃🙃
Waiting for that F22 AIB to release
Looks like the simulator needs a major update.
The pilot had not flown a lot IRL recently, what had he done instead? Trained with simulator?
If > 200 kts landings are not punished in simulator it is easy to learn a bad habit...
I wonder if the simulator simulates the computer oversaturation problem.
I wonder if aircraft testing included 202 knot landings with shallow AOA. I.E. with testing, expand the flight envelope AND the landing envelope even if the pilot is never supposed to land at 202 knots.
19:28 'The Computer was over saturated with inputs and shut down.'
Part of me wonders if there was the Windows error box tone.
*F-35A has stopped working*
A problem cause the aircraft to stop working correctly.
Lockheed will ignore the problem and notify noone if a solution is available.
[EJECT PILOT]
BSOD........Error code 0x000.........
@@1FatLittleMonkey 🤣🤣🤣
"A team of highly trained monkeys are has been dispatched to deal with the situation."
Gives a whole new meaning to "Blue screen of death"!
Just found your channel. This breakdowns are so informative and balanced. Could watch for hours. Will be ordering your book soon!
Great thing that the pilot survived and nobody else got hurt, back in June F15 went down of UK's coast, unfortunately in this case it ended up in tragedy...Lets hope that lessons will be learned
202 KCAS and +5 deg AOA sounds like my first attempts at landing in DCS. Glad the pilot is okay, though.
I love these, I don't know why people don't like them because you get to learn from someone else mistake.
On the heels of the “children of the magenta line” comment, I wonder how many software engineers at Lockheed (or Boeing, or NG, or...) have any flight experience. I wonder if control software would be written differently if they had to occupy a pilot’s helmet on a go-around. Glad no one died in this one. Happy Thanksgiving.
The old adage "it's generally a series of events that leads to most accidents" is nowhere truer than this accident. When there's a helmet fire, go back to basics airspeed/attitude. Etc..... .I feel for this pilot. As you say "any given Sunday"
Another dandy C-dubs!
I started my flying in gliders over Boulder, Colorado. I have been told by more than a few Instructors that gliders pilots are no fun when they throw distractions like shortened approaches, power failure either powerplant or electrical. That's because I never stray very far from absolute flight and contr basics. As a brief career CFII/CFIIG, my most frequent instructions were to master the instruments and logic registers in glass cockpits, and then GET THEIR HEADS AND EYES OUTSIDE!!!!. I am glad your Eglin F-35 mishaps is still with us.
Hal tried to punch him thru the canopy. Thank God he got out at all
So glad the pilot is ok and still flying! Lots of good lessons, Happy Thanksgiving!
Is there a way to just flip up your HMD and rely on the HUD? Nevermind
There is no HUD
Love the intro and outro for your videos!
Thanks for linking to the report
seems like he just needed an auditory alarm that he was not in the proper throttle mode for landing?
@Krister Lagerström Or if a certain autopilot mode or some kind of switchology setup is prohibited or unsafe (and it's actually pointed out in the manual) there should really be a configuration warning.
It is really broken in this regard. The fact it also did not warn the pilot it was overriding inputs is a big nono to me too.
@Krister Lagerström if I were to get my hands on that source code I grantee you I could still find some refence to a system like that in a comment or even commented out coded that did it that was dropped because It didn't work for what ever reason
@Krister Lagerström solutions often cause more problems than they fix. I am sure it will be done now and I am also sure that they trjed in the past and gave up on because it was on the nice to have list and not the this is essential to make it work list.
I wonder if the system would have reacted the same in a zero flaps configuration with gear down.
Litteraly 2 crashes in 3 days, I live close to eglin and I used to go out to there all the time and ride around the base with my dad
Glad pilot is safe. Hopefully there are some good lessons learned from this. Enjoy the breakdowns, great job Mover.
is there any plane with a touch down speed of 200 kts ?
The lesson should be the pilot should always be able to over ride the automation.
And he should have a WSO in the back to tell him to do so!
Very interesting anaylsis.
>Spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to train a pilot
>Spend hundreds of millions of dollars to make the aircraft
>Put pilot in aircraft
>Let aircraft decide to suddenly not let the pilot do pilot things
...Brilliant
"It's not designed to land at 202kts". Correct Mover .
I'd have worded that "It's not an F-104"...
That was terrifying...I had two roommates that were on the apron when that 35 crashed... the first thing they heard was his wingman go into AB and curve off and then in a split second heard the crash and saw a big ball of fire....that whole night, they worried they just watched a pilot die on the runway....scary stuff.
The same happened to me when a 22 went belly sliding down a runway...we didn't know if they were okay till 2 days later. As maintenance, all that went through our heads were "f**k, did we work on that aircraft? was this our fault?" Maintenance is just as involved in aircraft incidences as pilots or Ops. Everyone gets questioned and drug tested immediately, and all most of us hope for is that one of us didn't kill a pilot...
I am not a subject matter expert, the following is my personal opinion as an aviation enthusiast:
MP could have died as a result of the oscillations and lack of control. I wish the board opinion summary had identified the flawed fly-by-wire software response as the primary cause of the accident. MPs mistake to initiate the oscillation by bumping off the runway is - in my opinion, without knowledge of aircraft characteristics - not sufficient to cause the total destruction of the aircraft moments later; and, had the onboard software allowed the pilot to do so, I am sure he would have recovered from the oscillation and initiated go-around, saving the aircraft and preserving his physical wellbeing.
Furthermore, a simple OVERSPEED warning when the gear is out would likely have prevented the accident altogether.
Does anyone agree?
THE GUY WHO CRASHED LIVES IN MY NEIGHBOURHOOD NO JOKE
im friends with this guys kids
Fatigue can also be a result of not being adjusted after switching to a new aircraft. When you have allot of practice doing one job, many processes become automatic and this results in much less fatigue.
The cost of an F-35 is CHEAP compared to a life. So glad the pilot survived and glad he's still flying. As a lifelong software developer and a private pilot, this is exactly what bothers me about fly-by-wire airplanes--inputs to the computer being in ranges not accounted for by the software developers. In this case it was because the pilot did something the developers didn't account for and other times (737 max) it could be from erroneous inputs from a sensor. I can test software for days and find nothing wrong with it and then turn it over to a user and they will break it in 5 minutes...Fortunately for me, when I have a bug in my code, $135 million airplanes don't crash and people don't die.
Thank you for your explanation of F35 systems ! Glad he’s safe !
In instrument training you learn an unstable approach if not immediately corrected requires a go around
When your Simulator has more computing power then your actual jet and you cant even reproduce the misshap...
That is exactly why the sim could NOT duplicate the error. The report stated the aircraft FCS reached a 'saturation' of inputs (processor probably too small) and delayed the pilots input from being accomplished. The sim could not duplicate this because the sim never reached 'saturation' to slow down its processing. IF (a BIG word) the plane had actually done what the pilot finally commanded, immediately, it might have averted this crash completely. The pilot 'aft sticked' and slammed the throttles to full (the right thing at that time to do). This SHOULD have popped him up and away to retry after he sorted out his Helmet Display problems. Sadly, the processor was running slow (saturation) and did NOT follow the pilot commands. I sincerely hope the Navy is looking at this processor slow-down problem! Mainly because that is exactly what a pilot HAS to do immediately, when he misses the arrestor wires - or he and his plane are going swimming!
@@Doc_Dolan Not so sure about it being processing power saturation. More like Integrator saturation, or Integrator Windup as we call it in control systems.
@@NarutokunJB Got it. Thank you. I have been out of the field for about 14 years now ... I know a lifetime in computer science ... and that was what popped into my head right away. Either way ... seems like that should be preventable, no?
@@Doc_Dolan I would think so. I think this is one of those things where they never really considered all possibilities to account for it, that in hindsight it should have been obvious, but as they say hindsight is always 20/20.
First thing good that the pilot walked away! I find it concerning that there is so much automation reference some of the H.A.L 2001 comments below. Also the test pilot not knowing about the system should also be of a concern. I hope Lockheed Martin looks at this incident very closely! We don't need a MAX military incident. You have a safe and happy Thanksgiving.
Will you be doing the AIB Report on the fatal F-15C crash in the North Sea in June this year? They just released the report this week I believe. Its a tragic crash and a hard reminder of how dangerous the job actually is.
a really good reminder and a really great review. thanks very much for this.
Oh man, that use of the Toy Story clip was amazing hahaha