T-45C crashes in Tennessee

A T-45C with an instructor and student has crashed near Tellico Plains, Tennessee. They had taken off from NAS Meridian in Mississippi, and it appears that neither crew member survived.

The T-45s just came off a five month grounding after serious problems with the oxygen system came to light. The aircraft have been modified with oxygen system monitors to help diagnose any problems with the system. They've had four events since returning to flight in August, and students are only allowed to fly in aircraft that have the upgraded monitoring system and water separator installed.

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a reply to: Zaphod58

Time to come up with a new training jet.

The Navy has confirmed that both crew members died in the crash.

a reply to: Zaphod58

FWIW, one of QinetiQ's Hawks just squawked 7700 over Thruxton.

Be interesting to see if its to do with the Oxy system....again..

a reply to: Blackfinger

Someone in the general area said he saw them low and fast prior to the crash. So it could have been an oxygen problem, or just a low level screw up they put them into the trees.

I'm just gonna leave this here. I don't have the words for this accident report.

www.navytimes.com...

a reply to: Zaphod58

"Top Gun" syndrome. Go for it, man!

So now what? How do you teach to not be an idiot?

a reply to: Phage

The first thing you do is make sure all your instructors really are.

a reply to: Zaphod58

I guess so.

Takes some serious top-down work to do that.

Heads will roll on this. You think?

a reply to: Phage

They damn well better. This is beyond one squadron and they're damn lucky it hasn't happened more.

a reply to: Zaphod58

That accident stat study you brought up before. Any correlation?

a reply to: Phage

No. Not that I can see.

“This mishap resulted from individual pilot error, a culture within VT-7 and Chief of Naval Air Training at large, which fostered [instructor pilots] and [student naval aviators] flying their aircraft beyond the bounds of approved Naval Air Training Command curriculum,” Rear Adm. James Bynum, who commands all pilot training in the Navy, wrote in the report’s executive summary on April 9.

I’m glad the instructors, and apparently a good number of pilots, take those chances and shun the rules on occasion.

A $20+ million dollar rig needs to be juiced until it’s dry...and the pilots need to know its limitations first hand - screw the SOP and approved curriculum.

One day I'll do a write up about how the Navy came this close to dropping the T-45 TPS got its hands on the first dozen or so airframes, and why they considered a new competition.

Almost did it after a discussion on how "easy" converting aircraft to carrier capable was.

Obviously not a factor in this particular incident.