C-130 down in Savannah-May 2018

a reply to: Zaphod58

thanks for the info. hate to see it happen, and seeing all the screw ups suck.

a reply to: Zaphod58


I hate to say it, a complete and total overhaul of enlisted and Officer leadership, coupled with a handful of top tier leadership that will back people that make the right call.

My promotion chances went through the floor by making the right call, so folks that want to make rank are making bad calls hoping the odds stay in their favor.

a reply to: Irishhaf

Back to the 80s it is. Jesus things were a mess then.

a reply to: Zaphod58

What do the 80's and now have in common? In both cases we are coming out of a period of Leftist Government rule that has neglected the military and has promoted people because of their beliefs and political views instead of their abilities.

Just found this on Fb.

The flight manual directs an aircrew facing an engine failure during takeoff to raise the landing gear while accelerating, and then, once the landing gear is up and the plane is at sufficient airspeed, retract flaps, and continue accelerating to a speed where the plane can climb with three engines. However, the report said a member of the aircrew incorrectly called for flaps to be retracted only seconds after becoming airborne, during the bank right and before the landing gear had been raised. Co-pilot 1st Lt. David Albandoz repeated the call for flap retraction. Rosado ordered the flaps to stay at 50 percent and told Albandoz to raise landing gear, but he never issued a follow-up order to retract the flaps, which would have been standard procedure. This would have reduced drag and allowed the aircraft to accelerate, giving the pilots more control. The faulty engine partially regained power, but soon lost significant thrust once again, at which point Rosado ordered the engine to be shut down, which followed proper procedures. Instead of continuing to accelerate to a three-engine climb speed, Rosado banked left, into the shut-down engine. This too was the opposite of what the flight manual directs in such a situation, the report said. The plane had enough airspeed to keep flying during the bank, the report said. But Rosado increasingly turned the rudder to the left, which he was not supposed to do, until the plane skidded. Its left wing lost lift and stalled and the plane crashed on a highway about 1.5 miles from the airport. The report said that Rosado also did not brief the crew on emergency action procedures during the pre-flight checklist, instead saying that “everything else remains the same,” indicating that what he said on a previous flight still applied. However, it is understood that pilots can only skip such briefings when the crew conducts multiple takeoffs or landings in the same day, and it had been several days since the crew flew and last heard those emergency action procedures. The report also cited a “breakdown in visual scan,” and said flight engineer Master Sgt. Mario Braña failed to recognize the loss of power to the engine and call for the takeoff to be aborted. The plane’s pilots and navigator, Maj. Carlos Pérez Serra, also failed to scan the recently maintained and problematic engine’s performance during takeoff, the report said. Rosado was an experienced pilot who had flown for nearly 14 years, had nearly 3,500 hours flying the C-130 and its variants, and was “regarded by many as the best pilot in the unit,” the report said. Also killed in the crash were mechanic Senior Master Sgt. Jan Paravisini, Master Sgt. Jean Audriffred, Master Sgt. Víctor Colón, loadmaster Master Sgt. Eric Circuns, and Senior Airman Roberto Espada. Maintenance problems and ‘culture of complacency’

I stopped at the truck stop in Wilcox, AZ today. As we were leaving, I saw a flatbed parked at the motel across the street, with aircraft parts in it. I thought it was pretty cool, until I looked through the camera lens, and saw PUERTO RICO across what was obviously a C-130 vertical fin. A closer look at what was there showed extensive damage to everything on the truck. Other than the vertical fin, the only other remotely recognizable piece was what appeared to be the end of the cargo ramp.

Everything left of the aircraft appeared to be on that 53' trailer. It was both sobering, and on another level, horrifying that an aircraft that size can be reduced to a single trailer of debris.