Navy recovers C-2A

The US Navy announced that a team of divers, working from a salvage ship, has recovered the wreckage of a C-2A Greyhound that crashed in 2017 while on approach to the USS Ronald Reagan in the Philippine Sea. The pilot and two others were declared missing and presumed dead after the crash. Eight others survived.

The aircraft was found and recovered from 18,500 feet of water. It's the deepest salvage of an aircraft to date. It required specialized equipment as the Navy salvage units in Japan can only recover from 16,000 feet.

news.usni.org...

a reply to: Zaphod58

Still baffles my mind that such a thing can be done. But I guess if you have the budget that we have almost nothing is impossible.
Pretty cool man. That is a big plane if ya ask me.
Did they find the remains of the fallen in this endeavor? That is my biggest concern as the families have a right to know.

a reply to: Allaroundyou

The families were briefed on the recovery, but there's been no official comment on any remains yet.

a reply to: Zaphod58

This aircraft is a reconnaissance plane and also used for search and recovery I believe.
So was this particular one used as some may say a spy plane? And did the navy pull the craft up from the sea bed?
Or is this something we as peasants are not privy to?

a reply to: Allaroundyou

The C-2A and E-2 family use the same basic fuselage, but the C-2 is used as the Carrier Onboard Delivery aircraft. They fly people and cargo to and from the carrier when they're close to shore. The E-2 is used as the onboard AEW aircraft and performs the same mission as the Air Force AWACS aircraft.

a reply to: Allaroundyou


The C-2 gets a lot of work putting eyeballs on neighboring ships and photographing them, but it's not a reconnaissance aircraft. Human eyeballs are the only onboard sensor for search and rescue, but it gets tasked to help with that occasionally. I've heard they've tried trailing a long wire antenna out the back with some specific ELINT gear on a pallet, but I don't think that is a common (or current?) occurrence, and the Super Fudd is the go-to for ELINT and it already has the giant antenna and recently got an update to its already potent capability in this regard.

a reply to: RadioRobert

Since when? The C-2 is a cargo plane.

That's a really cool achievement (obviously it would be nice if it wasn't necessary). What a feat of engineering.

a reply to: face23785

If you have the capability to recover a C-2 in over 18,000 feet of water, there's quite a few other things that you can use it for. Makes for a good training mission.

a reply to: JIMC5499

Which part? They've been sending them out to do busy work to get them off deck for a long, long time. Perhaps it isn't as common now because the carrier air wing is so much smaller generally, putting them in the hangar deck is less likely to be in the way. But in the days that space was at a premium, with 9 or 10 squadrons and 75-85 aircraft deployed asea they got flight hours just to be rid of them. You can put them into a racetrack pattern somewhere or you can send them off to take pictures of the ships nearby. The only "sensors" are the weather radar and eyeballs. It is not a reconnaissance plane, as I stated.
Same for search and rescue. It simply has the legs and endurance to go look, which not everything on deck has. It is occasionally so tasked in support of search and rescue away from the group because it is generally available and has nothing better to do other than take up deck space or bore holes in the sky, unlike some other platforms on deck.

As for the story about trailing an aerial from a specialized pallet, it's just scuttlebutt about a specific instrument/system that I have heard, and given the context I have no reason to doubt. As with any such story, ymmv.

originally posted by: JIMC5499
a reply to: face23785

If you have the capability to recover a C-2 in over 18,000 feet of water, there's quite a few other things that you can use it for. Makes for a good training mission.

True, but it also makes me wonder what, if anything, was onboard that they decided to dredge it back up. Think of all the planes pushed over the side they've never made any attempt at retrieving.

Impressive feat recovering at the depth, regardless of the whys.

originally posted by: RadioRobert

originally posted by: JIMC5499
a reply to: face23785

If you have the capability to recover a C-2 in over 18,000 feet of water, there's quite a few other things that you can use it for. Makes for a good training mission.

True, but it also makes me wonder what, if anything, was onboard that they decided to dredge it back up. Think of all the planes pushed over the side they've never made any attempt at retrieving.

Impressive feat recovering at the depth, regardless of the whys.

Training for the F-35 recovery?

a reply to: RadioRobert

Are you thinking of the E-2? The C-2's are not based on the carriers.
There's actually a shortage of them at the moment.

a reply to: JIMC5499


They still go to sea, detached to a CVW from the land-based VRC units for months on cruises. They have been used to support SAR efforts for decades. They have an open ramp capability in flight, which lets them drop boats and rafts, and they can go farther, faster, and stay longer than rotary-wing. (This also makes them attractive to operators, occasionally, though less so now with the Osprey's available).

Approximately 15 nautical miles from the carrier Password 33 passengers and crew reported a loud bang, followed by intense vibration, and acrid smoke filling the cockpit and cabin. The left spinner failed, initiating the chain of events that eventually put the aircraft into the water.

The pilots determined the left engine was the cause, and shut it down, but the vibration continued and the right engine began to lose torque. They attempted to restart the left engine to try to get to the carrier on one engine, but were unsuccessful. They then attempted to trade airspeed for altitude, but were unable to get above 1500 feet.

At one minute after the initial bang, the crew reported dual engine failure to the Reagan, and that they were going in the water. They were able to open ditching hatches in the top of the fuselage beforehand, but had very little time to set up the approach and ditching. The aircraft immediately filled with water, and was completely submerged in less than 4 minutes from the initial engine problem.

www.navytimes.com...

Opening the "ditching hatches" before hitting the water might have been the problem. The article says that they hit unexpectedly. That might have been nose first and the open hatches may have contributed to the rapid flooding.

a reply to: JIMC5499

That's what I was thinking too, but I can see their thought process too. Things were happening so fast.

a reply to: Zaphod58
Those things are bricks. Other than the crews, nobody gets water egress training. They should supply them with HEEDs (Helicopter Emergency Escape Device) bottles and chemlights. The E-2 guys as well. We had water egress training for everybody in the squadron. One of out CO's was big on everybody riding in the aircraft. He said "We are a Helicopter Squadron and this is what it is all about." Just after we got the HEEDs I was doing night jumps in the St. Johns river and jumped into a mud bar. It took a bit to work loose. Without the HEEDs I'd have been toast.

a reply to: JIMC5499

I remember getting a walkaround, and the guy saying they were shaped like a boat so if they went in the water they would take longer to sink. I had to try not to laugh. I agree completely on HEEDS though. Especially after this.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Yeah. They told us that our helicopter had a boat hull so that it could land in the water. They kind of played down how fast it would flip over if the rotor stopped.