C-130 crash crew had no warning of terrain

The Norwegian C-130J that crashed into Kebnakaise mountain in March of last year had no warning of the terrain ahead of them at impact with the mountain. Five crew members were on board at the time, all were killed in the impact.

The terrain system had no database, as they were above 60 degrees N latitude. The system had been set to warn the crew at 200 feet, instead of the 1500 that would have been required, and was operating in Tactical Mode, which gives a very degraded picture of the terrain in front of them.

They had been cleared to 7,000 feet, and had leveled off at that altitude just before impact with the mountain. Investigators say that the crew failed to check the minimum safe altitude for the area, but was also not made aware that the initial descent took them out of controlled airspace.

www.flightglobal.com...

How unfortunate, seems like there was a mistake on the pilots part and the C-130's. I live near a base that has a few C-130s that pracice all the time around here, many mountains and other crazy terrain. Sometimes those C-130's really fly very low, and bank hard when turning. cool to watch, still enjoy watching the local A-10s personally though, now those A-10s can turn on a dime. beautiful to watch

reply to post by Glassbender777


If they had set the terrain system for 1500 feet, or even 2000 feet, then they may have avoided the mountain. But with the system set at 200 feet, there was no way they could have avoided the mountain.

There are some videos out there, with the new GoPro camera, where pilots will film their low levels from in the cockpit. Those are fun to watch.

I actually got buzzed by an F-18 (couldn't tell if it was an F/A or an E/A, he went by so fast), doing a low level down a river in Washington recently. Scared the crap out of me. I saw it out of the corner of my eye as I went across the bridge, and thought it was a bird, looked over, and realized what it was. He couldn't have been higher than about 3-400 feet when he went over the top of me, and cleared the ridge.

reply to post by Zaphod58


What a shame.
I am in awe of all those Jumbo jets...they fly so low and slow near my local airport, it seems to go against physics. It's funny how all these tech advances are replacing our own eyes and judgement...is it failsafe...hell no.

reply to post by Zaphod58


Do you know what river it was? F18's probably came out of Whidbey NAS.
I've been buzzed numerous times by F14's, A6's and even B52's in the Cascade mts. and in Eastern WA. just a couple hundred feet overhead.

Here is my favorite F18 GoPro vid taken from Whidbey Is.
www.youtube.com...

reply to post by Sammamishman


It was on that bridge in The Gorge. The one that's barely off the water. It almost had to be from Whidby.

That's an E-18 actually. You can tell by the missile rails.

VFR?>>>IFR?>>>VFR?>>>IFR?

reply to post by Zaphod58


I was lucky enough to ride along on a low level trainer on a C-130 over Sierra Vista AZ. It was better than any ride I have ever been on. Even looking through the port hole window with my arms interwoven with the red jump seat straps. We broke on the way and had to spend an extra day in St. Joe Missouri, so the pilots had to take us along. Nobody chunked, so good flight all around.

This flight crew must have had no visibility. That would suck badly. It sounds like the Nav was not good at his job. Sad to see any plane go down, but there is a special place in my heart for this airframe. It's the greatest multi-use plane ever. (IMHO)

reply to post by network dude


I always have liked them too. Had some great crews come through on them. They're slow, noisy as hell, and take a beating doing low level and ask for more.

reply to post by Zaphod58


Yes, E18...that's what I meant. My bad. I like the paint scheme on the aggressor F18 toward the end of the vid.

reply to post by Zaphod58


Taking a beating is right..... WC-130 Hurricane Hunter.

If I'm reading that right, and especially the last paragraph of the story...this was as much or more the fault of the Air Traffic Control system as it was the Pilots?

That would mean at least half of what caused this to happen can be addressed and fixed, or can it? Was this an impossible situation for ATC due to terrain for radar coverage? (I noticed it said the C-130 was outside th radar view of ATC at that stage of their flight).

So ..not to be the LEAST bit light about what happened here, was this a literal case of the blind leading the blind right into an obstacle?

reply to post by Sammamishman


We had one come back from Hurricane Iniki, in 1991, with one engine shut down, three overheating, and one of their wire HF antennas wrapped around the prop of the shut down engine. And all that was before you got to the missing paint and barf bags.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


I don't think ATC tracks planes under 2000 feet. I could be wrong. The Navigator is in charge of terrain obstacles. It sounds like he was in-experienced, or just failed to do his job properly. The DFDR and CVR will tell the story.

reply to post by Zaphod58


How is that possible with a C-130?
Those are like the hurricane hunters, right? [gobs of instumentation]
Curious...

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


At least some fault definitely falls on ATC for not reminding them of minimums or that they were out of coverage. Primary fault lies on the crew for having the terrain system set wrong, and not briefing the area properly. It sounds like they had a case of getdownitis.

reply to post by palmalBlue2


Not gobs no, but the terrain avoidance system was in the wrong mode, and set too low.

Seems a lot of crashes can be attributed to pushing or lack of pushing buttons on the electronics, maybe an over reliance on technology? To me electronics are only as good or bad as the human entering the data. Its a shame the crew had to die due a simple entry or missed setting on terrain avoidance gear.

Assuming an earlier low level part of mission dictated settings - is there not procedure or checklist to reset back to normal parameters?

Correct me if I'm wrong here but is it not the navigators job to at all times know where the A/C is and type of terrain coming up, advising flight crew on hazards, otherwise why are they even onboard.

Phoenix
Seems a lot of crashes can be attributed to pushing or lack of pushing buttons on the electronics, maybe an over reliance on technology? To me electronics are only as good or bad as the human entering the data. Its a shame the crew had to die due a simple entry or missed setting on terrain avoidance gear.

And without the technology, crews die due to forgetting to look at charts or getting lost.

reply to post by Phoenix


This particular flight was a ferry to pick troops up at the base they were heading into. There were enough mistakes made to go around on this flight.