With a boom and sparks, this $60 million Navy jet’s aircraft carrier landing unraveled in seconds

• Earlier this year, a critical system failed when a fighter jet landed on an aircraft carrier.

• The $60 million F/A-18 fell from the deck of the USS Harry S. Truman into the Red Sea.

• A new Navy investigation shows how the landing collapsed in a short period of time.

As the fighter jet landed on the aircraft carrier, a key part of the landing system exploded, traveling through the cabin, hitting the equipment the sailor had been sitting on, and spinning onto the deck “like a Tasmanian devil.”

“Something bad just happened,” one of the sailors in the room said as he ran to get help. Another sailor who narrowly avoided disaster suffered minor injuries and had his headphones ripped off during the incident.

One of the arrester cables (the tensioned steel wires to which U.S. Navy fighter jets hang when landing at sea) broke as key machinery that absorbs the force of a landing aircraft disintegrated below the flight deck. The malfunction destabilized the F/A-18 Super Hornet that had just landed.

Asymmetrical forces push the aircraft off-center. With no chance to resume flight, the pilot ejected as the aircraft ejected from the deck into the sea. Everything unfolds within seconds.

A new Navy investigation into the disastrous landing, reviewed by Business Insider ahead of Thursday’s release, highlights how quickly routine operations on an aircraft carrier can go horribly wrong.

The May 6 incident, which injured two Navy pilots, was the second Super Hornet loss in as many days and the third during the USS Harry S. Truman’s deployment to the Middle East.

The command’s investigation into the costly accident detailed how one of the carrier’s arresting wires failed to stop the fighter, which left a trail of sparks and flames as it flipped off the flight deck and crashed into the Red Sea.

Rear Adm. Sean Bailey, commander of the U.S. Navy’s Carrier Strike Group Eight, which leads the Truman, told the inquiry that the loss of the $60 million fighter jet was “entirely avoidable.”

a rough landing

The Truman and its strike group lead naval operations in the Red Sea against the Houthis. The Houthis are an Iran-backed rebel group in Yemen that have been attacking key shipping lanes in the Middle East.

The pace of flight operations has accelerated, with the aircraft carrier taking off and landing dozens of aircraft every day.

For aircraft rescues, Nimitz-class carriers like the Truman typically have four arresting wires taut on the flight deck to catch the tailhook of a landing aircraft and instantly slow it down.

When two F/A-18Fs landed that night on May 6, everything seemed normal until the aircraft hung up the arresting wires.

Sailors on the arresting gear heard what sounded like an explosion, parts flying around the cabin, and on the deck, sparks shooting from the jet, followed by flames.

It was dark and the air supervisor and landing signal officer overseeing flight operations did not realize that the cable had separated and believed that the fighter’s engine had ingested foreign object debris.

The aircraft banked to the left as it moved along the landing zone. “Power!” the leading LSO called. “Spinning, climbing!” The fighter jet was flying too fast to stop, but not fast enough to take off. A backup LSO realized the aircraft was not climbing and made a call.

“Pop, pop, pop!” the officer shouted.

The plane rolled first and then banked at a 90-degree angle. Moments later, it crashed into the Red Sea.

One minute after the aircraft first touched the deck, the “man overboard” alarm sounded. Amid the chaos, sailors on the flight deck did not see any parachutes deploy after the cockpit ejected, but minutes later they saw two pilots using flashlights in the water 100 yards away.

Twenty minutes later, a rescue helicopter and swimmers arrived and rescued them. The pilot suffered minor injuries.

“The tipping point of failure”

A command investigation blamed the accident on a variety of factors, including the ship’s high operating tempo, insufficient personnel and errors by the arresting gear operator, who ensured the system was ready to counteract the momentum of the landing aircraft.

According to the investigation, “the primary cause of the sequence of events leading to the accident” was insufficient maintenance of the brake system components, the pulley damper crosshead and clevis pin.

The investigation report stated that the root cause was “material failure of the U-shaped pin.” The pin is missing a washer, a small part that helps hold the system in place. This maintenance oversight resulted in one jet falling into the water and two pilots falling overboard.

The investigation said the mechanism may have been loose for some time before the accident. Missing washers can allow the pins in the arrester to loosen and shear, eventually causing the internal parts in the arrester to separate and the arrestor cable to break.

The investigation found that sailors throughout the ship were poorly trained and that a maintenance support sailor who was supposed to inspect the arresting cable and its mechanism did not do a thorough inspection.

Truman’s leadership at all levels “led to a decline in standards in the Air Force department’s aircraft launch and recovery equipment maintenance program, ultimately leading to critical failure points,” Vice Adm. John Gambleton, acting commander of Fleet Forces Command, wrote in a letter accompanying the investigation.

The May 6 incident was the fourth major mishap suffered by the Truman and other ships in its strike group during its months-long operational deployment to the Middle East.

In December, the cruiser USS Gettysburg mistakenly shot down one of Truman’s F/A-18s. A few months later, in February, the carrier collided with a merchant ship. In April, just a week before the arresting cable incident, a fighter jet and a tractor fell into the water as the carrier turned violently to avoid Houthi missile fire.

Read the original article on Business Insider