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AIR FORCE ADDS THE X-FILES
Although the Air Force had no entries on its aviation database specifically identified as ground accidents, it created another classification not used by the other services: "X's." Incidents identified with an X, excluded from official statistics, totaled 1,273 and accounted for $88.5 million in damages between October 1987 -- the month the Air Force started counting X cases -- and March 1998.
In the 1990s, X cases accounted for more than 10 percent of all flight incidents in the Air Force Safety Center database. Many of the X cases involve engine damage inflicted by so-called foreign-object damage -- a bird or some other object being sucked into an engine.
A spokeswomanhgetting name with the Air Force Safety Center said the service created the "X" category because the Department of Defense rule changes allowed some flexibility concerning foreign-object damage.
"There was no specific guidance on how to manage the change," she said.
Prior to the X designation, the spokeswoman said, incidents caused by foreign-object damage were calculated into the mishap rate, the one provided to the public and Congress.
On Dec. 13, 1997, a C-5 cargo plane was forced to land at Travis Air Force Base, Calif., when one of its engines was disabled after damage from birds, causing $1.2 million in damage. That same year, a baseball cap and an ear-protection headset were sucked into the engine of an F-15 at Rickenbacker International Airport near Columbus, causing an estimated $861,460 in damage.
Both cases were classified as X and not calculated in official mishap rates.
In addition to the X classification, the Air Force has two others not used by the other services: "non-rate producing" and "track only." Both identify accidents that the Air Force includes, or tracks, on its incident database but does not count in its official mishap rate.
One of the non-rate producing cases involved an experimental YF-22 fighter that crashed on April 25, 1992, at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif. The jet belonged to a command headquartered at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, and because the jet was experimental, the Air Force didn't count the accident in its rate.
Some of the track-only cases involved foreign aircraft or ones from other services, but 12 were Air Force aircraft. Eleven of those 12 cases were major accidents that resulted in the deaths of eight people, injuries to six others and damage totaling $129 million.
At least five of the 12 were linked to commands headquartered at Wright-Patterson. In one of those cases, an F-4 fighter crashed near Las Vegas on May 14, 1993, killing two civilian test pilots and causing at least $2.4 million in damage.
The fighter, which belonged to the Air Force Material Command at Wright-Pat, was on loan to a civilian company conducting tests for the military. The Air Force conducted an extensive investigation into the accident and the civilian NTSB did not count it in its database.
"I didn't know it wasn't counted as a Class A mishap," said Dave Levingston, spokesman for the Air Force Material Command at Wright Patterson. "That's interesting."
HELPS TO KEEP REPAIR COSTS LOW Accidents can also be excluded from official counts by simply keeping the cost estimate low. Accidents that do not result in a death, a permanent total disability or the destruction of an aircraft must generate at least $1 million in damages to be counted as a Class A accident or at least $200,000 to be counted as a Class B accident -- the two classes of accidents most closely monitored by the services.
NAVAL SAFETY CENTER
A MARINE CORPS HH-46D helicopter sustained extensive damage when it crashed into a swamp on private property in North Carolina on Dec. 28, 1994. The Navy estimated the damage at $933,714, or $66,286 from the $1 million threshold for a Class A accident |
"I know from experience that they work as hard as they can to get the cost of accidents down," said Don Delk, who retired recently after 22 years as a maintenance officer at Elmendorf Air Force Base, Alaska. "The safety people are more concerned with downgrading accidents than safety."
On March 19, 1990, an Elmendorf AFB F-15 was accidentally hit by an AIM-9M missile fired from another Air Force jet, causing extensive damage to the tail section and moderate damage to the left wing and engine exhaust.
The pilot, Lt. Col. Jimmy L. Harris, said he was sure the accident was going to be counted as a Class A. He was almost right.
The cost of repairing the aircraft was fixed at $992,058, or $7,942 short of being a Class A.
Delk said the accident easily could have been estimated at more than $1 million had the cost of the replacement tail been included, but the Air Force didn't charge itself for the tail because it came from another F-15 that had crashed earlier on a nearby mountainside.
"You know they tend to write things off when they're in-house," he said.
Maj. Gen. Francis C. Gideon, Jr., commander of the Air Force Safety Center at Kirtland Air Force Base, N.M., said he could not determine if the service calculated the cost of the F-15 tail in the repair cost.
On Nov. 20, 1989, less than three months after the Navy implemented the new $1 million threshold for Class A accidents, a Navy TA-4 collided with a civilian plane in Pensacola, Fla., resulting in what the Navy estimated as $985,090 in damages, or $14,910 short of the threshold.
The next day, Lt. Michael G. Brooks was flying an SH-2F helicopter when both engines failed and he was forced to crash land in the salt water of the James River, near Newport News, Va.
"It sat in the water for a couple of days," said Brooks, who now commands a Navy helicopter squadron in Florida. "That's the biggest thing: the salt water damage."
The Navy called the crash a Class A accident, but later downgraded it by lowering the repair cost to $995,271, or $4,729 from the threshold for a Class A accident.
But the repairs apparently were never made.
"I think they made a decision not to rebuild it," Brooks recalled.
Rear Admiral Dirren, Jr., commander of the U.S. Naval Safety Center, acknowledged that the helicopter likely never flew again. Although regulations require that accidents in which an aircraft is destroyed be classified as a Class A, he said, those rules don't apply if the service simply decides it is not cost-effective to make extensive repairs.
Labor often represents a significant portion of repair costs, and the military keeps repair cost low by calculating the cost of labor at $16 an hour.
John Lewis, technical expert for the Professional Aviation Maintenance Association, said repair costs for civilian planes range from $45 an hour for small, private planes to $2,000 an hour for large commercial airliners.
"You're right. The direct cost would seem to be more than $16 an hour," said Cmdr. Brooks, who recently completed a Navy course on accident investigations. "When you're figuring repair cost of an investigation, they told us it's $16 an hour. It's still $16 an hour."
Ron Hardin of Tulsa, Okla., said his company charges about $64 an hour to repair corporate jets.
Asked if he could repair jets for $16 an hour, he said: "No way. The mechanic gets paid that much."
"They (military jets) are at least as sophisticated as the civilian jets are, and in most cases, more complex than the civilian jets are," Hardin said.
The $16 rate has been used at least since the new Department of Defense regulations took effect in 1989. All three services use the rate, but Army officials insist they use the $16 rate less then half the time, only when actual costs cannot be determined.
On Dec. 28, 1994, a Marine Corps HH-46D helicopter sustained extensive damage when it crashed into a swamp on private property in North Carolina. The Navy estimated the damage at $933,714, or $66,286 from the threshold for a Class A accident.
That estimate was based on 9,118 hours of labor at $16 an hour. Raising the labor cost to $25 an hour would have put the total repair cost at more than $1 million, the threshold for a Class A accident.
Rear Admiral Dirren did not defend the $16-an-hour rate.
"You're paying more for your car (repairs). I'll tell you that," he said.
SOME ACCIDENTS NEVER COUNTED A number of accidents are not on any of the services' databases, and there is no way to find all the uncounted accidents because the NTSB didn't put them on its database either.
Army and Navy officials said they counted incidents involving aircraft on classified missions. Maj. Gen. Gideon said the Air Force does not, but he added that there have been only two such uncounted incidents during the past five years.
Twenty-six people died and at least $16 million worth of aircraft were lost on April 14, 1994, when two U.S. Air Force F-15 jets accidentally shot down two U.S. Army UH-60 Blackhawk helicopters over a no-fly zone in Iraq. The tragedy made headlines worldwide, but it did not appear on either the Army or the Air Force's records.
"This was not an Army aviation accident," the Army Safety Center wrote in a written response to the Dayton Daily News. "It was a friendly fire incident in which Air Force assets mistakenly fired upon the Army aircraft."
Had the Army counted the accident and the 26 deaths, it would have more than doubled the death toll that year, which was 16.
On May 9, 1996, a CH-53 helicopter earmarked for the White House fleet crashed in Connecticut, killing four civilian workers.
The Navy had already paid Sikorsky Aircraft for the helicopter. The Navy investigated the crash. The helicopter is primary used by the military. But the accident wasn't counted as a military accident.
"It was still being tested, and it crashed at their site," said Lt. Tom Dorwin of the Naval Safety Center in Norfolk, Va. "It ís not a Naval aircraft until it has undergone tests."
But it wasn't a civilian accident either. The NTSB didn't count it in its database.
Asked why the Navy investigated the accident at all instead of turning it over to NTSB, Dorwin said: "The government sustained a loss."
BOB CHILDS/ASSOCIATED PRESS
INVESTIGATORS GO OVER the crash scene after a CH-53 helicopter earmarked for the White House fleet crashed in Connecticut on May 9, 1996, killing four civilian workers. The accident wasn't counted as a military accident. |
Sidebars to Part 4:
ANATOMY OF A CRASH - PART 4
Witnesses watch flight's plunge
Both of the men in the A-6E Intruder were respected, experienced aviatorsCrash that transfixed nation left no trace in Air Force data
It was ruled a crime, not an accident
Part 5:
Contractors protected from suits
Victims have little chance to collect damages