Official statistics mask
actual number of crashes
Even deadly accidents may not be counted
|
©1999 Dayton Daily News
Two pilots were killed and a $2.3 million aircraft was lost when an F
4G fighter belonging to the Air Force Material Command at Wright
Patterson Air Force Base crashed near Las Vegas on May 14, 1993.
Footage of the burning jet topped the evening news in Las Vegas, but the crash wasn't included in the official Air Force accident rate that year.
A Sept. 9, 1996, accident in Orlando, Fla., destroyed a $2.8 million military helicopter assigned to the White House.
These are among hundreds of aviation incidents since 1980 that the armed services did not calculate in official accident rates, statistics used by Congress and the public to assess military aviation safety.
An 18-month Dayton Daily News examination found that among those not counted were at least 282 Class A and B accidents -- the type watched most closely by Congress -- that killed at least 78 people and injured another 130.
And several times during the past 10 years, as the military boasted that its aviation accident rate had declined, the number of accidents omitted from official statistics grew. The percentage of accidents not counted increased from 5.6 percent of total accidents in 1990 to 23 percent in 1997 -- nearly one of every four incidents.
At least part of the reason the services were able to conceal the incidents from the public, the newspaper's examination found, is that military rules for reporting aviation incidents are vague, leaving commanders wide discretion in determining which accidents will be counted.
The Daily News discovered the uncounted accidents in three previously unreleased computer databases obtained through the federal Freedom of Information Act. Though the Army, Air Force and Navy, which investigates Marine Corps accidents, included all but a few of the incidents on the databases, special codes prevented them from appearing on records provided to the public.
"There is zero intent to hide anything," said Brig. Gen. Gene Martin LaCoste, commander of the U.S. Army Safety Center at Fort Rucker, Ala.
Rear Admiral Frank M. "Skip" Dirren, Jr., who commands the Naval Safety Center in Norfolk, Va., said, "I'm not trying to hide anything."
Both LaCoste and Dirren said they are following rules given them by the Department of Defense.
REPORTING STANDARDS CHANGE DRASTICALLY Part of the reason the services don't report all accidents is because they're not required to under Department of Defense guidelines. In 1989, those guidelines were rewritten, making it easier for the services to keep from official statistics the type of accidents routinely counted by the civilian National Transportation Safety Board.
Military officials said they rewrote the guidelines to exclude certain types of aviation accidents because they believed Congress wasn't interested in knowing about all accidents.
The new guidelines increased the cost threshold for a Class A incident from $500,000 to $1 million and increased from $100,000 to $200,000 the threshold for a Class B incident.
But the new guidelines left much open to interpretation by the services.
On Oct. 18, 1994, an F-16 sustained $1.8 million in damage when its landing gear failed at Moody Air Force Base, Ga. Because the damage was more than $1 million, it fit the category for a Class A accident.
Or so it seemed.
Former Lt. Col. Jerry Perkins, who retired in December 1994 as director of computer operations for the Air Force Safety Center in New Mexico, said he originally counted the accident in the Air Force database. He said he later was told by his supervisor that a general wanted the accident reclassified, making it disappear from official accident rate statistics.
"I objected to the point of being told to shut up and salute," Perkins said.
The rationale the Air Force used for not counting the accident was that the bulk of damage was to an expensive piece of equipment, called a LANTERN pod, used for night flying. Because the LANTERN pod was not a permanent part of the plane, the Air Force believed it didn't have to count the damage against the $1 million threshold.
The new directives also didn't clearly define when the services could exclude an accident because it occurred in combat.
During Desert Storm, the Air Force classified as combat losses the destruction of an EF-111 and an F-16.
Neither plane was hit by enemy fire. The EF-111 crashed after it took evasive action while being mistakenly targeted by a U.S. Air Force F-15, and the F-16 was destroyed when a bomb apparently detonated prematurely, although other possible causes were not ruled out.
The Air Force decision not to include the accident was subsequently questioned in a special management review, and the service has since changed its rules. In July 1994, the service expanded its regulations, making "friendly fire" accidents the same as combat losses: no longer kept in the official accident rate reported to the public and Congress.
'FLIGHT-RELATED' ACCIDENTS UNCOUNTED
One of the major categories of accidents addressed under the new regulations was "flight-related" -- accidents in which the damage, though substantial in some cases, is not considered directly related to the aircraft.
Between 1980 and 1998, the three services identified 961 flight related accidents, resulting in at least 26 deaths and 411 injuries.
Each case was identified as flight-related, signaling that they were not to be included in the so-called mishap rate, the number frequently provided to reporters and Congress by the military. Although the incidents were identified on computer databases, those databases previously had never been released outside the military.
The Navy had the most flight-related cases: 654 since 1980. Nineteen were Class A accidents that killed 11 people and injured 13.
On April 18, 1996, the tailhook of an F-14 landing on the USS Nimitz caught a wire, which struck and killed a sailor working on the flight deck and injured six others. On Nov. 16, 1995, the crew chief aboard a CH-53E Super Stallion helicopter flying a night-vision goggle training mission in North Carolina fell out of the aircraft and was killed, and on Aug. 9, 1992, near Reno, Nev., another crew chief was killed when he fell out of a helicopter on a night-vision goggle training mission.
All three accidents were termed flight-related and not calculated in the statistics frequently provided to reporters and Congress.
The Army had 225 flight-related incidents, killing 10 and injuring 87 others; most of the cases -- at least 161 of them -- occurred after the new rules took effect.
On Jan. 20, 1995, one soldier was killed and 21 others injured when they roped down from two helicopters into the wrong landing site during a night mission in a dense Louisiana forest.
On Feb. 12, 1996, two soldiers fell from an MH-60 helicopter into the jungle in Panama, killing one and seriously injuring the other.
On Jan. 3, 1992, a civilian kayaker was killed when he fell from an Army helicopter that was trying to hoist him from the water near a Texas dam where he had become stranded.
None of the accidents was counted in the Army's mishap rate.
The Air Force termed 82 cases flight-related, with at least 70 of them occurring since the new rules took effect. Five people were killed and 50 injured in Air Force flight-related incidents.
On Jan. 3, 1990, Army Private First Class Edward L. Suits, Jr., was killed when the right wing of a huge Air Force C-141 cargo plane hit his parachute over North Carolina. The aircraft sustained more than $6,000 in damage, but neither the Army nor the Air Force counted the accident in its official mishap rate.
"They tried to cover it up," said Suits' father, Edward L. Suits, Sr. "The worst part about it is that they wouldn't tell us anything.
"I was a paratrooper. I made four trips to Vietnam. I know about jumping, and I know they were negligent."
Suits said he was unaware his son's death was not counted in official statistics.
"I hope something is done about that," he said.
On March 17, 1995, Sgt. Sanya Brockinton was trying to parachute from an Air Force C-23A jet over California when he was pulled out of the plane prematurely, hitting and damaging a horizontal stabilizer on the aircraft as he fell. Brockinton, who was recently married with an 8-month-old child, lost the lower part of his right leg in the accident.
"I thought it was counted as far as Air Force accidents," said Brockinton, who now lives in Florida. "If a person got hurt and the aircraft was damaged, you think it would be."
NTSB attorney Matthew M. Furman said that if a civilian plane hits a parachutist the incident is counted in civilian accident statistics.
GROUND ACCIDENTS ALSO EXCLUDED
The military policy adopted in 1989 also allowed the services to exclude a larger number of accidents occurring on the ground. Prior to 1989, any incident occurring once an aircraft started its engines was counted in the mishap rate, but the new regulations require the aircraft to be moving on a runway and to have an "intent for flight." Helicopters have to be off the ground.
The NTSB policy is much more far-reaching, counting every accident occurring after someone steps aboard an aircraft, regardless of whether an engine is running.
In 1997, for example, the NTSB counted as an aviation death an incident in which a ground crew member was struck by a Delta Airlines L 1011 that was being towed and not operating under its own power.
At least 42 of the Navy cases, in which nine people were killed and 23 injured, were cases likely to be counted by NTSB.
In a 1997 Navy accident classified as a ground mishap, a crewmember of an MH-53 helicopter was killed when the helicopter -- its rotors still turning -- began to shake violently, causing an airplane engine to fall out of the helicopter's cargo bay.
The Navy also classified as a ground mishap the much publicized Sept. 6, 1996, accident in which a CH-46 Sea Knight helicopter struck a light pole, rolled over and burned at Orlando Executive Airport. It was second accident in a single day involving a military helicopter assigned to support President Clinton's trip to Florida, and the president immediately ordered a top-to-bottom review of all aircraft assigned to the White House.
During a press briefing the same day, a Pentagon spokesman in Washington gave reporters the mishap rate for the type of helicopter that burned in Orlando. That rate did not include the very type of accident the reporters were asking about: the Sea Knight that was destroyed after hitting the light pole.
Between 1980 and 1998, the Army classified 269 incidents as ground accidents, seven of them Class A accidents resulting in five deaths. Five of the seven Class A accidents occurred since the reporting rules were changed and in at least four of those cases, records indicate the engines were running when the accidents occurred.
In 1996, an Army doctor was struck by a helicopter rotor blade and killed while the aircraft was being refueled. Though the helicopter's rotor blades were turning, the accident was classified as a ground accident and not counted in the mishap rate.
The Air Force not only excluded ground accidents from its official accident rate but until Oct. 1 of this year also kept them from its aviation database altogether. Prior to Oct. 1, the service counted aviation ground accidents in a separate database along with automobile and truck accidents.
At least 20 aviation ground accidents, each causing at least $100,000 in damage, were reported by the Air Force between 1988 and 1998.
One of the Air Force cases excluded from its database occurred on Dec. 3, 1996, when Navy Seal Theodore M. Moreland was killed after he was thrown from an Air Force C-17 as the door to the jet blew open.
Told her husband's death wasn't counted as part of the official accident rate, Moreland's widow, Tracy, said: "You're kidding."
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.
On July 16, 1994, a UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter crash landed in a cotton field near Tifton, Ga., at 60-80 miles an hour, sending the main rotor blade slicing through the tail section, which severed from the aircraft along with a maze of hydraulic lines, controls and wires. The damage was listed at $998,981, avoiding a Class A by $1,019.
"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."