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Mid-flight noncombat mishaps and blunders occur frequently in the USAF during training and utility flights--sometimes with the loss of life and regularly with the destruction of expensive aircraft. In one extreme case, a $2.2 billion B-2 Spirit bomber crashed soon after takeoff and was destroyed.
The events surrounding such accidents are gathered by USAF investigators and a report is published for each case. The author has collected these reports, including some made available following FOI (Freedom of Information) requests to U.S. air bases, and rewritten them in language accessible to the general public.
The causes--bird-strikes, joy-riding, unauthorized maneuvers, pilot disorientation, an unseen binoculars-case blocking the plane's joystick, unexpected moisture in an air-pressure gauge--are often surprising and, at times, horrifying.
List of contents
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments
Preface
The Accidents
¿1¿Pitch up
¿2¿Number 3 engine idle
¿3¿Landing strut
¿4¿Caught a tailwind
¿5¿Fly-by
¿6¿Zero-G parabolas
¿7¿Arctic Thunder
¿8¿C-Bleed hot
¿9¿Ground-rush in Germany
10¿Flameout Volk
11¿Mist-up AirVenture
12¿Warthog seizure
13¿Walan Rabat
14¿Overshoot Shank
15¿Paddy field
16¿Communications mast
17¿Titanium fire
18¿Belly flop
19¿Cut-up wake
20¿Fuel-line shutoff
21¿Flaps gone
22¿Roll off the top
23¿Spatial D
24¿Dutch roll
25¿Stockton impromptu
26¿Okinawa corkscrew
27¿Birdstrike Luke
28¿Lights-out intercept
29¿Racetrack gun pattern
30¿Fuel-line leak
31¿Cley goose strike
32¿Domestic object
33¿Down to Louisiana
34¿Ghostrider
35¿Fire by the microwave
36¿Unseen traffic
37¿Goggles case
38¿Three-out takeoff
39¿Inadvertent shutoff
40¿Eject, dude
Conclusions
Sources
Index
About the author
Henry Bond is senior lecturer in photography at Kingston University in Surrey, England.
