THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, February 4, 1996 TAG: 9602040038
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A8 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JACK DORSEY, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 111 lines
At nearly 15,000 feet over the Atlantic off the North Carolina coast, Gunfighter 101, an Oceana-based F-14B Tomcat fighter jet, had accelerated from 320 knots to 730 in just eight seconds.
Its two-man crew was cleared for maneuvers anywhere in the restricted area.
Flying at Mach 1.1, faster than the speed of sound but less than half its maximum speed, Gunfighter 101 was just eight minutes into its flight. It had reported no problems to traffic controllers on the ground.
The next second the plane disintegrated in midair.
Investigators learned that the tragedy could have been prevented. It resulted from a defective part the Navy had been warned about a year before.
The afterburner liner on the jet's starboard engine burned through its titanium casing, melting hydraulic lines and destroying the horizontal stabilizer and rudder controls.
Molten titanium sprayed throughout the engine bay, melting fasteners ``in a blowtorch-type fashion,'' said investigators.
The result was ``near-instantaneous aircraft structural breakup, incapacitation of the air crew and probable separation of ejection seats from the cockpit,'' investigators concluded.
The crew had no warning. There was no time to analyze the emergency. The result was a ``catastrophic'' in-flight breakup, the investigators said.
That was nearly three years ago, on March 15, 1993, at 10:25 a.m., 32 miles east of Kitty Hawk.
This is the first time publicly the Navy has said what caused Gunfighter 101 to disintegrate. Its accident investigation, obtained by The Virginian-Pilot through the Freedom of Information Act, was released last week.
While unrelated to Monday's crash of a F-14 fighter in Nashville, Tenn., which killed its two-man crew plus three civilians on the ground, the suddenness of both accidents appear the same.
There are only minor similarities, so far: Both accidents occurred early in the flights; both planes had afterburners lighted to provide maximum thrust; both resulted in fatalities.
There are many more dissimilar characteristics about the two crashes: Monday's involved an older F-14A model, using TF-30 engines, while Gunfighter 101 was a newer F-14B, using GE-F110 engines; Gunfighter 101 was flying nearly level between 14,000 and 15,000 feet above water, while the Nashville plane was climbing nearly vertically through 8,000 feet as it took off from the city's main airport.
Whatever the outcome of the Nashville investigation, the Navy tends to learn from such disasters. It did in Gunfighter 101's case.
For example, for at least a year before the Gunfighter 101 accident, the Naval Air Systems Command and General Electric, the manufacturer of the GE-F110 engine, were aware of a number of afterburner burn-through incidents and had been pursuing corrective action, wrote Rear Adm. Vernon E. Clark, deputy and chief of staff for the Atlantic Fleet.
Although GE recommended a series of modifications, including a two-step fix, the Naval Air Systems Command maintained that a one-step procedure would ``reduce the potential'' for liner burn-through.
Gunfighter 101 had been given only the one-step fix when it crashed. The second phase of the repair was not made because parts were not available at the time.
``A known problem was not fully corrected and a mishap (not) prevented,'' wrote the commander of the Naval Air Systems Command in the report, released last week.
Today, the afterburner problems with that engine have been corrected, said officials with the command. .
All of the engines were modified within six months of Gunfighter 101's crash.
Why not before?
Naval Air Systems Command officials in Washington said Friday the repairs were being made as soon as possible. However, some - including Gunfighter 101 - were delayed because of production availability.
The command denied that the delays were caused by a shortage of funds.
However, one recommendation made by the investigators has been termed ``cost prohibitive'' by the Naval Air Systems Command.
Atlantic Fleet officials suggested that a new fire detection system be installed in the F-14's engine bay that would warn the air crew of a fire, or high temperature near the control linkages and hydraulic lines.
The Navy Air Systems Command said it did not concur with such a recommendation. ``Addition of a new fire detection/extinguishing system in this area would be cost prohibitive as well as needlessly increase the aircraft weight,'' the command wrote. ``Efforts continue to eliminate the causes of fires rather than expand the fire detection system.''
``The 1993 accident took everybody by shock,'' said a senior aviator with the Atlantic Fleet, ``because we had what we thought was the perfect engine.''
The GE-F110 engine - vs. the older, less powerful TF-30 engine - has a reputation of being more reliable, he said.
Yet, because of funding considerations, the Navy never replaced the TF-30s. It was what powered the F-14 that crashed in Nashville.
After 20 years of flying the F-14, the Navy is still finding better ways to keep them flying safely, officials said.
``We've just come up with a very simple fix called the oil pressure breather valve, or sensor,'' said the aviator. ``It very accurately gives us a warning of impending doom, so to speak. So if the engine or turbine is about to fail catastrophically . . . you'll get a flashing warning light. Depending on the power setting, you'll get a full minute, at full afterburner and altitude, to (throttle back and) save the engine.
``We just got funding for it and it's going into the TF-30s. Essentially it will divert a catastrophic engine failure,'' he said. ``That won't fix all the TF-30s. It's not a perfect engine.
``But I now have a real high confidence that I will know of impending failure. Therefore, engine failure-type accidents in the TF-30 are going down to probably right around zero.''
KEYWORDS: ACCIDENT PLANE ACCIDENT MILITARY FATALITY by CNB