THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, February 23, 1996 TAG: 9602230648
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DAVE ADDIS AND DALE EISMAN, STAFF WRITERS
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Long : 155 lines
The Navy ordered all its F-14 fighters out of the skies Thursday for three days of safety briefings after one of the jets, flying from the carrier Nimitz, crashed into the Persian Gulf.
It was the third F-14 crash in less than a month. Both crew members were rescued.
An exception to the safety stand-down was granted to the F-14 squadron scheduled to fly into Oceana Naval Air Station in Virginia Beach this morning from the carrier America, which is returning from a six-month Mediterranean deployment.
``As for the USS America, their F-14 squadron, VF-102, is scheduled to fly in at 10 a.m. and that's all on track,'' said Cmdr. Kevin Wensing, an Oceana-based spokesman for the Naval Air Force. ``There has been no effect on that schedule.''
Wensing said the 14 fighters in the squadron will return in small groups and will operate under a speed restriction.
With Thursday's crash, 32 F-14s have gone down over the past five years. On Jan. 29, an F-14A crashed after takeoff near Nashville, Tenn., killing both aviators and three civilians on the ground. Sunday, an F-14D flying from the carrier Vinson went down in the Pacific Ocean, killing both crew members.
The recent spate of crashes ``is a matter of extremely serious concern,'' said Pentagon spokesman Ken Bacon at a Defense Department briefing Thursday afternoon. ``We're doing everything we can to figure it out.''
During the safety stand-down, a team assembled by Vice Adm. John A. Lockard, director of the Naval Air Systems Command, will review what is known about the recent accidents, said Cmdr. Stephen Pietropaoli, a Navy spokesman at the Pentagon. The assessment will cover ``everything we know about the F-14'' - training, maintenance, operating procedures - to see if any immediate steps can be taken to improve safety, he said.
The F-14 Tomcat, a two-seat, twin-engine craft, has been the Navy's workhorse carrier-based fighter since the early 1970s. Its role is to seek out and attack enemy aircraft that might threaten a carrier battle group. The plane is no longer in production, and the 336 remaining fighters are to be phased out by the year 2010.
Three variations of the plane - the F-14A, B and D, distinctive primarily for engine upgrades - are in use. The most recent craft cost from $35 million to $38 million apiece.
Thursday's crash and the Nashville accident involved F-14As; the jet that crashed Sunday off California was an F-14D. All three were from Pacific Fleet squadrons.
``There is no apparent common thread to these three mishaps,'' Wensing said at a briefing Thursday.
A Navy official in Washington, speaking on background, supported that view. He noted that the aircraft were engaged in different types of maneuvers in each case.
The Nashville jet apparently was in a steep climb just after taking off. The crash Sunday came during a high-speed, low-altitude exercise in which the F-14 serves as a ``target'' for radar operators aboard the carrier and other ships. The idea is that the plane mimics an incoming cruise missile and the ships attempt to lock onto it with radars that guide their defensive weapons.
Thursday's crash occurred at a higher altitude and a lower speed, he said, although details of the mission were not available.
The Navy never has found a single, common cause of F-14 accidents. Pilots have complained that the earlier F-14A engines were underpowered. Three years ago the Navy carried out upgrades to keep the afterburners on some F-14Bs from melting through their linings, which could cause the craft to disintegrate in midair.
The F-14 is known for a propensity to go into a ``flat spin'' if involved in too tight of a turn. When that occurs, the plane begins to drop, belly down while spinning, and is virtually impossible to recover because not enough air is moving over the wings to provide lift. The only recourse is for the crew to bail out.
The D-series fighter has a much stronger safety record than the F-14A, with only one crash in each of the past four years. However, the Navy has far more of the older F-14As, by nearly a 2-to-1 ratio.
Few details of Thursday's crash were available. The plane went down at 6:30 a.m. EST in international waters in the northern part of the Persian Gulf, the Navy said. The pilot and the radar intercept officer, who received minor injuries, were rescued from the sea and returned to the Nimitz.
The jet was from fighter squadron VF-24, based at Miramar Naval Air Station in California. The Nimitz is enforcing a ``no-fly'' zone over southern Iraq, a mission that dates back to shortly after the end of the Persian Gulf War.
There are 198 F-14s based at Oceana Naval Air Station. By next year every F-14 in the Navy will be based there.
Over the next three days, Wensing said, F-14 squadrons members will ``look at maintenance, they'll look at procedures, review the aircraft's flight capabilities and characteristics. Each squadron has a safety officer, and they'll sit down with the pilots and maintenance personnel, they'll have lectures and meetings . . . just to make sure everything in our squadrons is up to snuff.
``Most likely everything is, but it doesn't hurt periodically to look at how we do business and make sure everything is done as safely as possible.''
Flight operations on the seven carriers at sea will be curtailed as well. ``We do have the USS Enterprise operating in the Puerto Rico area on exercises,'' Wensing said, ``and no doubt this will cause some delays and postponements for some training flights.''
The carrier George Washington, operating in the Adriatic Sea in response to the Bosnia crisis, could temporarily have its F/A-18 fighters fly missions normally carried out by the F-14s. Since the aircraft have not been officially grounded by a specific mechanical problem, they could be flown should an emergency arise, Wensing said.
Pietropaoli said the review group working during the stand-down will include representatives of the Navy Safety Center in Norfolk, the Naval Air Systems Command and contractors involved in building the F-14. The plane was built by Grumman Corp., now Northrop Grumman.
The stand-down review is independent of the actual crash investigation, which will take months to complete. The Navy has no fewer than six investigations under way for the three recent crashes.
Despite the rash of F-14 mishaps, the government reported earlier this month that military-flight accident rates have dropped substantially over the past 20 years, particularly for the Navy.
The General Accounting Office reported that in 1975 the Navy and the Marine Corps recorded 7.3 mishaps for every 100,000 hours of flight. By 1995 that number had been cut to 2.2 per 100,000 flight hours. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
ASSOCIATED PRESS
An F-14 costs between $33 million and $38 million.
Graphic
ABOUT THE F-14
THE AIRCRAFT:
Premier carrier-based fighters, F-14 Tomcats were first operational
in 1973 and are scheduled to fly through 2010. The F-14A, the model
in Thursday's crash, is the oldest. The Last ``A's'' were purchased
in 1988.
ITS RECORD:
The F-14's accident rate since 1981 is slightly lower than the
overall accident rate for Navy tactical aircraft. Since 1981 the
F-14 has been in 89 Class ``A'' accidents - meaning a loss of life
or aircraft damage in excess of $1 million, or both, according to
the Navy Safety Center in Norfolk.
F-14 ACCIDENTS BY YEAR
1991 - 3; 1992 - 3; 1993 - 11; 1994 - 5; 1995 - 7; 1996 - 3.
KEYWORDS: ACCIDENT MILITARY ACCIDENT PLANE U.S. NAVY
STAND-DOWN
by CNB