THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, April 19, 1996 TAG: 9604190515
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JACK DORSEY, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: Medium: 96 lines
The Navy is looking into possible mechanical malfunction as the chief cause of the F-14 crash at Oceana Naval Air Station Wednesday.
The pilot was having problems controlling the aircraft during his final approach to land, fighting to keep the plane from rolling to the left, said Capt. Dale Snodgrass, commander of Fighter Wings Atlantic and the senior F-14 pilot on the East Coast.
``He was coming into the landing pattern - what we call the overhead pattern - and broke normally into a downwind heading,'' Snodgrass said Thursday in the first detailed discussion of what may have happened.
``He started to turn into a final to Runway 32. As he was approaching and rolling into the final, the pilot felt the plane kind of roll and yawl to the left a bit.
``So he executed a wave-off, a normal procedure, then climbed up . . . attempting to troubleshoot what then appeared not to be a significant, but a minor controllability problem.''
However, said Snodgrass, as the plane began to gather air speed - from about 135 knots to 200 knotsand between 1,000 and 1,200 feet elevation - ``the airplane became worse and worse until finally, after 120 degrees of turn to the left, they initiated ejection.''
By then, the plane was turning upside down. As the two crewmen left the cockpit - an automatic rocket-fired process that takes nine-tenths of a second - they were pointed almost downward.
The aircraft rolled over and hit the ground nearly on its nose.
Lt. Ross Slavin, 31, the pilot, and Lt. Dan Kluss, 36, the radar intercept officer, escaped injury.
While both men are capable of returning to flight duty immediately, Snodgrass said they most likely will be given a week before returning to the flight line ``to let things settle out.''
They were given the morning off work Thursday while Snodgrass met with other members of their squadron, Fighter Squadron 101, a training squadron for F-14 air crews and maintenance personnel.
But Snodgrass said he wished that Slavin and Kluss could have been present ``so they could stand up and take an applause because they made the right decision at the right time.''
Wreckage from the $38 million jet was confined to a 200-yard circular area in a wooded section of the base just to the left of Oceana's main runway.
Witnesses, including one who videotaped the final moments before impact, said they saw the plane roll over.
The only injury was to a Navy rescue worker who suffered an ankle injury while trying to rescue Slavin from a tree that had caught his parachute.
An eight-member accident investigation board has been established to look at the wreckage and determine the cause of the crash, said Snodgrass. The board is headed by Capt. John Sufflebeam, a former F-14 pilot based at Cecil Field, Fla.
A Knight-Ridder News Service report Thursday quoted a Navy source as saying that a possible cause of the crash was a left-wing spoiler on the aircraft that was stalled in the ``up'' position.
Spoilers had been a problem with the jet 20 years ago. However, the Navy thought the trouble had been corrected.
``We'll look at spoilers, hydraulics, all kinds of potential options here,'' Snodgrass said, ``specifically those things that make it turn left.''
Initial indications are that the engines were operating ``absolutely normal and this was more of a flight control problem,'' Snodgrass said. ``Historically, controllability problems are not systematic, but the kinds of problems (associated with) individual aircraft.''
The aircraft, estimated to be 8 to 10 years old, is among the younger planes in the fleet.
Snodgrass said he has seen nothing to indicate a need to issue any special warnings or additional restrictions on the Tomcats. The pilots are currently restricted from using the F-14s' afterburners because of a previous accident.
Wednesday's crash at Oceana was the fourth for an F-14 in three months, prompting concern for the aging plane, which the Navy wants to keep in service another 15 years. The three previous accidents occurred in West Coast squadrons.
In Washington, Pentagon spokesman Ken Bacon said Defense Department officials are confident that the crash and other recent mishaps involving F-14s are not related to continuing cuts in defense spending.
Some Republicans on Capitol Hill have suggested that the Clinton administration, in its efforts to reduce defense spending, has neglected weapons improvement and replacement programs.
Bacon added that Defense Secretary William J. Perry is confident that the Navy is aggressively investigating the causes of the F-14 crashes and is doing everything possible to make the plane safe. MEMO: Staff writer Dale Eisman contributed to this story.
A snapped cable during an F-14 Tomcat landing on the Nimitz kills 1/B4
ILLUSTRATION: NAVY INVESTIGATES WEDNESDAY'S CRASH AT OCEANA NAVAL AIR STATION
KEYWORDS: ACCIDENT PLANE ACCIDENT MILITARY F-14 by CNB