THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, August 24, 1996 TAG: 9608260314
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B5 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY CHARLENE CASON, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: HAMPTON LENGTH: 62 lines
The flight line at Langley Air Force Base on Friday morning looked like it usually does - ready for any mission.
More than a dozen sharp-nosed F-15s were poised for the thrust, and equipment was placed like so many strongboxes around the airfield. But something wasn't right.
There was an eerie stillness and quiet. No blasts of jet air and no noxious smell of jet fuel. Nothing moved.
The thousands of men and women who normally rush around Langley's flight lines, hangars and workshops making sure planes take off and land on a practically nonstop basis were taking a timeout.
In the wake of four Air Force plane crashes in the past month, Gen. Richard Hawley, commander of the Air Combat Command, based at Langley, ordered a commandwide ``safety day'' for Friday.
The day - similar to what the Navy calls a ``stand down'' - was a pause in the action to identify risks and try to find ways of reducing them. It meant suspending all normal operations at the 32 installations that fall under Hawley's command.
Hawley's order exempted flights already scheduled for deployment and long-term missions, such as enforcement of the no-fly zone over Iraq. Nevertheless, the air base looked deserted Friday.
``Why is doing this important to us?'' asked Col. Irv Halter, 1st Operations Group commanding officer. ``It's important for purely selfish reasons. If someone is killed or we lose a plane, or someone is hurt and a plane is damaged, it's the same as if it were shot down in war.
``We lose combat capability. Safety is not a separate thing; it preserves combat readiness.''
The Air Force normally holds two safety days per year, in the spring and in the fall, and Friday's day of meetings was no more than an added safety day, Air Force spokesmen said.
The intent was to bring together the lowest-ranking enlisted men and women, and the highest-ranking officers, to talk, Halter said.
``We're usually not as much into the worker-bee level as we are today,'' said Maj. Tom Dietz, 1st Fighter Wing chief of safety.
Airmen met at the wing, group and squadron levels to discuss the answers to questionnaires distributed to them just after Hawley's order on Tuesday. The first item on the form read, ``Briefly state (in one sentence) where the next mishap in your section will occur within the next six months.''
Subsequent questions asked airmen how, and at what level, such a mishap could be prevented.
``We want to hear what they think,'' Halter said. ``Sometimes that's how we find the best nuggets of information to prevent accidents.''
Personnel stationed at Air Combat Command's bases in the United States, Panama, Portugal and Iceland were instructed to compile preliminary reports on their meetings by the end of the day Friday.
The groups have two weeks to file their reports with Gen. Hawley. ILLUSTRATION: BILL TIERNAN/The Virginian-Pilot
``Why is doing this important to us?'' asked Col. Irv Halter, 1st
Operations Group commanding officer. ``It's important for purely
selfish reasons. If someone is killed or we lose a plane, or someone
is hurt and a plane is damaged, it's the same as if it were shot
down in war.'' by CNB