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C-130 Safety records


bobdaley
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The rumor of the 181 AS damage got me thinking about flying safety.

Going back I can come up with 32 AFR C-130 units-now 12 and 36 ANG units-now 24. I'll try to do the active duty units later.

Of the 12 AFR units still flying only 2 have had accidents. 95 AS had 2 both in Honduras 56-0501 an A in 1985 and 88-4408 an H in 1997. 731AS had 1 62-1838 in Idaho in 1995. Of the 12 units 9 have been accident free for 33 years or more and of those 96AS has been 46 years, 328AS 45 years, 815AS 43 years.

Of the 24 ANG units still flying, only 4 have had accidents, 156AS 93-1458 an H,firefighting in South Dakota, in 2012, 154TRS 61-2373 an E in 1988, at Greenville MS,when the unit was transitioning, 165 AS 58-0732 a B at Evansville IN, in 1992 and maybe 192 AS 79-0478 an H in 2015-not sure if a probable cause was reached on that one, in SW Asia.

15 of the 24 units have been accident free for 38 years or more. 115AS with 46 years and 109AS with 45 years lead the pack.

An absolutely amazing safety record. Shows excellent maintenance and highly skilled flight crews.

Bob

I will attempt to figure out the Active duty squadrons, it will take me longer because sometimes I can only find wg numbers not squadron numbers.  

Any corrections appreciated!   

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Trying to get to Safety records of active duty Sqdns. Their most recent accidents. Not really sure but I think all of the "Active Associate" Sqdns may have gone away. The situation at Little Rock is a little confusing to me, but here goes.

36AS at Yokota May 1969 Sgt Myers stole 63-7789, went down in the English Channel.

37AS at Ramstein Germany 68-10946 November 1984 hard Landing

2AS Maybe still at Pope? 86-0412 in Iraq Jun 2008 3 engine roll back

39AS at Dyess 74-1662 Jackson Hole August 1996 flew into mountain(08-3174 in Afghanistan 2015-no cause)

40AS at Dyess 64-0501 North Carolina April 1992 crashed into a lake

Little Rock

41AS 04-3144 Afghanistan May 2013 Off the end

48AS 61-0955 Ft Campbell October 1966 Wake turbulence a B model

50AS May be deactivated?  68-10951 Ft Campbell Throttle cable December 1978

61AS 63-7854 Kuwait VFR approach in IFR condtions December 1999

62AS Associate unit with the ANG? 64-0549 Ft Hood Drops 1985

 

There is one other accident which I had no squadron for, only a wing number. 63-7853 43AW 2006.

The squadrons listed were the squadrons the crews were assigned to.

Bob

 

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Oh, also 68-10946 was a hard landing at Giebelstadt AAF, West Germany in 1984.  If I remember correctly, it was during an ORI with a mostly stan/eval crew.  I think this photo was taken by the loadmaster.

Don That is the one I listed above, Thanks, Bob

4326c -- 68-10946 -- USAF.jpg

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68-10946 Stars and Stripes article from it's crash. I was a crew chief there when it happened. First day of a ORI. It was carrying ORI inspectors to Giebelstadt for the exercise. 68-10944 went down in Spain (also a 37th bird) killing all crew and pax. 0945 was involved in a incident at Pope with a F-16, I believe with it being wrote off. Poor old 946 as I understand actually crashed 3 times. The first (as I heard it back then) she slapped her belly on the water some where but made it back safely. Then this crash in Geibelstadt. Then after she was stripped and left at Geibelstact, turned into essentially a 40' culvert (the nose was put on the Franken Herc), a strong wind picked up the fuselage and blew in to a bunch of Army helicopters  causing a couple of them to be wrote off. I digress, my point was 0944, 0945, 0946 seemed to be a unlucky string on tail numbers. The first aircraft I crewed was 0943, I guess I'm glad the bad luck stopped where it was.

3-13-2014 5;58;22 PM.jpg

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68-10945 was the one that crashed at Bragg. Pilot flew a lousy LAPES approach and pulled out too late, in 1987.

There used to be a good video of that one.

Bob

942 was hit by the F-16 but was repaired.

The whole 68 series had bad luck. 934 lost an engine in flight and was scrapped, 936 lost in a lightning strike, 942 mid air, 944 hit the mountain, 945 LAPES crash, 946 hard landing, 951 crashed at Ft Campbell.

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62nd TAS lost a bird in 1982 (Apr/May I think), it was a locked and cocked spare that was launched out on a night tac line when the regularly scheduled aircraft crapped out. The crew did a rapid transition to the spare, with minimal/no pre-flight and all onboard perished when the right wing came off, very soon after take-off, as they attempted to catch-up with the formation headed N. I believe the official finding was PIlot Error, due to overstressing the aircraft. 

I'd tried to fly a day tac on this particular aircraft with students the day prior and had scanned problems with # 3 engine dumping oil through the sabre mast during run-up. We taxied in/out, did more run-ups, came back and had MX tweak it a total of 3 times before we were finally cancelled. A 50th crew had similar problems the next morning and eventually cancelled. Yet somehow thet bird was on the line, locked and cocked and supposedly ready to fly that evening. Such a tragedy.

The Ft. Hood accident in 85 was again the 62 TAS, flying formation CDS airdrop with studs. The suffered a fin stall at slow down and smoked in. Dave Grimm was the IFE (we were on the 62nd Violent Rodeo crew together in 83) and was standing next to the FE stud in the seat, while the IP was also out of the seat, standing next to the P and CP studs. Dave told me that he remembers the stall warning horn going off and the next thing he knew he was lying on his back, waking up in a field, thinking he must be in heaven (it was TX), sitting up and looking at the burning heap of the aircraft. Both him and the IP had been thrown clear. Soon after this accident formation CDS was deleted as an approved procedure from the 55-130.

Gieblestadt was sort of the very first event of the ORI. The intent was to insert the IG inspection team the day prior for a LAPES evaluation scheduled for the actual first day. CMS Ken Regan was the LM and suffered a shrapnel wound to the arm, from a piece of the Herk that came loose when they crashed. At the time I was one of the Examiners who worked for Ken in the 435th Stan Eval and he loved to tell the story that when they were working on him in the ER they inserted a cathyter in him. Later when they got him on the ward, one of the nurses asked him how he was doing. He told her that he was confused because he came into the hospital with a gapping hole in his arm and the first thing they did to him was shove a tube up his c...

The 435th also lost an aircraft at Zaragoza, Spain in late March, early April 1984. Back then we sent out new LMs from the 62nd qualified on everything except actual static line personel; which they received soon after arriving at their new squadron. The 37th had received 2 new LMs, so they went down to ZAZ with 2 ILMs to get them fully qualified. All was going well until the cable on one of the troop doors broke, with one drop remaining. MX checked it out and advised that the door was inop, which meant that only one ILM was required to be on board. The ILMs flipped a coin to determine who would remain on the ground (RG won). The aircraft took off to complete the training and all was normal until some clouds moved into the area and obscured the mountain which sat off to the side of the slowdown run-in. Unfortunately the crew failed to notice this and they subsequetnly descended into the mountain, killing all onboard.

That's how I ended up at RM, as Billy Cress knew that I deperately wanted to get to Europe and he desperately needed an ILM to replace the one lost at ZAZ. From the time I accepted the assignment (the day after the crash) I signed into the 37th approx. 30 days later, which included 2 weeks leave enroute.              

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I remember the wing separation incident.  I was the 50th crew that cancelled that mission.  We were to do LAPES that day.  It's funny how they blamed pilot error, when the red, white and green wing limitations came out due to cracks.

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