South African Lightning crash report

[Fouga23]

http://www.caa.co.za/resource%20center/ ... 9/8706.pdf

This is just scary. It reads like a what-not-to-do list

[hbtcoveralls]

Startling, That is just so sad. The pilot was trapped in a burning crashing aircraft by a faulty ejection system that the owner knew was 45 days overdue for inspection and using cartridges already 5 years out of date. The maintenance personnel, most of whom weren't qualified to work on the a/c, were totally complacent with fairly massive fuel leaks that finally caused the fire that killed the hydraulics and ultimately made the a/c uncontrollable and caused the crash. So Sad, but so preventable. If they couldn't maintain a complex twin engine mach 2 afterburner jet warplane, they should have parked it.
Tom Bowers

[expat]

And to think you could pay to fly in that .....

[JohnB]

It's a good example of how complex ex-military aircraft are and how one "issue" can have far-reaching consequences.

I think many aviation "enthuiasts" (people without a technical background) don't realize how complex there aircraft are and it's NOT a simple as saying..."They should fly".
Maintaining these aircraft in airworthy condition takes skilled mechanics, lots of parts and a huge amount of paperwork to prove the work has been done correctly.

[hbtcoveralls]

Maintaining these aircraft in airworthy condition takes skilled mechanics, lots of parts and a huge amount of paperwork to prove the work has been done correctly.

That's so true and reading this accident report is really an eye opening view into what is required. In many instances the A/C was imperfect when it was made, but stringent RAF maintenance kept them serviceable. I would even go as far to say that the A/C was never really all that safe in the RAF, but the amount of work required to mitigate the dangers inherent to the A/C is the kind of thing only a governmental agency can hope to afford. In the report, it estimates that the IRAN procedure for the Egress system is about a 40 hour (5 man day) procedure. Add to that the cost of the replacement pieces and you quickly realize why the work kept being put off. Jeez, even the parachutes hadn't been inspected and repacked in like 8 years. The shop doing the work (the owners) was making their own service intervals and whenever manufacturers recommended service intervals came up, the shop would just extend the deadline without explanation. Just a senseless accident the first off, didn't need to happen, and the death of a good man due to negligence on the part of the maintainers. I can't imagine that this is the kind of thing that goes on in the US.
Tom Bowers

[marine air]

The Pilot in Command is responsible for determining if the airplane is fit to fly. Yes, it's a lot more complicated than that. I once crewed a Learjet that had 8 "mechanicals" on its first flight after changing owners and sitting for several months. We later ascertained that there were some issues, we were aware of, and planned to compensate for. THere were more issues the maintainers, knew about and weren't allowed to fix because it would have cost money.
Last, there were issues unknown to us because a) they emerged because the aircraft had been sitting so long and b) airworthy parts had been pirated and exchanged for bad parts, and so we didn't know, and I know for a fact the owner didn't know about.
AFter the airplane tried to kill us at Edmonton, Canada, we met with the owner 4 times in his hotel room. He figured out he had minus $300k equity in it. He airlined us home, and we abandoned it, parked on the ramp.

[hercrat]

Marine air, check your PM. I just sent you a note!

[Sabremech]

This was a tragic accident with many links of the accident prevention chain broken or missed. Everyone in this organization bears some responsibilty for this including the pilot, the owner, and not just the negligence of the maintainers. A sad lesson to learn once again and plenty of people to place the blame on if that's what you want to do.
David

[Firebird]

This was a tragic accident with many links of the accident prevention chain broken or missed. Everyone in this organization bears some responsibilty for this including the pilot, the owner, and not just the negligence of the maintainers. A sad lesson to learn once again and plenty of people to place the blame on if that's what you want to do.
David

Indeed.

Sadly the pilot very much was part of the problem, and had clearly become very blasse about operating the Frightning. His 'antics' during the previous evening beggers belief, and has left many ex-Lightning pilots bewildered.

That on top of the criminally negligent maintainance proceedures is frankly disturbing.

Sad end to the flying career of a type, and especially one that was as special as the Lightning.

[JohnH]

Maintaining these aircraft in airworthy condition takes skilled mechanics, lots of parts and a huge amount of paperwork to prove the work has been done correctly.

That's so true and reading this accident report is really an eye opening view into what is required. In many instances the A/C was imperfect when it was made, but stringent RAF maintenance kept them serviceable. I would even go as far to say that the A/C was never really all that safe in the RAF, but the amount of work required to mitigate the dangers inherent to the A/C is the kind of thing only a governmental agency can hope to afford. In the report, it estimates that the IRAN procedure for the Egress system is about a 40 hour (5 man day) procedure. Add to that the cost of the replacement pieces and you quickly realize why the work kept being put off. Jeez, even the parachutes hadn't been inspected and repacked in like 8 years. The shop doing the work (the owners) was making their own service intervals and whenever manufacturers recommended service intervals came up, the shop would just extend the deadline without explanation. Just a senseless accident the first off, didn't need to happen, and the death of a good man due to negligence on the part of the maintainers. I can't imagine that this is the kind of thing that goes on in the US.
Tom Bowers

Thanks Fouga for posting and thanks Tom for this info. I now know why the UK would not allow civilians to operate the Lightning. This report is amazing , one of the best I've ever seen.

[Firebird]

Maintaining these aircraft in airworthy condition takes skilled mechanics, lots of parts and a huge amount of paperwork to prove the work has been done correctly.

That's so true and reading this accident report is really an eye opening view into what is required. In many instances the A/C was imperfect when it was made, but stringent RAF maintenance kept them serviceable. I would even go as far to say that the A/C was never really all that safe in the RAF, but the amount of work required to mitigate the dangers inherent to the A/C is the kind of thing only a governmental agency can hope to afford. In the report, it estimates that the IRAN procedure for the Egress system is about a 40 hour (5 man day) procedure. Add to that the cost of the replacement pieces and you quickly realize why the work kept being put off. Jeez, even the parachutes hadn't been inspected and repacked in like 8 years. The shop doing the work (the owners) was making their own service intervals and whenever manufacturers recommended service intervals came up, the shop would just extend the deadline without explanation. Just a senseless accident the first off, didn't need to happen, and the death of a good man due to negligence on the part of the maintainers. I can't imagine that this is the kind of thing that goes on in the US.
Tom Bowers

Thanks Fouga for posting and thanks Tom for this info. I now know why the UK would not allow civilians to operate the Lightning.

A small point of correction/clarification on that point, if I may.

Civilians have operated Lightnings in the UK, but under designated military contracts, and the CAA has never said no ‘under any circumstances’ to the operation of a Lightning by a ‘civilian’ group.
But, under the ‘complex’ category in the UK, the CAA requires manufacturer support or support from a manufacturer approved organisation. In the case of the attempts to fly the Lightning in the UK by two separate organisations, in a ten year period from the types retirement in 1988, it was BAe that vetoed the two ‘operating companies’ in question (even though that one of them was employing very experienced ex-BAe/RAF Lightning techs)
So, it’s really a question of money, as it’s simply not economically viable to fly one of these if you have to pay for the support of BAe or a BAe approved organisation, as has been shown by this report.
Clearly TC simply couldn’t afford (or chose not to) maintain these a/c correctly, with the inevitable consequences.

[Iclo]

There were advertisements for this company and their "experience flights" as far as Belgium with tourism trips organised to South Africa including as a center piece a flight in a Lightning, a Bucanneer or a Hunter.

It's very sad to see how so much mistakes could had occured without the authorities reactes.
The impression given by these facts are that a complete chain of failures at all the level of the organisation and control occured.

Sad firstly for the lost of the pilot, and after that the lost of an historic plane and the very negative image given of the general operation of fast jet by civilian operators.