Nfo

[Brett327]

I heard the stories from this one - absolutely AMAZING !!! Apparently, the control cables were literally "holding on" by the short hairs during the ditch. Scarey stuff.

I was on duty in Soto Cano, Honduras when that one went down - glad everyone got out OK. P-3 class As are such a rarity, that it's always amazing to appreciate how it went down. Was the VP-50 midair the last VP fatality, or was there a CFIT somewhere in WESTPAC in the mid 90s?

Brett

 

[HAL Pilot]

I was on duty in Soto Cano, Honduras when that one went down - glad everyone got out OK. P-3 class As are such a rarity, that it's always amazing to appreciate how it went down. Was the VP-50 midair the last VP fatality, or was there a CFIT somewhere in WESTPAC in the mid 90s?

Brett

I think the VP-50 midair were the last U.S. fatalities. There was a VP-1 CFIT in Hawaii in the mid 80s. There was also an Australian ditching in the early 90s where they overstressed the airframe during a low altitude / high speed (for a P-3...) fly-by in the Cocos Islands. I think the NavCom in that one was split in two by a prop blade on impact. The sad part about the Aussies was it was a repeat of an incident in 1988 by my squadron where we did the same thing at the same place, except the crew managed to barely limp it back to the airfield. My squadron's incident caused the P-3 community to start teaching its pilot about rolling g's. I know the Aussies got the details and training after it too so there was really no excuse.

The 2P on the Oman ditch was a LCDR who had just finished the RAG and DH school with me. He went straight to Dodge to join the deployment and had only been there a week or two. He said that without hydraulics, it took all three pilots and both FEs to move the controls. Scary stuff.

 

[Flash]

P-3 prop overspeeds also lead to a Hawaii crew almost ditching in the late 80s (lost 2 engines and big chunks of the aircraft when a blade was thrown) and the Oman dead stick boost out ditching in the mid 90s (lost all engines & hydraulics after throwing a blade).

The PPC was an instructor at VT-10 when I went through flight school the first time, he got a DFC for what he did. He gave a riveting brief to the entire TRAWING for one safety standdown, and it included video the ready crew (that was turning at the end of the runway in case they needed help) took of the plane slowly sinking into the water (took 13 minutes to sink) and of the crew in rafts. Had a couple interesting tidbits about what happened, including almost getting run over by the plane when he jumped out since it was still movng forward, no one took their assigned items, one of the two rafts would not inflate so they all crammed into one and they had to go through most of their PRC-90's before finding one that worked. He even said the rescue by the Omani helo was interesting, they did things differently than we do rescue wise.

The description of the damage the blade caused was the most interesting, and chilling part of the brief. I forget some of the details but it ripped through so many systems on the bottom of theplane that I think they had to wait for the hyds to bleed out before they regained control of the plane. Correct me if I am wrong, but I do remember him describing how him and the 2P (brand new DH getting his PPC qual back) put their feet on the control panel to try and pull the stick back. And they barely got the plane under some control to get in position to ditch. It was also the first US P-3 plane to ditch where everyone survived (not sure about the Austrailian ditching).

He had a good humor about it, and he freely admitted that he was going to a non-flying tour before the ditching happened. The guys who flew with him said he was a good instructor though, of course the stories he told probably made the flights go easier. He and his crew earned their flight pay that day........

I think the VP-50 was the last fatal P-3 accident, the CFIT in Hawaii I think happened in the mid to late 80's (one of our pilots helped pick up the pieces on the mountainside when he as an AX). Our Safety O was suppose to be one of the VP-50 birds when he checked into the squadron from a decomm'd squadron across the street, he had sniveled for the flight and never flew if he did not have to after that.

 

[Flash]

I think the VP-50 midair were the last U.S. fatalities. There was a VP-1 CFIT in Hawaii in the mid 80s. There was also an Australian ditching in the early 90s where they overstressed the airframe during a low altitude / high speed (for a P-3...) fly-by in the Cocos Islands. I think the NavCom in that one was split in two by a prop blade on impact. The sad part about the Aussies was it was a repeat of an incident in 1988 by my squadron where we did the same thing at the same place, except the crew managed to barely limp it back to the airfield. My squadron's incident caused the P-3 community to start teaching its pilot about rolling g's. I know the Aussies got the details and training after it too so there was really no excuse.

The 2P on the Oman ditch was a LCDR who had just finished the RAG and DH school with me. He went straight to Dodge to join the deployment and had only been there a week or two. He said that without hydraulics, it took all three pilots and both FEs to move the controls. Scary stuff.

I was writing as you posted, nice to see the stories match up.......