Harrier Crash at Kandahar Airbase.

[RedToo]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...ure=player_embedded# (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvtoAlAqrAk&feature=player_embedded#)

Now pulled from Youtube - available on Liveleak - see AndyJWest's second post below.

RedToo.

[TinyTim]

Nerves of steel. He's got some 'splainin to do tho.

[Pirschjaeger]

Was that a crash landing or a crash while landing? I would expect if it were a crash landing the emergency crews would have been more ready and waiting.

[Col.BBQ]

Hot air equals lower thrust. I wonder if this guy forgot that little tidbit when he tried to hot dog this landing by using the thrusters to halt his rate of descent down a little too late.

[Choctaw111]

So, what exactly happened here?

[AndyJWest]

Originally posted by Col.BBQ:
Hot air equals lower thrust. I wonder if this guy forgot that little tidbit when he tried to hot dog this landing by using the thrusters to halt his rate of descent down a little too late.

I'm not sure he was using vectored thrust at all - it looks like a conventional landing gone wrong. As for why I'd not like to guess.

Harriers can take a hard landing - watch film of a typical hover landing, they descend the last few feet fairly rapidly to avoid instability caused by ground effects - but there are clearly limits, and this exceeded them.

I'd have thought anyone flying out of Kandahar would be aware of how hot it can get. http://forums.ubi.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif

[p-11.cAce]

Hot air equals lower thrust. I wonder if this guy forgot that little tidbit when he tried to hot dog this landing by using the thrusters to halt his rate of descent down a little too late.

I'm sure that no pilot that makes it to active duty is forgetting about density altitude http://forums.ubi.com/images/smilies/16x16_smiley-wink.gif

In fact I think the opposite of what you propose is what happened. If you watch the video closely it does not appear that the fwd thrust nozzles move at all - I'm wondering if the pilot's intention WAS to slow his rate of descent with the nozzles but grabbed the wrong control - see pic below. The Nozzle control lever is circled in red, the throttle in blue. The main reason I offer this explanation is that the controls have been mixed up in the past causing other Harrier accidents.

http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c99/acmeaviator/harrierpit.jpg

[p-11.cAce]

I found this interesting article (http://defensetech.org/2008/08/29/harrier-crash-due-to-pilot-error/) about a different harrier crash caused by the pilot vectoring the thrust in flight and forgetting to reset it for cruise flight. What I find fascinating is that the pilot shuts down and restarts the engine and hears it spooling up but never correlates the lack of fwd thrust to the vector angle of the nozzles. Really a great example of how the human mind can screw up.

“This mishap was caused by the mishap pilot not positioning the nozzles back to the aft position after positioning them … to the hoverstop position in order to … stabilize in a proper formation position with is lead,” the investigating officer stated in the report. “The thrust remained vectored below the aircraft until the aircraft impacted the ground.” …

Stevens executed several successful aerial refueling runs on a KC-10 Extender tanker, the report said, before peeling away with the other two Harriers to practice using his targeting pod during mock ground attacks. As he was trying to slow down and join up with the lead pilot of the flight, whose name is redacted from the report, things started to go wrong.

“The engine sounded like it was spooling up … but the lead [pilot] continued to pull away from me,” Stevens — whose name was removed from the report but released to local media at the time of the crash — told investigators in a statement. “I … increased power to ‘mil’ but did not feel a corresponding acceleration. I decided that I had a problem.”

After several successful mid-air engine restarts but with no resulting forward thrust, Stevens was out of options and decided to eject as his plane plummeted toward Earth.

“I had tried all the emergency procedures I could think of and could not figure out what the problem was,” Stevens told investigators. “After the second airstart, I still wasn’t getting acceleration from the engine and I was out of ideas, so I decided to eject.”

Investigators who examined the wreckage of the plane and downloaded flight data from an onboard diagnostics recorder found that Stevens had redirected the thrust nozzles — which can be shifted about 90 degrees to allow the Harrier to hover or fly conventionally — downward to slow down enough to meet up with his wingman. But as he approached the other Harrier, Stevens forgot to move the nozzles aft, resulting in a functioning engine but no forward thrust.

“I’m pretty sure I put the nozzles back to the aft before I powered up, but looking back now I’m not absolutely positive,” Stevens told investigators.

[AndyJWest]

The vid has now been pulled from YouTube. http://forums.ubi.com/images/smilies/16x16_smiley-mad.gif

Edit - found it on liveleak.com:
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[Badsight-]

what a strong airframe!

he had some serious speed still at the moment of impact , as well a rate of descent/angle of attack

& that pilot had some quick survival skills , ejected within a second or 2 of the flames that covered his canopy

the video sound clearly has the engines powering down , then power goes back on before the impact

[TinyTim]

Actually that's how most of my IL-2 "landings" look like (save the ejection). http://forums.ubi.com/images/smilies/compsmash.gif

[AndyJWest]

Originally posted by Badsight-:
what a strong airframe!

he had some serious speed still at the moment of impact , as well a rate of descent/angle of attack

& that pilot had some quick survival skills , ejected within a second or 2 of the flames that covered his canopy

the video sound clearly has the engines powering down , then power goes back on before the impact

Arguably he should have ejected sooner, but he got away with it anyway. Apparently the Harrier was carrying live ordnance.

It is worth remembering that with the camera as far away as this one was, the sound isn't in sync with the picture - you hear the 'whoosh' of the ejector seat well after he exits.

More info on the PPrune forums here: http://www.pprune.org/military...njured-ejection.html (http://www.pprune.org/military-aircrew/373898-harrier-crashes-afghanistan-pilot-injured-ejection.html)

[Col.BBQ]

To P.11 and AndyWest:

Look at the intake sides when he pulls up for landing. The cooling intakes were opening up whcih means he was moving the thrusters to slow his rate of decent but when he crashed, he closed them.

[AndyJWest]

If you mean the panels immediately behind the main engine intake, I think they are extra (spring loaded) engine inlets, and when they open will depend on throttle setting and airspeed, rather than nozzle position.

[ROXunreal]

If anyone has a link to a working video I'd appreciate it http://forums.ubi.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

[TinyTim]

Originally posted by ROXunreal:
If anyone has a link to a working video I'd appreciate it http://forums.ubi.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

The one Andy posted a few posts up works fine for me.

[K_Freddie]

That was a foul-up..
Just listening to the engine indicates what he was trying to do.

Thinking about it.. that approach was too fast, decent too rapid.. and jet engines do take a while to be effective, and the firecrew were definitely asleep..!! A foul-up on all acounts.
http://forums.ubi.com/images/smilies/16x16_smiley-surprised.gif

[Dance]

As was pointed out earlier, until the findings of the investigations are released, I doubt we'll know what really happened. Two pet theories are complete tail plane control failure (rudder and elevator) I doubt the pilot would have stayed with it if that were the case. Or engine failure, again another case where you would eject immediately.

More here than meets the eye I suspect.

[p-11.cAce]

I'm betting 10,000,000,000 internet pesos and a sugar cookie that my theory is correct http://forums.ubi.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif

[AndyJWest]

the firecrew were definitely asleep..!!
I think this is a bit harsh. Do you know how far from the spot the plane ended up they were based? Airfields aren't tennis courts...

In any case, the pilot had ejected, the plane was clearly a write-off, and it was carrying live ordnance. Should they have even risked trying to extinguish the fire at all? Is it worth risking lives over scrap metal?

Ad Dance says, we don't have enough information to know what occurred - and of course we may never get it at all.

[PanzerAce]

Originally posted by AndyJWest:
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">the firecrew were definitely asleep..!!
I think this is a bit harsh. Do you know how far from the spot the plane ended up they were based? Airfields aren't tennis courts...

In any case, the pilot had ejected, the plane was clearly a write-off, and it was carrying live ordnance. Should they have even risked trying to extinguish the fire at all? Is it worth risking lives over scrap metal?

Ad Dance says, we don't have enough information to know what occurred - and of course we may never get it at all. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>


agreed. Once they saw the pilot up and running, they had no real reason to try to save the plane.

[K_Freddie]

Originally posted by AndyJWest:
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">the firecrew were definitely asleep..!!
I think this is a bit harsh. Do you know how far from the spot the plane ended up they were based? Airfields aren't tennis courts... </div></BLOCKQUOTE>
Well aware of that, and that fire crews and engines are 'usually based' just off the runway (well this is where we had them).
The plane hit the ground at 00:17, there's a film edit at 00:42, so we can assume that the fire crew took a minimum of 25 secs (most probably much longer) to arrive from what looks like 'a far away station'.

Essentially, had the pilot been unable to eject/get out, he would have been 'barbied'.
http://forums.ubi.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_cool.gif

[AndyJWest]

K_Freddie, from looking at Kandahar airbase on Google Earth, the airport fire station could easily be a mile from the point the Harrier came to rest - the runway us about 1.5 miles long, and the fire station is offset by about 1/3 mile from the runway centreline. Unless this was a predeclared emergency, the fire crew would have had to cover this distance from a standing start. I'd say that expecting them to do better would be optimistic.

[WTE_Galway]

Be interesting to also know why it was being filmed and whether something unusual was being attempted.