Poor training contributed to the deaths last year of two pilots at Lemoore Naval Air Station after a tricky air maneuver went wrong, a Navy report said.
Lt. Matthew Ira Lowe, 33, and Lt. Nathan Williams, 28, were killed April 6 when their two-seater F/A-18F Super Hornet jet crashed outside the base.
The investigation revealed that the pilots were doing a maneuver at too steep an angle to maintain control. In previous training flights, they failed to execute the maneuver properly three times, yet post-flight debriefings never included showing them videotapes of their performance, the report said.
As a result, “a vital opportunity to prevent the accident was lost,” Vice Admiral A.G. Myers, head of Naval Air Forces, Pacific in San Diego, wrote in a letter summarizing and endorsing the report’s findings.
Capt. Mark Hubbard, commander of the Super Hornet air wing at Lemoore, did not respond to a request for an interview placed through the base public affairs office.
Myers’ report, dated Dec. 6 and made public this week, gives a synopsis of what went wrong.
The pilots were executing a maneuver called a “loaded roll” and lost control despite attempts to recover, the report said. The maneuver — a high-speed upward pirouette that quickly slows the aircraft — is used in air show demonstrations.
The maneuver is now banned in air shows, and the Navy will tighten its training procedures for pilots practicing for them, Myers wrote.
After the turn went wrong, the $50-million fighter jet slammed into the ground and was destroyed.
Retired Rear Admiral Bobby Lee of Lemoore, a former air wing commander at Lemoore, said “it takes excellent motor skills” to do the maneuver because it involves high gravitational forces. The maneuver is used in aerial combat to thwart an enemy attacker, who ideally will zip past the suddenly-slowing fighter and then be chased in turn, he said.
The men were practicing as part of a Super Hornet air demonstration program, and their deaths revealed training flaws, the report said.
For instance, Navy pilots weren’t reviewing instructional material provided to them as air show demonstration pilots, and pilots must log more flight-simulator practice sessions before the maneuver should be tried in actual flight, the report said.
The report accompanied an earlier investigation in May by the men’s flight squadron, VFA-122, at Lemoore.
According to that report, the men died instantly due to blunt force trauma.
Both pilots started to eject, but the jet was too low — about 330 feet — the report said.
The rear seat ejected and was found a few hundred feet from the impact crater. The pilot’s parachute did not have time to open, the report said. The forward seat started to eject but was stopped by the plane hitting the ground.
The Naval Safety Center will issue its own report later this year.
