The Bag-Ex Could Have Bagged Us! - Brief Article

It started as we read the schedule for the next day just before crawling into the rack. We had an early after noon, front-seat bag-ex (a good deal), a landing at 1630, a NATOPS lecture I was briefing at 1715, a Personal Development Board at 1815, then the topper: I was the briefer and lead ECMO 1 of a night section approach hop at 1915. This was the last night event of a six-month Gulf cruise. We had all been warned that this time was a very dangerous part of cruise, but it's difficult to shake that we-can-hack-anything attitude.

My day was very busy, and ending it with a night hop was probably not wise, but my attitude prevented me from saying anything to my chain of command. On top of this, the night event was only a 45-minute cycle. Most squadrons were going to launch, zorch around for 10 or 15 minutes to burn their gas, then head directly to marshal. However, training quals were always needed, so ops added the night section approaches as the scheduled mission.

Our squadron had also recently changed aircrew combinations. Although our procedures are standardized, a change in aircrew is always a challenge.

With a full night's sleep, I headed down to our ready room for the brief by my new pilot (a mid-tour, Cat 1 pilot). Thc bag-ex went as advertised, with six near-perfect traps. However, my pilot felt drained from the 30 minutes of ball flying, so he retired to his stateroom for a quick nap while 1 pressed on with my busy day.

My NATOPS lecture went fine with not much heckling from my fellow JOs, and my pilot offered to write down a briefing outline for the evening hop, now just one hour away. This would help, but I knew I'd still be rushed. I excused myself 15 minutes before my brief from the Professional Development Board, also being held in the ready room, and tried to quickly put up a decent briefing board.

So there I was: frantically putting up a briefing board on the air wing's last night cycle of only 45 minutes, doing night section approaches after a recent aircrew change. Since we'd been in the Gulf, the last section approach my pilot had done was three months earlier. In retrospect, this event was certainly not the time to be practicing section approaches at night.

The brief went fine, and only a couple items needed to be changed because of the short cycle time. We decided to shift the rendezvous from overhead to 30 miles from the ship to save set-up time. It had been quite a while since we had done section approaches, but we covered the important points.

On deck, we altered the rendezvous radial to provide more separation from the marshal radial, and the launch was uneventful. We rendezvoused at 8,000 feet for weather, and our wingman (the more senior section leader) reminded us to descend to 7,000 feet before lowering our landing gear because of a NATOPS limitation.

Because we were limited by time, we quickly went through the approach-to-landing checks, settled in to a clear area, and dirtied-up. The wingman folllowed our signals and maneuvers nicely, so we immediately began our descent. Upon reaching our 6,000-feet waveoff altitude, my pilot went to full power with the speed brakes in. With 150 KIAS, we started to climb. At this point, I was looking at our wingman from the right seat to ensure he was following us through the maneuvers. At that moment, my pilot announced over the ICS, "Two positive, here comes the gear."

I felt a normal shudder in the jet, but saw that our wingman still had his landing gear down. I barely had time to notice, but the nose started to pitch up as our wings started to clean up. The pilot had grabbed the flap lever instead of the gear handle and had raised the flaps and slats. The approximate stall speed of the aircraft was 152 KIAS, and we were around 160 KIAS when the pilot discovered his mistake. This was too close for comfort for all of us involved. Fortunately, the pilot felt the jet getting sluggish as the flaps were moving, pushed the nose over to counter the pitch-up, and lowered the flaps.

We finished the whole approach with the wingman still hanging on, then swapped the lead and had our wingman lead us through another quick approach. This time, the pilot made a conscious effort to raise the gear first. Before we knew it, our time was up, and after just one turn in the marshal stack we landed with an OK 3.

How did we get in that situation? Most importantly, why did we do section approaches? The last night hop of cruise, a short 45-minute cycle, a late land time, a recent aircrew change, and the last section approach for my pilot had been more than three months earlier. Anyone of the eight aircrew in the brief should have at least recommended canceling the section approaches. We all thought we could hack it, and it nearly killed us.

Second, the pilot should have realized his limitations. This was a perfect time to do a little chair flying to reinforce those forgotten motor skills. His habit pattern was to raise the flaps after the jet had gained enough airspeed after a catapult shot. The gear was always an automatic reaction after leaving the deck, so although he said, "Two positive, here comes the gear," his hand was resting on the flap lever.

Third, as the front rightseater, I should have been backing up the pilot during all the configuration changes. My primary job is to be a copilot, but my scan during the maneuver was mostly outside at the wingman. A better scan would have been: "Two positive, here comes the gear" and a quick glance to watch the pilot move the correct handle.

The other factor that heavily contributed to my lack of situational awareness was my fatigue. I should have raised the BS flag the night before or even that morning. I could have gotten out of one of those meetings, or had one of my JO buds brief the hop for me. Many times, we forget how dangerous flying is and allow more of our energy and focus to be directed elsewhere.

My scan during section approaches is different now, as well as my attitude for the schedule. Don't let the operations department box you in, and don't let anyone kill you.

Lt. MacNicholl and Lt. Donley are an ECMO and pilot, respectively, and fly with VAQ-136.

COPYRIGHT 2000 U.S. Naval Safety Center
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