My Flight of the Intruder

   An Attack squadron 36 (VA-36) A-6E Intruder aircraft lands on the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71) during Operation Deny Flight .

“Hey, Doc. Let’s you and me take an A-6 and fly over Bosnia tomorrow.”

I nearly choked on my slider (Navy cheeseburger). Had the CAG (Air Wing Commander) just invited me to fly with him over hostile territory? On a real mission? We were in USS THEODORE ROOSEVELT’s “dirty shirt” wardroom, where aviators dined without changing out of flight suits into the more formal wash khaki attire required in the main wardroom. I took my time finishing the burger morsel, trying to ascertain whether my boss had just made me the butt of one of his infamous pranks. (Aviators take extra pleasure in gigging the doc.) The dead serious look on his face, with just a hint of a smile on the corner of his mouth, told me he meant what he said.

The boyish thrill in my voice betrayed my effort to appear nonchalant. “Sure, CAG, I’ll fly with you.”

The year was 1993, and the mission was “Operation Deny Flight.” Our carrier air wing played a key role in enforcing the UN prohibition on flights over Bosnia and Herzegovina, where civil war raged among various ethnic groups. CAG had just invited me to be his BN (bombardier/navigator) for one of those enforcement missions. A seasoned naval aviator who had flown attacks over Vietnam, he knew that he could fly this recon mission with only a sack of potatoes in the right seat. With me on board, he would at least get another set of eyes and someone who could push a button or two when directed.

Prior to that day in the Adriatic Sea, I had logged some A-6 right seat time, mostly training flights at NAS Oceana, or tanker flights circling over the carrier as the airborne “Texaco” giving fuel to Hornets and Tomcats. So I tried to maintain a casual air the next morning when we manned up for the flight. I strapped on the offered 9mm pistol, just in case we went down and had to defend ourselves. (That happened to Air Force aviator several years later.) But I kept the pistol unloaded, stuffing the ammunition into a pocket on my flight suit. A flight surgeon accidentally discharging a pistol in the cockpit of an aircraft in flight over Bosnia would make the cover of NAVY TIMES in a way my family would not relish.

I lost all semblance of aviator swagger when I struggled on the ascent to my seat on the right side of the airplane. Because the fuselage curved outward, one had to be more nimble than a short stocky flight surgeon climbing up the side railing and stepping into the cockpit. A push in the rear from one of the enlisted plane captains finally got me over the top. CAG was already strapped into his seat, chuckling as I huffed and puffed into mine.

I handled the radio calls for the preflight, launch, and approach to our destination. When we went “feet dry” over Bosnia, we switched to our FAC, forward air controller, who was positioned somewhere in the former Olympic complex in Sarajevo. Flying low over the site of the 1984 winter games, I was aghast at the devastation that civil war had wrought on a place where the world’s finest athletes had once celebrated international fellowship and camaraderie. But the most sad-making sight came when we flew over villages and towns. Intact homes stood next to the wreckage of those destroyed by ethnic cleansing, as if some cruel fist had randomly squashed the lives of certain families, and preserved those of others.

Beyond that chilling site, the mission was uneventful. I never had to load my pistol — an altogether good thing. With the help of our FAC, we spotted a few hidden airplanes on the ground, but no signs that anyone intended to fly them. Two hours after we launched, we trapped back on board the TR. My one and only “green ink” flight was over — too soon. (Aviators record actual “combat” flights in green ink in their log books.)

A year later, I would have the honor of flying the right seat of the last A-6 from my air wing as it was delivered to NAS Norfolk for decomissioning. The Intruder was a fabulous airframe that played a stellar role in the grand history of naval aviation. It was also a great platform for a flight surgeon aviator wannabe to bag exciting flight time.

I close with a video that honors this venerable bird: 

Holes in the Cheese

Why would an airplane manned by five professional aviators (two pilots, three flight officers) fly directly into the water from 250 feet above the surface? That question vexed the aviation mishap investigation board (MIB), of which I was the flight surgeon member, for the two weeks following the E-2C Hawkeye mishap that I described in a prior post (http://www.mkmariner.blogspot.com/2012/02/mishap.html)

The E-2 executed a normal foul deck wave-off procedure from the aircraft carrier at night in marginal weather. As it climbed to 1/4 mile ahead of the ship, the Hawkeye nosed over and impacted the water at high speed. No one on board survived, nor were their bodies recovered.

A Navy aviation mishap board consists of five members. The board conducts a meticulous investigation of all factors that may have contributed to the mishap. The MIB does not assign blame, nor does it single out any individuals for disciplinary action. Its deliberations are held confidential, the sole raison d’etre being to identify correctable causal factors in hopes of preventing similar mishaps in the future.

One member of the board must be a designated naval flight surgeon. By virtue of our training in aviation medicine, and our direct familiarity with the aviation environment, we flight surgeons bring the tools and skill to identify human factors that may have been involved in the event. The board also looks for mechanical or structural issues with the airframe, training of air and ground crews, operational issues such as crew rest and readiness, and other factors.

Seldom does a single factor emerge as the sole cause. Most aviation mishaps — indeed most “accidents” in life — occur at the end of a chain of events, any one of which, if avoided, could have altered the outcome. A common analogy is that of Swiss cheese. If all the holes ever line up just right, the mouse can run straight through the cheese.

Our job on the MIB was to find the links in the chain, or holes in the cheese, that led to the tragic outcome. The evidence at hand consisted of the videotape that recorded the approach, waveoff, and descent of the aircraft (All carrier launches and landings are videotaped); assorted fragments of the aircraft, including a large chunk of the radome and several hundred other pieces no larger than a meter square; the crew’s service, aviation, training, and medical records; the aircraft’s maintenance records; and various other squadron documents. All that, and our collective expertise.

We found no suspect mechanical, operational, or training issues. The largest hole in the cheese came down to a human factor: spatial disorientation in an environment devoid of visual references. Several types of spatial disorientation exist, most of which involve either the visual or vestibular systems (eyes and inner ears). The specific condition that we believed initiated the mishap was the head-up somatogravic illusion:

Bodies in motion tend to head up or down with acceleration or deceleration. Think what happens if you put pedal to the metal in your automobile (We’ve all tried it at least once, right?). The front end lifts up. Conversely, tromp on the brakes, and the front end noses down. In the flight environment, the inner ear’s vestibular system acts like an accelerometer and interprets that sudden forward acceleration as an excessive head up motion, and sudden deceleration as an abrupt head down movement.

After four hours of flying oval patterns in a virtual milk bowl, the E-2 broke out of the overcast and made a normal descent to landing on the carrier’s deck. Just as it came over the ramp it was waved off for another aircraft still in the landing area. Per procedure, the pilot immediately applied full power and started a climb back toward the black night and the cloudy goo. We reasoned that the acceleration into total darkness caused the pilot to believe the nose of the aircraft was rising too fast, risking a stall. He pushed the yoke forward to compensate, and flew the airplane into the water.

“Yeah, DoK, but…”

Indeed, the explanation generated more questions than answers. There had to be more holes in that cheese. What were the other four crewmembers doing? The co-pilot could have grabbed the controls. The flight officers in the back could have raised an alarm. Why would they all sit there, unless they were distracted by something else? What?

And why would a seasoned aviator succumb to an illusion for which he’d been trained and experienced? Perhaps fatigue? We questioned the leadership judgment of conducting night flight operations in bad weather at the end of a long day following a difficult trans-Atlantic passage. Was the mission flown worth the lives of five men?

We could not prove our theory. The only ones who could say what happened in the aircraft that night did not survive to tell their stories. At the very least, we felt we succeeded in finding most of the holes in the cheese, and raised awareness of these human factors for future training — to possibly avert similar events in the future.

For the five men who died that night, it was perhaps a legacy.

Fam 1 - Learning to Fly Navy

To a man (and woman), Navy Flight Surgeon Class 92002 all yearned for one special day. It seemed to hover forever over the horizon as we marched (literally) through officer indoctrination. It appeared to recede into the clouds as we sat through tedious medical didactics on the physiology of flight and other dry topics. As Florida panhandle winter gave way to spring, we gazed out the windows of our stuffy NAS Pensacola classroom and indulged our fancies; not for graduation day, but for the day we would close the medical books and transition to nearby NAS Whiting Field for the final phase of flight surgeon education — flight training.

Future naval aviators undergo their primary flight training at Whiting Field. For the doctor students of Flight Surgeon Class 92002, Whiting Field was Mecca. Unlike the other services, the Navy put student flight surgeons through the exact initial flight curriculum as student naval aviators. Our pilgrimage to that sacred airfield was not to engage in additional medical training, but to realize our fantasies of soaring on mighty wings — a thrill our civilian medical counterparts could not fathom.

The gurus of Naval Air reasoned that flight surgeons, to be effective in their duties, must understand the rigors and challenges, and the thrill, of the flight environment. You just don’t get that sensitivity from reading about it. At Whiting Field, we would be dispersed among the three resident training squadrons, sharing classroom and flight time with Navy and Marine Corps future aviators — our future patients. Not only would we learn the fundamentals of aviation, we would also fly the Navy’s trainer — at that time the T-34C single engine turboprop. (Beyond familiarizing us with the stresses of flight, the T-34 would instill in some of us a career long quest for “stick time,” to get our hands on the controls and actually fly whatever Navy aircraft we happened to occupy at the time.) In primary training at Whiting, the curriculum consisted of a series of familiarization flights (“Fams”). Each fam progressed from basic to complex skills, culminating at the pinnacle: Fam 14 - Solo Flight. A fortunate few of us might get enough sorties (weather always a factor in Florida spring) and aviate well enough to demonstrate that we had the right stuff to fly Fam 14 - commanding the airplane without an instructor on board. With my civilian commercial pilot and flight instructor certificates tucked in my wallet, I felt certain to be one of the lucky few to execute Fam 14.

I soon learned that Navy flight training — in spite of my several hundred hours of civilian flight time — would be no walk in the park, much less a turn around the pattern at my former home airport in Scottsdale, AZ. Naval Air makes training and proficiency a serious challenge, unlike the civilian flight school (one of the best) that I had attended ten years previously. At Whiting, ground school gave us a more rigorous academic challenge than medical school. We memorized aircraft systems to greater detail than we’d ever devoted to human anatomy (except, perhaps, the reproductive systems). We could not expect to sit in the cockpit of a real T-34C until we demonstrated blindfolded knowledge of the location of all flight controls and gages in a series of “static” exercises in a mock-up cockpit. Before we could move on to the flight line, we must man the same simulator to demonstrate rote knowledge of the full preflight, engine start, pre-takeoff and post-landing procedures, including parroting the exact verbiage of the checklists.

By the time we went out to the tarmac for our first sortie in the real bird, we knew all there was about its anatomy and physiology. Or so we thought.

Finally, after three weeks of non-stop class and book study, we donned our flight suits and boots, checked out helmets and parachute harnesses, and headed (swaggered) to the flight line for our first escape from the “surly bonds of earth.”

I feel the need, for speed.

We were each assigned to an “on-wing” flight instructor. Mine did not like flight surgeons. He never said so. Didn’t have to. You just know.

After a tense preflight brief, I approached the airplane with my instructor close at hand. First I had to complete the preflight check that I had memorized in consummate detail during the ground instruction phase. It went well until the part that requires the pilot to open the cowling and inspect the engine and its components. I took my time as I made a show of meticulous attention to detail on each item. Then I turned to my on-wing, who I thought by now must have recognized that I was no rookie on a flight line. “Looks okay,” I said.

“Is it airworthy, Doc?”

“Looks good to me.”

“You sure about that, Doc?” A sneer barely showed on the corner of his mustachioed upper lip.

Oh-oh, what am I missing? All at once anxious, I took out my pocket checklist and reinspected the entire engine assemblage, this time verifying each step as written in the manual. I found nothing out of order. This arrogant aviator is just messing with me. “It’s airworthy,” I said.

“You’d risk your life to fly this airplane, Doc?”

Realizing that I needed to sound more confident than I felt, I replied in a strong voice. “It’s ready to fly.”

“Okay, Doc, let’s fly.” Then he reached into the engine compartment and, with a flourish that only a naval aviator could perfect, picked his watch off the engine block and strapped it back on his wrist.

Every flight begins with a thorough preflight. Lesson learned.

And yet another lesson re-learned: Pride goeth…

Author, Arriving

I've left the blog dormant, I know. I've been otherwise engaged in retiring from the Navy, moving back home to Norfolk, VA, and publishing my debut novel -- Thanks to the wonderful folks at Purple Papaya. 

Available at Amazon Kindle and Barnes and Noble Nook. Also on iTunes, and soon on Kobo.

A senior naval aviator/single mother at the pinnacle of her career deploys in a Navy flagship as director of operations for the U.S. 7th Fleet, where she confronts a cross-fire of military and personal challenges. A conniving superior seeks to discredit her, while an enigmatic yet alluring colleague cycles between nemesis and confidante.

As she struggles to defuse escalating military tension in the western Pacific, her rebellious teenage son -- beguiled by a mysterious Internet predator -- acts out and forces her to re-evaluate life choices and to face down personal demons from her past. As her self-assurance crumbles, she confronts and overcomes her own history of an abusive childhood and toxic marriage. When the unexpected specter of her destroyed marriage threatens to take her son, she brings to bear her aviator instincts and combat-honed courage in a desperate battle far more dangerous than a shooting war.

Note: Adult content.

Kudos and thanks to the outstanding professionals at Purple Papaya and their affiliate, easyePublish.com.