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Belgian Air Force F-16 destroyed by fire during maintenance

aviation24.be

11–20 of 130 posts

Re: Belgian Air Force F-16 destroyed by fire during maintenance

#11

I thought these sorts of planes would have a safety. And if the safety is designed in such a way without i.e. interlocks and such that you can fire off guns accidentally by poking around in the wires/connectors, that's a little sad.

Now I don't know about fighters, but I used to work on C-130s. Countermeasure systems (flare and chaff) rely on a weight on wheels microswitch completing a circuit when the aircraft is in the air, safety pins being removed from a panel to arm the system, an on switch, and a guarded switch being activated before the system can be used.

Now sometimes the weight on wheels switches need to be bypassed for testing a wide range of aircraft systems. Perhaps the aircraft was on jacks (tyre replacement?) or some sort of EMI occurred... But ultimately there really is a great deal of safety layers that had to be compromised for this to happen, including human factors.

Like with software development, you can't predict every possible action of your users (air or ground crew), and sooner or later you'll encounter an edge case nobody had considered.

Re: Belgian Air Force F-16 destroyed by fire during maintenance

#13

That has got to be the most expensive fuckup by a technician ever.

Yeah, for accidentally hitting a button... I wonder if that characterization is accurate. Cost would be up there with the economic cost of Hawaii’s accidental missle alarm button click.

Re: Belgian Air Force F-16 destroyed by fire during maintenance

#15

In Russian media it's always portrayed that a professional pilot must be in the cockpit during any maintenance operations to avoid exactly such things.

I wouldn't be surprised if technicians trained on a specific piece of equipment are more broadly skilled at operating the controls than a pilot or other operator.

Re: Belgian Air Force F-16 destroyed by fire during maintenance

#16

As a Belgian I find this hilarious. This might be the most Belgian thing ever. By the way they are investigating whether this was an accident or on purpose. The chances of this being an accident are quite small.

You suspect some insurance fraud?

Re: Belgian Air Force F-16 destroyed by fire during maintenance

#17

As a Belgian I find this hilarious. This might be the most Belgian thing ever. By the way they are investigating whether this was an accident or on purpose. The chances of this being an accident are quite small.

What would the possible motive be for doing this on purpose, do you think? Also thanks for the best beer ever

Re: Belgian Air Force F-16 destroyed by fire during maintenance

#20

I thought these sorts of planes would have a safety. And if the safety is designed in such a way without i.e. interlocks and such that you can fire off guns accidentally by poking around in the wires/connectors, that's a little sad.

There is an “arm” switch.[1] This certainly shouldn’t have happened and indicates a break down in safety procedures. Significant maintenance should not be performed on an aircraft with ordnance. The plane never should have been armed. The maintainer should have been careful around the trigger. And a plane loaded with forward firing ordnance should not be pointed at another plane. This seems like a Commanding Officer gets fired type accident.

[1] https://www.google.com/search?q=f+16+master+arm+switch

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