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Marine pilot loses command after ejecting from F-35B that kept flying

marinecorpstimes.com

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Re: Marine pilot loses command after ejecting from F-35B that kept flying

#241

Post by Peteragain »

lumost wrote: post #14
synapsomorphy wrote: post #7

The report criticizes the pilot for ejecting, but also says he did everything by the book (F35 manual), but the book was wrong. And the pilot should've figured that out? Feels like they just need someone to blame for losing the plane.

Fighter pilots are extremely highly trained individuals. While data is scarce for the exact dollar cost - an F-22 pilot costs roughly 11 Million USD to train, pilots are expected to use judgement and be capable of dealing with high pressure/ambiguous outcomes.

Yes. And pilots are harder to replace than planes. The manual will say "if in doubt, punch out". Being in doubt is the issue: should he have been able to figure out he was safe in the time it took to eject? There is the question, and it is a question of training, not moral character.

Re: Marine pilot loses command after ejecting from F-35B that kept flying

#242

Post by arghwhat »

thrill wrote: post #66
arghwhat wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That really, really depends on what conditions you are flying under. This is not a naturally stable aircraft flown at relatively low speeds far away from any obstacle, and it is not being flown from a couch with a gamepad. Even if he fucked up severely and needlessly burned an insanely expensive asset at the cost of tax payers, that’s a fuckup from an individual actually qualified for and skilled at flying the thing,…

The flight control software was not malfunctioning. He had instruments and communication capability that would have let him land an otherwise flyable aircraft.

Again, a very easy judgement to make when you’re not the one strapped to the rocket in what the documents describe as “challenging conditions” as your displays you were flying after go dark.

He only had “basically working” comms, which seems to suggest that it too was degraded, and the instruments referred to as being available is just the tiny artificial horizon display in front of his right knee.

Re: Marine pilot loses command after ejecting from F-35B that kept flying

#243

Post by hgomersall »

Supermancho wrote: post #179
njtransit wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Comparing going down with the ship to dying for a cause seems like a false equivalence. When a ship sinks, the outcome is more or less the same whether people are onboard or not: in either case the ship will sink. The only difference is whether or not the passengers / crew survive. Fighting for a cause, on the other hand, generally requires that people sacrifice themselves. If no one is willing to die, then the fight…

> seems like a false equivalence. When a ship sinks, It seems that way, but that's a subjective stance. This is during a time when ships were the armies of the time. It's not complicated to understand that 250 men were worth less than a ship for the purposes of late 1700s warfare. Dying for a sinking ship was a heroic thing, in that it was an attempt to hold on to an immense power for their country. How many untold m…

Trained and capable seaman were very valuable. It took many years to train someone in the proper functioning of the ship, and given that many raw recruits were typically whomever was rounded up on the streets of Portsmouth at midnight, the quality of the input varied wildly. I'm fairly confident the British navy had huge difficulty manning their ships properly.

Re: Marine pilot loses command after ejecting from F-35B that kept flying

#244

Post by ip26 »

caseyy wrote: post #167

This reminds me of how in the 18th century, captains in the Royal Navy wouldn't call to abandon ship because that would have career-ending consequences. So there were cases like HMS Tribune in 1797, where it is claimed that only 12 of the 240 seamen survived because the captain Scory Barker, even having ample time, was effectively prohibited from abandoning the vessel. Four survivors who escaped early were seen as mu…

dying in the line of duty is still weirdly seen as good leadership

The captain being the last person off a sinking ship is a naval version of "lead from the front". The captain going down with the ship is a probable consequence of following that ideal.

Re: Marine pilot loses command after ejecting from F-35B that kept flying

#245

Post by varjag »

toast0 wrote: post #148
varjag wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was exactly 1 (one) fatality involving F-35s. In Japan air force, attributed to the piloting error.

I'm sure had the pilot not ejected and the plane crashed, we'd all be calling it pilot error for not ejecting when in this situation, when the book called for ejecting.

The book didn't call for ejecting from a controllable plane. As per the fine article, the commander referred to a chapter that was not relevant for the situation.

Re: Marine pilot loses command after ejecting from F-35B that kept flying

#246

Post by renewiltord »

underseacables wrote: post #63

I think it is grossly unfair what happened to the pilot. He followed orders, followed procedure, followed the damn manual. Wholly inappropriate response by the marine corps. I can only assume that it got political and the brass got embarrassed.

I can understand this reaction normally but VMX-1 appears to be some sort of test division? I imagine it’s fair to say this guy isn’t test pilot stuff if he panics and ejects the second the book says he can.

It’s not like he stopped being a pilot if I understand it right.

Re: Marine pilot loses command after ejecting from F-35B that kept flying

#247

Post by rob74 »

bawolff wrote: post #188
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> instead of penalizing him He wasn’t disciplined. But he was penalised. Which strikes me as the right balance given the facts. There are two kinds of jobs: those where the person’s employment is more important than their work, and those where it isn’t. This is the latter. He’s still getting paid. But he should not have this responsibility. It you’re making excuses after losing a plane when you shouldn’t have, becaus…

I disagree, penalising people for making mistakes where procedures are bad tends to cover up root causes and causes more problems in the long term. After all, its not like flying planes is a new phenomenom. Why were the procedures still bad after all this time?

The procedures were not bad, they were ambiguous: I think most pilots understand what “unresponsive to the pilot’s commands“ means (that they should check if the plane responds to basic controls like pitch, roll and yaw before ejecting), but it leaves room to wiggle out of your responsibility by saying that you misunderstood this statement. And if someone is willing to do that, you might conclude that he is not a good fit for a leadership role...

Re: Marine pilot loses command after ejecting from F-35B that kept flying

#248

Post by swiftcoder »

YZF wrote: post #204
bsimpson wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a civilian, I would have expected that if there's anywhere where you're supposed to follow protocol even if it means expensive mistakes happen, it's the Marines. My mental model of the military, and especially the Marines, is that it's an organization that values discipline and prioritizes following the chain of command. That's even more true if getting it wrong means you could die.

A pilot is expected to follow procedure when that's called for but ultimately has full responsibility and can make any call they want. Procedure is never going to cover the range of scenarios you can run against and there's no time to reach out to the chain of command when something goes wrong. Ejecting could save you but send the plane crashing into a city, and that's just one of many scenarios. If he was flying wit…

> Maybe he wasn't familiar enough with the airplane's systems

It seems that a highly qualified marine test pilot is unlikely to be unfamiliar with the airplane's systems

Re: Marine pilot loses command after ejecting from F-35B that kept flying

#249

Post by wiseowise »

acyou wrote: post #228

If you're familiar with USA military history, the Americans are (were) famous for not doing things by the book for the right reasons, and letting common sense prevail, as well as incentivizing good outcomes. “A serious problem in planning against American doctrine is that the Americans do not read their manuals, nor do they feel any obligation to follow their doctrine.” “The reason that the American Navy does so well…

[dead]

Re: Marine pilot loses command after ejecting from F-35B that kept flying

#250

Post by petre »

acyou wrote: post #228

If you're familiar with USA military history, the Americans are (were) famous for not doing things by the book for the right reasons, and letting common sense prevail, as well as incentivizing good outcomes. “A serious problem in planning against American doctrine is that the Americans do not read their manuals, nor do they feel any obligation to follow their doctrine.” “The reason that the American Navy does so well…

He did the right thing. He's alive and well, fired from his command instead of deceased like the other servicemen in the OV-22 and FA-18D.
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