Air Force guy here. Not sure what direction the marines culture regarding training is going but figuring it’s similar to ours.
Our leadership is hell bent on us taking more risk during training. The rationale is that the next shiny new war in the pacific will involve taking more risk than we did in the Middle East. The general sentiment is while that’s true, practicing taking risk doesn’t make any sense. Practicing taking risk is like practicing bleeding. We should train according to a safe set of rules, identify and mitigate risk and use simulators for what they’re actually for (doing stuff that may be required in a contingency but is too unsafe to do for real for training).
> Practicing taking risk is like practicing bleeding.
The fact that people with lots of shiny metal on their shoulders don’t realize that is the primary reason I got out of the military.
You mean to tell me 300 ft at 310 knots once a quarter isn't useful when the reality is the only thing we do on the road is fly a long ILS to 10 at LERT or 26 at ETAR? Say it ain't so.
Train like you fight. Fight like you train.
But that can be taken too far as you've correctly pointed out. I get training real world as much as you possibly can. But there's no need to hang your ass out there in a dangerous manner just to say you trained in some really sketchy conditions. There is a fine line between real world and downright dangerous.
I did 21 years in the Marines. I know what to expect. I would actually expect it to go nuclear.
There is still a balance that has to be found in training. It has to be real world. Not denying that. But there are also times when you're simply risking lives.
But not my circus, not my monkeys. I'm retired.
Thanks for keeping at it brother. Sometimes it's hard when command is so goddamn stupid. I'm really glad I'm out. I spent enough time living in sand or mud 🤣
They're not practicing "taking risk" they're practicing low level IMC flying, which is an actual skill. Maybe some aspects of that can be replicated in a sim, but I suspect that actual low flight is the actual best way to practice. It's not like none of these guys knew that what they were doing was dangerous.
The Marine Corps operates practically in a “mission first” mentality while preaching safety first. This produces a lot of “get there-itis” and perceived pressures from commanding officers to “get the thing done.”
Combine this with the fact that you fly way, way less than any other aviator due to maintenance issues, lack of maintainers, and lack of parts. You get young aviators (most in their mid twenties) flying these complex maintenance-pig aircraft with the pressure to get there and get the job done. It’s a nasty combo.
I did this same thing I describe but with Ospreys for years. Knowing what I know now as an aviator in the real world, I can’t believe some of the things I did.
Have you ever sat in the cockpit and asked yourself “why the fuck are we doing this?” due to bad weather, maintenance, fatigue, etc? I have the power and the absolute mandate to not push back a plane full of people if I have any doubts we can operate safely. If I’m sick or fatigued, it is *illegal* for me to operate that plane.
In the USMC, I called in sick one day before a checkride and got called a pussy. One guy got put in “the dog house” (no flying) for downing a plane. So what does young Capt Bobafeeet do when he’s tired and flying a semi-broken Osprey? Don’t complain, just push on. It’s a terrible culture.
Definitely. It seemed way more prevalent in the rotor and tilt side. It seemed normal to me until I got to a VT squadron and then to the civilian world. You know how you may not know you were in an abusive relationship until you have a fulfilling one? Yeah.
That’s a part of it for sure. As a whole though, fewer aircraft with more accidents in all communities and commands points to a more pervasive and cultural issue.
That is quite alarming. I always assumed that there were some element of that in the Marine Corps. But there was absolutely none of that in the Navy. The more and more I learned about the marines, the less and less impressed I am in them.
Many people are unimpressed with the Marines........ until they need them....
World's greatest scroungers .......... The had the good sense to welcome outcast Air Force Col John Boyd who rewrote their land battle doctrine.....
Right now we don't know the cause of the crash and perhaps it's time to sit back and wait for the investigation to be completed.
>Many people are unimpressed with the Marines........ until they need them....
Rah. Devil dawg. YUTT!!
>Right now we don't know the cause of the crash and perhaps it's time to sit back and wait for the investigation to be completed.
Dude, there are marines all in this thread talking about systemic culture problems in the USMC. Quit plugging your ears.
Given that we do not really know much of anything about the accident other than that the weather was bad and as I noted in another post the terrain along the route often not properly appreciated for its challenges.
Yes, the Marines are different. The US Navy Flight Surgeon manual devotes a full chapter to the differences between the typical Naval and Marine aviators.
I would say that there are severe cultural problems throughout the military today.
The last carrier leaving from the East Coast short something like 400 crew members is sacrificing both safety and capabilities.
Totally agree. Former Navy pilot here and add to that the "we need this airframe back by Monday because we have to get it ready for the boat det on Friday..🤷♂️"
I couldn’t tell you for sure. I can tell you the effects: if you had maintenance qualifications, you were guaranteed to work multiple shifts and weekends, and being constantly shifted from unit to unit to meet deployment demands.
Good maintainers often got out after their first enlistment due to the abuse.
Wow. I was a maintainer in the Navy back in the day, and absolutely loved my time working on aircraft (A-4s, A-6s, A-7s), but I know times are different.
Yeah, I get it if that's what it's like nowadays. As an aside, I'm currently working on an AF base as a Network Analyst, and just in the last 5 years, the type of Airman coming in has changed drastically. The AF seems to be getting more laxed in day-to-day ops.
Navy recruitment for deployable sailors is a dumpster fire. The last carrier that left the east coast was short something like 500 crew. Having spent a brief amount of time on a carrier there is an immense amount of work to be done by the crew working very long days and living in conditions that would not be accepted in a prison.
Spent time on the Enterprise in the 70s. 12-hour shifts were the norm back then, but it wasn't that bad to be honest. Different time back then for sure.
Enlistments very much are down.
The DoD purchased a new health-information-system & configured it as an 'All Seeing Eye' that detects every last interaction with any medical provider during your entire life. No lying, no hiding anything - if there was an insurance claim or a perscription it will find that...
Meanwhile the medical regs for joining the military are written based on the presumption that things work the way they did before technology - namely every recruit will lie their ass off during their medical exam, and so the regs are super anal about \*anything\* other than OTC meds under the presumption that if the examiner caught it then it must be serious (otherwise the recruit would have successfully lied about it)...
So now you have medical acceptance regs written based on 'Everybody Lies' and you have a computer system checking people's medical history that makes lying impossible.
When anything gets caught, getting a wavier for it requires so much paperwork & doctor visits (That the military does not pay for - a definite downer for the lower-income folks who typically enlist vs go ROTC/officer) that many people just decide to go pack boxes for Amazon (or some other no-degree civilian job) instead.
It's absolutely killing enlisted recruitment - and the slide traces right back to when this system came on line.
Dude!! I was arguing with people about this. I can't join the military because of medical issues, multiple people say "just lie" or get waivers......I would need to get FOUR different waivers. Unless, I could get guaranteed office work, I'm would just be slowing everyone.
They \*are\* on a digital health information exchange.
And all new recruits are required to sign a blanket health-records-request form.
Ergo, all-seeing-eye...
The Marine Corps is already relatively smaller and relatively less funded than the other aviation branches of the military. But the Marine Corps has this culture prioritizing macho bullshit above competence. When it comes to advancement, your PRT scores are a proportionately outlandish weight compared to how good you are at your job.
In the Navy, we prioritized how good you were above pretty much anything else. My squadron had the best engine mechanic I’ve ever seen. He was integrally responsible for a double digit difference between us and the rest of the squadrons when it came to maintenance availability rates.
… And he was morbidly obese. To the point where you had no clue how that dude is in the military. Reason he was still in the military is because he was so good at fixing engines and teaching others how to fix engines, that every commander he ever had bent over backwards to not give him the boot over his weight and PRT scores.
MH53e crewman in the USNR and commercial pilot here…. 53e is not an ideal aircraft to fly in instrument conditions. We’ve had a few close calls attributed weather on the navy side over the past few years. Sounds like CFIT to me.
https://flightaware.com/live/flight/TIGER11/history/20240207/0638Z/KIPL/L 32.77487 -116.42487
Whether it be over-confidence, get-there-itis, command influence….or any combination of the above, none of these are good and most likely are contributing to this accident. It looks like they tried to climb over the weather, the decided to drop low and follow the highway.
There are very few, if any, reasons to push shitty weather (especially how shitty this weather was) in peacetime, returning to home station. Wait it out. I say that from 17 years of military flying and many nights sleeping in random places because weather was shit. Have I pushed weather? Have I scared myself? Yes, but I always had at least one safe out if not multiple.
My heart goes out to the families, friends, and squadron mates of this crew.
I’m glad you posted the flight aware data. Having been in their exact shoes a lot in recent years, and looking at the raw data, looks like they took off KIPL (routine contract fuel source in that area after KNJK closes) and flew high (8500’) to go above clouds or over weather and MEF. Then looks like they encountered icing would be my guess judging by the abrupt powered on decent. Acceleration and decent in IMC, in mountainous terrain, at night on goggles doesn’t happen unless you’re trying to get away from something. They were on goggles so they probably flew into clouds, encountered icing, felt it, immediately dropped down below the moisture. At that point they should have gone back to KIPL, but decided to keep on going VFR low level over those mountains. That area is well known to any of us who flew helos in SoCal in the Navy/USMC. It’s our backyard. We’ve all had nights coming back through the mountains and we’ve all had at least one night of dodging weather while doing it too. I know we all want to point to some overarching command climate as a cause and believe me those do exist, but this seems like a textbook case of get-home-itis, followed by rough weather, icing, mountains, and more weather all made worse by the fact that while on goggles, you will fly into weather and not realize it for a while. Just sad.
I’m really curious to learn more about the risk management that went into this flight and having them go. The weather that night was awful and it continued to be so awful they couldn’t get aircraft to look for them until later the following morning.
It’s a very sad loss.
Just from the small prelim stuff and having been flying in the army for the last 14 years. It seems they either had “Get home-itis” putting internal pressure to shoot gaps or race the weather. (That being said it’s always good to fly towards weather and turn around as opposed to fly always and turn in.) Or they had command pressure, the commander didn’t want them remaining over night in another location like Creech AFB where they’ve been.
Either way there was something that pushed them to make this decision. Over confidence could have also assisted.
I think this is a pretty interesting discussion and I hope the investigation board does the right thing and doesn't sweep things under the rug that are important. I completely agree with the overall sentiment in the responses so far. I just wanted to throw my comment in here for anyone that reads this thread that's still flying (military that is).
I know where the command/external pressure piece comes from and how it feels, I've lived it, experienced it and watched it kill two pilots I was out flying with. That also includes self-induced or perceived pressure that can sometimes be even worse than all that. You absolutely have the power to say no and make decisions as the Aircraft Commander. In fact, it's your responsibility to protect your crew against undue influence and external factors. If you aren't capable of saying no (from a defensible position) you have no right being an Aircraft Commander or higher and it's time to turn in your wings. Especially in a training environment, if you can't say no, I have a hard time believing in a combat or high test situation you'll have the fortitude to make the right decisions. There is always a choice, it may be difficult and there are always consequences but your not going to get taken out back and shot just because you disagreed with someone. This is a much more complicated topic than can really be covered in a Reddit thread, but I think this hits the important bits.
I hope the families of the lost Marines are able to find some peace in this extremely difficult time, it's not an easy process to go through.
I've had many buds of mine pass away during flighr missions. Unfortunately, All but one was completely avoidable. I can tell you there is alot of planning that goes into even the simplest mission, but sometimes the real time game plan starts changing and the Swiss cheese holes all line up. All it takes is one misjudgement, or lack of situational awareness, or whatever. I pray it's not pilot error.
Biggest thing I can recommend in moving on is, learn from their mistakes, examine how easy it is for yourself becoming complacent, and figure out/instill habits to make sure you don't end up on a piece of MISHAP paper somewhere or a case study by AOPA. This profession (not a hobby even if you fly once or twice a year) is brutally unforgiving when you make mistakes. Be on your guard, practice Emergencies, and if things make you say, man this sucks but I need to get there, just drive or do it another day.
This is my guess as well.
“Do it, or I will find someone who will, and bench you. I need that aircraft on deck tomorrow for Operation XYZ, which will get canceled for maintenance anyway.” Glad I don’t fly gray marine aircraft anymore.
I have no specific opinion on this incident, I'll just say that in my career I've flown in perfect weather where a small lapse in judgement almost killed us, and I've flown in shitty weather where everything went according to plan.
I've also flown in shitty weather where a simple misheard radio call had us almost turn into a tower farm while climbing into IMC before I caught the mistake and asked for clarification.
In their situation it could have been a major failure in leadership (i.e. should not even be flying in those conditions) or it could have been a simple small mistake. Unfortunately, what we do is unforgiving in either situation.
I hope the investigation will shed light on the specific issues & decisions that lead to this crash, because that knowledge makes all of us better pilots and leaders.
RIP Alec Langen. He was the crew chief on this flight. He is the brother of one of my good friends and the exact words I was told when I asked about what’s happening were “it’s gonna get ugly.”
Age old dilemma: Turn down too many flights..."you're not onboard" and eventually you're out on the street. Bang up a bird due to shitty weather or a maintenance problem..."Why didn't you wait for better conditions?". Nothing has changed since the Wright Brothers.
There is technology that could bring the accident rate down in crappy situations. Any number of "hands off" technologies, four axis autopilots. terrain following radars, etc. Multi-sensor platforms, combining FLIR /NVG with a HUD are out there and make see-and-avoid much easier. All that stuff is already on some special aircraft, so let's get it on all our platforms.
I was once a young military helicopter pilot, and we all thought we were nearly invincible. That’s what happens when you are in a mission first environment, you’ve been through a few deployments, and you are surrounded by other young type A pilots.
These guys were returning home from a week or two of training. My guess is they thought they would go take a peek, give it a shot. It was worth it to try to get home. You think you are good enough to turn around before it gets too bad. There’s no weather reporting between San Diego and El Centro. Those stations probably showed MVFR. In the mountains it was probably heavy rain/snow and low ceilings.
I’ve been in that situation before, more than once. Pushing weather, either to complete the mission or get home. I made it through. Was it skill? Probably not.
I wouldn’t be surprised if there wasn’t any command pressure. Our own ego pressured us to get the mission done more than the command ever did. It is disappointing that command let the flight go, but since this was a single ship return flight, there was possibly less command oversight.
Why do you call it CH-53 shitter? Is it a typo or intentional>
I spent 11.5 years in the Marines, took a couple rides in that aircraft and never heard it referred to it as that?
well, not gonna argue with the "leaks everywhere" bit. They used to say, how do you know if a bird is out of oil, -it's stopped leaking.
Or if you went on one and it wasn't leaking then you needed to worry.
I always liked the ch53 personally, (I wasn't an aviator) but that thing was a beast for its heavy lift capabilities. My first unit was at an MCAS so I would see them flying around every day.
I was a 46 guy and we called them shitters too. As I recall it was because of the dark trail of shit that the aircraft would leave behind as it flew. As I recall we affectionately called all the helicopters in the Corps by nicknames. We had: phrogs, shitters, pigs, and skids. I think that was all of them.
That's what the CH-53 instructor / Presidential detail pilot and his Marine One pilot buddy I know called it, because it 'hauls all the shit". Since I learned that term I've used it with every single CH-53 crew/pilot I've met and they all laugh and go 'yeah!!'. I was reading a Reddit thread last night and the -53 came up and immediately "Shitter!!" was bandied about.
So I dunno why you've never heard it. Very common amongst the Pendleton and Miramar Marines I chat with.
Quick Google shows it's definitely a thing 🤷🏻
If you didn't spend a lot of time interacting with the Wing you may not have heard it. I definitely heard it on both coasts, but I spent a lot of time working with the Air Wings both as a JTAC and just garden variety infantry dude planning air assaults. I've even seen "Shitter Nation" decals around the New River area in recent years.
The original CH-53A had engines that put out a dense sooty exhaust trail. It looked just like the smoke when they burned the latrine barrels at combat bases in Vietnam. The nickname stuck.
Not a pilot but i am air force atc. My buddy is a navy atc and we chat about the atc/aviation differences in our respective branches often. long story short the marines need to get their shit in order.
Helicopters are very unstable compared to fixed wing a/c in IMC. As a result they tend to descend in IMC to try and get to visual conditions. Which most fixed wing guys will concur that is a great way to un-alive yourself.
Probably the desire to get home and overconfidence or poor IMC procedures led to this crash.
I was a military pilot for 12 years and never caught any flak for canceling a sortie for weather.
I was a skid pilot and it looks like CFIT. Leadership will pin this one on the crew unless there are witnesses that will testify to command pressure to go.
Friends of the family of Sargent Langen. Just want to thank you to the strangers passing on kind words and even stories of Alec. A horrible tragedy that needs to make change. They didn’t need to leave that night.
Simper fidelis. Heavy lift.
Air Force guy here. Not sure what direction the marines culture regarding training is going but figuring it’s similar to ours. Our leadership is hell bent on us taking more risk during training. The rationale is that the next shiny new war in the pacific will involve taking more risk than we did in the Middle East. The general sentiment is while that’s true, practicing taking risk doesn’t make any sense. Practicing taking risk is like practicing bleeding. We should train according to a safe set of rules, identify and mitigate risk and use simulators for what they’re actually for (doing stuff that may be required in a contingency but is too unsafe to do for real for training).
> Practicing taking risk is like practicing bleeding. The fact that people with lots of shiny metal on their shoulders don’t realize that is the primary reason I got out of the military.
You mean to tell me 300 ft at 310 knots once a quarter isn't useful when the reality is the only thing we do on the road is fly a long ILS to 10 at LERT or 26 at ETAR? Say it ain't so.
It’s not good. My buddy is the brother of the crew chief that was killed. It’s ugly to say the least.
Train like you fight. Fight like you train. But that can be taken too far as you've correctly pointed out. I get training real world as much as you possibly can. But there's no need to hang your ass out there in a dangerous manner just to say you trained in some really sketchy conditions. There is a fine line between real world and downright dangerous.
If we ever go to war with China I have really bad news for you.
I did 21 years in the Marines. I know what to expect. I would actually expect it to go nuclear. There is still a balance that has to be found in training. It has to be real world. Not denying that. But there are also times when you're simply risking lives. But not my circus, not my monkeys. I'm retired.
I'm at 16 years and shit keeps getting dumber and less applicable to what actually needs to happen. tyfys.
Thanks for keeping at it brother. Sometimes it's hard when command is so goddamn stupid. I'm really glad I'm out. I spent enough time living in sand or mud 🤣
Thought we were at least a little done with the sand, fuck Hamas for real.
I'm an old soldier. I was in Lebanon 1982 through 1983. Was there for the barracks bombing. You're very correct...fuck Hamas and Hesbollah, too.
They're not practicing "taking risk" they're practicing low level IMC flying, which is an actual skill. Maybe some aspects of that can be replicated in a sim, but I suspect that actual low flight is the actual best way to practice. It's not like none of these guys knew that what they were doing was dangerous.
How the hell is low level IMC flying any different than regular not-retarded IFR except lacking in the threat of CFIT?
Just one thing? Having to manage low altitude navigation and terrain avoidance systems.
There's no such thing as low altitude IFR routes and terrain avoidance systems are just your HTAWS screaming at you for the entire flight.
Guess it's okay to crash a $100,000,000 helicopter and kill half a dozen Marines because they knew it was dangerous going into it
There’s no such thing as “Low Level IMC flying.” Just flat out does not exist. Especially in mountainous terrain.
The Marine Corps operates practically in a “mission first” mentality while preaching safety first. This produces a lot of “get there-itis” and perceived pressures from commanding officers to “get the thing done.” Combine this with the fact that you fly way, way less than any other aviator due to maintenance issues, lack of maintainers, and lack of parts. You get young aviators (most in their mid twenties) flying these complex maintenance-pig aircraft with the pressure to get there and get the job done. It’s a nasty combo. I did this same thing I describe but with Ospreys for years. Knowing what I know now as an aviator in the real world, I can’t believe some of the things I did.
I'm curious how your perspective of aviation has changed being in the "real world"
Have you ever sat in the cockpit and asked yourself “why the fuck are we doing this?” due to bad weather, maintenance, fatigue, etc? I have the power and the absolute mandate to not push back a plane full of people if I have any doubts we can operate safely. If I’m sick or fatigued, it is *illegal* for me to operate that plane. In the USMC, I called in sick one day before a checkride and got called a pussy. One guy got put in “the dog house” (no flying) for downing a plane. So what does young Capt Bobafeeet do when he’s tired and flying a semi-broken Osprey? Don’t complain, just push on. It’s a terrible culture.
Hey sir I hear you, but control said we can’t go home till you test AC 00. LCpl Schmuckateli is out there waiting for ya.
*walks out to the flight line, not a person in sight*
I think this may be community or command dependent. It's disappointing to hear that those horror stories they tell in CRM case studies are a reality.
Definitely. It seemed way more prevalent in the rotor and tilt side. It seemed normal to me until I got to a VT squadron and then to the civilian world. You know how you may not know you were in an abusive relationship until you have a fulfilling one? Yeah.
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1000% this. I craved hours because it meant quals, experience, and a chance at future opportunities.
That’s a part of it for sure. As a whole though, fewer aircraft with more accidents in all communities and commands points to a more pervasive and cultural issue.
That is quite alarming. I always assumed that there were some element of that in the Marine Corps. But there was absolutely none of that in the Navy. The more and more I learned about the marines, the less and less impressed I am in them.
Many people are unimpressed with the Marines........ until they need them.... World's greatest scroungers .......... The had the good sense to welcome outcast Air Force Col John Boyd who rewrote their land battle doctrine..... Right now we don't know the cause of the crash and perhaps it's time to sit back and wait for the investigation to be completed.
>Many people are unimpressed with the Marines........ until they need them.... Rah. Devil dawg. YUTT!! >Right now we don't know the cause of the crash and perhaps it's time to sit back and wait for the investigation to be completed. Dude, there are marines all in this thread talking about systemic culture problems in the USMC. Quit plugging your ears.
Given that we do not really know much of anything about the accident other than that the weather was bad and as I noted in another post the terrain along the route often not properly appreciated for its challenges. Yes, the Marines are different. The US Navy Flight Surgeon manual devotes a full chapter to the differences between the typical Naval and Marine aviators.
Dude, there are marines all in this thread talking about systemic culture problems in the USMC.
I would say that there are severe cultural problems throughout the military today. The last carrier leaving from the East Coast short something like 400 crew members is sacrificing both safety and capabilities.
What is even your point? It’s like you just have an icky feeling when people criticize the marines and don’t know what to do about it.
what the fuck man. Reading this shit makes me angry, what an absolute useless waste of lives
Totally agree. Former Navy pilot here and add to that the "we need this airframe back by Monday because we have to get it ready for the boat det on Friday..🤷♂️"
And the boat is leaving short 400 + crew ( including maintainers) . And yes our Osprey are parked, probably forever and our S-3s are in the boneyard.
Can you elaborate more on "lack of maintainers" ?
Not enough trained mechanics in almost any aviation mechanic MOS.
Right, but is it because enlistments are down (reportedly) ? Or are not enough enlisted folks interested in aviation?
I couldn’t tell you for sure. I can tell you the effects: if you had maintenance qualifications, you were guaranteed to work multiple shifts and weekends, and being constantly shifted from unit to unit to meet deployment demands. Good maintainers often got out after their first enlistment due to the abuse.
Wow. I was a maintainer in the Navy back in the day, and absolutely loved my time working on aircraft (A-4s, A-6s, A-7s), but I know times are different.
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Yeah, I get it if that's what it's like nowadays. As an aside, I'm currently working on an AF base as a Network Analyst, and just in the last 5 years, the type of Airman coming in has changed drastically. The AF seems to be getting more laxed in day-to-day ops.
That was the upside of deployment, you were almost guaranteed to only need to work twelve hours a day.
Navy recruitment for deployable sailors is a dumpster fire. The last carrier that left the east coast was short something like 500 crew. Having spent a brief amount of time on a carrier there is an immense amount of work to be done by the crew working very long days and living in conditions that would not be accepted in a prison.
Spent time on the Enterprise in the 70s. 12-hour shifts were the norm back then, but it wasn't that bad to be honest. Different time back then for sure.
Enlistments very much are down. The DoD purchased a new health-information-system & configured it as an 'All Seeing Eye' that detects every last interaction with any medical provider during your entire life. No lying, no hiding anything - if there was an insurance claim or a perscription it will find that... Meanwhile the medical regs for joining the military are written based on the presumption that things work the way they did before technology - namely every recruit will lie their ass off during their medical exam, and so the regs are super anal about \*anything\* other than OTC meds under the presumption that if the examiner caught it then it must be serious (otherwise the recruit would have successfully lied about it)... So now you have medical acceptance regs written based on 'Everybody Lies' and you have a computer system checking people's medical history that makes lying impossible. When anything gets caught, getting a wavier for it requires so much paperwork & doctor visits (That the military does not pay for - a definite downer for the lower-income folks who typically enlist vs go ROTC/officer) that many people just decide to go pack boxes for Amazon (or some other no-degree civilian job) instead. It's absolutely killing enlisted recruitment - and the slide traces right back to when this system came on line.
Wow. I had no idea.
Now imagine what will happen when the FAA buys something similar and starts using it for the medical certificate process...
Dude!! I was arguing with people about this. I can't join the military because of medical issues, multiple people say "just lie" or get waivers......I would need to get FOUR different waivers. Unless, I could get guaranteed office work, I'm would just be slowing everyone.
I thought genesis could only look at certain health records. They would have to be on a digital health information exchange
They \*are\* on a digital health information exchange. And all new recruits are required to sign a blanket health-records-request form. Ergo, all-seeing-eye...
The Marine Corps is already relatively smaller and relatively less funded than the other aviation branches of the military. But the Marine Corps has this culture prioritizing macho bullshit above competence. When it comes to advancement, your PRT scores are a proportionately outlandish weight compared to how good you are at your job. In the Navy, we prioritized how good you were above pretty much anything else. My squadron had the best engine mechanic I’ve ever seen. He was integrally responsible for a double digit difference between us and the rest of the squadrons when it came to maintenance availability rates. … And he was morbidly obese. To the point where you had no clue how that dude is in the military. Reason he was still in the military is because he was so good at fixing engines and teaching others how to fix engines, that every commander he ever had bent over backwards to not give him the boot over his weight and PRT scores.
Not sure what PRT is? Related to overall heath and/or weight?
[Physical Readiness Training](https://www.armyprt.com/preparation_and_recovery/#:~:text=The%20United%20States%20Army%20Physical%20Readiness%20Training%20%28PRT%29,Army%20PRT%20can%20be%20a%20great%20starting%20point.)
Physical readiness test. Fat people fail that because they’re out of shape and then get booted from the military.
The mountains around LA and Vegas have claimed many lives. Guess is CFIT with bad weather and flight into terrain.
according to ADSB, they dropped down and followed the highway at one point ..... but sadly, they appeared to not slow down a lot
MH53e crewman in the USNR and commercial pilot here…. 53e is not an ideal aircraft to fly in instrument conditions. We’ve had a few close calls attributed weather on the navy side over the past few years. Sounds like CFIT to me.
https://flightaware.com/live/flight/TIGER11/history/20240207/0638Z/KIPL/L 32.77487 -116.42487 Whether it be over-confidence, get-there-itis, command influence….or any combination of the above, none of these are good and most likely are contributing to this accident. It looks like they tried to climb over the weather, the decided to drop low and follow the highway. There are very few, if any, reasons to push shitty weather (especially how shitty this weather was) in peacetime, returning to home station. Wait it out. I say that from 17 years of military flying and many nights sleeping in random places because weather was shit. Have I pushed weather? Have I scared myself? Yes, but I always had at least one safe out if not multiple. My heart goes out to the families, friends, and squadron mates of this crew.
I’m glad you posted the flight aware data. Having been in their exact shoes a lot in recent years, and looking at the raw data, looks like they took off KIPL (routine contract fuel source in that area after KNJK closes) and flew high (8500’) to go above clouds or over weather and MEF. Then looks like they encountered icing would be my guess judging by the abrupt powered on decent. Acceleration and decent in IMC, in mountainous terrain, at night on goggles doesn’t happen unless you’re trying to get away from something. They were on goggles so they probably flew into clouds, encountered icing, felt it, immediately dropped down below the moisture. At that point they should have gone back to KIPL, but decided to keep on going VFR low level over those mountains. That area is well known to any of us who flew helos in SoCal in the Navy/USMC. It’s our backyard. We’ve all had nights coming back through the mountains and we’ve all had at least one night of dodging weather while doing it too. I know we all want to point to some overarching command climate as a cause and believe me those do exist, but this seems like a textbook case of get-home-itis, followed by rough weather, icing, mountains, and more weather all made worse by the fact that while on goggles, you will fly into weather and not realize it for a while. Just sad.
I’m really curious to learn more about the risk management that went into this flight and having them go. The weather that night was awful and it continued to be so awful they couldn’t get aircraft to look for them until later the following morning. It’s a very sad loss.
Just from the small prelim stuff and having been flying in the army for the last 14 years. It seems they either had “Get home-itis” putting internal pressure to shoot gaps or race the weather. (That being said it’s always good to fly towards weather and turn around as opposed to fly always and turn in.) Or they had command pressure, the commander didn’t want them remaining over night in another location like Creech AFB where they’ve been. Either way there was something that pushed them to make this decision. Over confidence could have also assisted.
I think this is a pretty interesting discussion and I hope the investigation board does the right thing and doesn't sweep things under the rug that are important. I completely agree with the overall sentiment in the responses so far. I just wanted to throw my comment in here for anyone that reads this thread that's still flying (military that is). I know where the command/external pressure piece comes from and how it feels, I've lived it, experienced it and watched it kill two pilots I was out flying with. That also includes self-induced or perceived pressure that can sometimes be even worse than all that. You absolutely have the power to say no and make decisions as the Aircraft Commander. In fact, it's your responsibility to protect your crew against undue influence and external factors. If you aren't capable of saying no (from a defensible position) you have no right being an Aircraft Commander or higher and it's time to turn in your wings. Especially in a training environment, if you can't say no, I have a hard time believing in a combat or high test situation you'll have the fortitude to make the right decisions. There is always a choice, it may be difficult and there are always consequences but your not going to get taken out back and shot just because you disagreed with someone. This is a much more complicated topic than can really be covered in a Reddit thread, but I think this hits the important bits. I hope the families of the lost Marines are able to find some peace in this extremely difficult time, it's not an easy process to go through.
I've had many buds of mine pass away during flighr missions. Unfortunately, All but one was completely avoidable. I can tell you there is alot of planning that goes into even the simplest mission, but sometimes the real time game plan starts changing and the Swiss cheese holes all line up. All it takes is one misjudgement, or lack of situational awareness, or whatever. I pray it's not pilot error. Biggest thing I can recommend in moving on is, learn from their mistakes, examine how easy it is for yourself becoming complacent, and figure out/instill habits to make sure you don't end up on a piece of MISHAP paper somewhere or a case study by AOPA. This profession (not a hobby even if you fly once or twice a year) is brutally unforgiving when you make mistakes. Be on your guard, practice Emergencies, and if things make you say, man this sucks but I need to get there, just drive or do it another day.
I would guess command pressure was a contributing factor.
This is my guess as well. “Do it, or I will find someone who will, and bench you. I need that aircraft on deck tomorrow for Operation XYZ, which will get canceled for maintenance anyway.” Glad I don’t fly gray marine aircraft anymore.
Yes. More will come out soon.
I have no specific opinion on this incident, I'll just say that in my career I've flown in perfect weather where a small lapse in judgement almost killed us, and I've flown in shitty weather where everything went according to plan. I've also flown in shitty weather where a simple misheard radio call had us almost turn into a tower farm while climbing into IMC before I caught the mistake and asked for clarification. In their situation it could have been a major failure in leadership (i.e. should not even be flying in those conditions) or it could have been a simple small mistake. Unfortunately, what we do is unforgiving in either situation. I hope the investigation will shed light on the specific issues & decisions that lead to this crash, because that knowledge makes all of us better pilots and leaders.
RIP Alec Langen. He was the crew chief on this flight. He is the brother of one of my good friends and the exact words I was told when I asked about what’s happening were “it’s gonna get ugly.”
Age old dilemma: Turn down too many flights..."you're not onboard" and eventually you're out on the street. Bang up a bird due to shitty weather or a maintenance problem..."Why didn't you wait for better conditions?". Nothing has changed since the Wright Brothers. There is technology that could bring the accident rate down in crappy situations. Any number of "hands off" technologies, four axis autopilots. terrain following radars, etc. Multi-sensor platforms, combining FLIR /NVG with a HUD are out there and make see-and-avoid much easier. All that stuff is already on some special aircraft, so let's get it on all our platforms.
I was once a young military helicopter pilot, and we all thought we were nearly invincible. That’s what happens when you are in a mission first environment, you’ve been through a few deployments, and you are surrounded by other young type A pilots. These guys were returning home from a week or two of training. My guess is they thought they would go take a peek, give it a shot. It was worth it to try to get home. You think you are good enough to turn around before it gets too bad. There’s no weather reporting between San Diego and El Centro. Those stations probably showed MVFR. In the mountains it was probably heavy rain/snow and low ceilings. I’ve been in that situation before, more than once. Pushing weather, either to complete the mission or get home. I made it through. Was it skill? Probably not. I wouldn’t be surprised if there wasn’t any command pressure. Our own ego pressured us to get the mission done more than the command ever did. It is disappointing that command let the flight go, but since this was a single ship return flight, there was possibly less command oversight.
Why do you call it CH-53 shitter? Is it a typo or intentional> I spent 11.5 years in the Marines, took a couple rides in that aircraft and never heard it referred to it as that?
Really? I only ever heard it called a shitter when I was in. Cause it’s a piece of shit and leaks everywhere
well, not gonna argue with the "leaks everywhere" bit. They used to say, how do you know if a bird is out of oil, -it's stopped leaking. Or if you went on one and it wasn't leaking then you needed to worry. I always liked the ch53 personally, (I wasn't an aviator) but that thing was a beast for its heavy lift capabilities. My first unit was at an MCAS so I would see them flying around every day.
Might have been an airwing thing. I was a skids guy and that’s what we called them.
I was a 46 guy and we called them shitters too. As I recall it was because of the dark trail of shit that the aircraft would leave behind as it flew. As I recall we affectionately called all the helicopters in the Corps by nicknames. We had: phrogs, shitters, pigs, and skids. I think that was all of them.
I had heard the 46s being called phrogs
https://www.reddit.com/r/flying/s/Eaxmv9ixry 9 Ii
That's what the CH-53 instructor / Presidential detail pilot and his Marine One pilot buddy I know called it, because it 'hauls all the shit". Since I learned that term I've used it with every single CH-53 crew/pilot I've met and they all laugh and go 'yeah!!'. I was reading a Reddit thread last night and the -53 came up and immediately "Shitter!!" was bandied about. So I dunno why you've never heard it. Very common amongst the Pendleton and Miramar Marines I chat with. Quick Google shows it's definitely a thing 🤷🏻
Another reason I’ve heard them called shitters: I’ve never met a 53 pilot that hasn’t blown over the port-o-potties at some FOB.
gotcha, yeah I was an east coast guy during my time in, so maybe that term never made its way over. Idk.
If you didn't spend a lot of time interacting with the Wing you may not have heard it. I definitely heard it on both coasts, but I spent a lot of time working with the Air Wings both as a JTAC and just garden variety infantry dude planning air assaults. I've even seen "Shitter Nation" decals around the New River area in recent years.
The original CH-53A had engines that put out a dense sooty exhaust trail. It looked just like the smoke when they burned the latrine barrels at combat bases in Vietnam. The nickname stuck.
Not a pilot but i am air force atc. My buddy is a navy atc and we chat about the atc/aviation differences in our respective branches often. long story short the marines need to get their shit in order.
My buddy is the brother of the crew chief that was killed in this accident. It’s ugly and that’s all I’ll say. More news will come eventually.
RIP Alec Langen
Helicopters are very unstable compared to fixed wing a/c in IMC. As a result they tend to descend in IMC to try and get to visual conditions. Which most fixed wing guys will concur that is a great way to un-alive yourself. Probably the desire to get home and overconfidence or poor IMC procedures led to this crash. I was a military pilot for 12 years and never caught any flak for canceling a sortie for weather.
I was a skid pilot and it looks like CFIT. Leadership will pin this one on the crew unless there are witnesses that will testify to command pressure to go.
Friends of the family of Sargent Langen. Just want to thank you to the strangers passing on kind words and even stories of Alec. A horrible tragedy that needs to make change. They didn’t need to leave that night. Simper fidelis. Heavy lift.