Pilot survives fiery fighter jet crash in Alberta

From: http://www.edmontonjournal.com/



link to gallery: Pilot survives fiery fighter jet crash in Alberta

CF-18 crash in Lethbridge, July 23. Pilot Capt. Brian Bews ejected the plane and survived the crash.

Photograph by: Courtesy, Copyright 2010 Kurt's Kustom Photography

LETHBRIDGE, Alta. — A CF-18 fighter jet crashed while conducting an air-show practice flight at an Alberta airport Friday, but the pilot was able to safely eject before it exploded on impact.

Capt. Brian Bews was piloting the CF-18 Hornet, which was set to perform at the Alberta International AirShow this weekend, when the crash occurred at Lethbridge County Airport just after noon.

Capt. Holly Brown, a spokeswoman for 1 Canadian Air Division, said Bews is a demonstration pilot for that specific aircraft, noting his vast experience.

“Capt. Bews, like any of our F-18 pilots, is highly trained, highly skilled and highly capable,” Brown said. “It’s a long journey to become an F-18 pilot, and our demo pilots are exceptionally proven. It’s an honour to be selected as a demo pilot.

“Unfortunately today, something happened. He was going through his practice sessions and something happened. He had to eject and the aircraft impacted the airfield.”

The pilot was about 30 metres from the ground when he ejected, and could be seen coming to rest just outside the ball of flame that erupted when the aircraft collided with the ground.

RCMP said Bews was brought to hospital and his injuries are not believed to be life-threatening.

“We’re just really thankful that he’s OK,” Brown said, who would not provide details on his condition, citing the Privacy Act.

It’s not clear whether the plane ran into trouble during mid-air manoeuvres, or on takeoff or landing, but Brown said the Department of National Defence’s Flight Safety Team is investigating.

Private pilot Nathaniel Lockheart was watching the practice runs when he noticed something was wrong.

"He came in right over us, probably only 100 to 200 feet high,” he said. “It looked like he lost power out of his right engine. Only one afterburner was on and it was burning red hot.

"He looked very close to stalling. I knew what was going to happen: he wasn’t going to make it out of this one."

After Bews ejected, it appeared he was dangerously close the massive fireball. The chute didn’t appear to open fully and Lockheart ran to help.

"It looked like he was in the fire,” he said. “We jumped the barbed wire fence to see if we could help.”

Luckily, Lockheart watched as the pilot stood up and gathered his crumpled parachute.

"That’s one of my favourite airplanes and to actually see one crash is just unreal,” Lockheart said.

Kurtis Koop spent the morning watching the fighter jet as he worked outside framing a house with friends.

"I was watching the thing all morning. We were all in awe," said Koop.

But then, he watched as the tail end of the plane swung low, and the aircraft dipped behind a hill.

"Then I saw the smoke come up. It was a straight stack of black smoke, thick. I said, ‘No, he couldn’t have crashed.’”

“He looked like he was in complete control the whole time. The next thing I know, it’s up in flames. I can’t believe I saw it.”

Officials from the Department of Transportation are also working on the investigation.

Brown would not speculate on a timeline as to when crash details would be released.

“Some investigations take longer than others, but the bottom line is the investigation will take as long as it needs so we can properly examine the incident and take whatever actions are necessary,” Brown said.

Canada’s fleet of CF-18 Hornet fighter jets will continue to fly despite the crash.

“This is an isolated incident with one aircraft,” said Lt. Col. Midas Vogan, commanding officer of the 419 Moose Squadron based in Cold Lake.

Bews, who is originally from Eatonia, Sask., is described on the DND’s website as being a motorcycle enthusiast, with more than 1,400 flight hours logged since his military career began in 1999. Some 1,200 of those hours have been logged on the CF-18 Hornet.

His piloting career started in 1995 in Okotoks, Alta., when he earned his private pilot’s licence.

The pilot’s aunt, Lenora Bews, said he loved flying from the time he was in his mid-teens.

She said he would often fly over Eatonia, southwest of Saskatoon, whenever he came by for a visit to the family farm.

“Flying was always in his blood,” Lenora Bews said. “Some young kids get an idea of what they want to do and they don’t think of anything but that.

“He wasn’t interested in farming like his older brothers, so he’s lucky he got into that. (The crash) is unfortunate, but it’s fortunate he wasn’t killed.”

After some uncertainty as to the fate of this weekend’s air show, Robb Engen, president of air show association, said the event will proceed as scheduled Saturday and Sunday.

Engen said the decision was made after organizers met with Department of National Defence officials.

With files from Calgary Herald, Regina Leader-Post and Global News

© Copyright (c) Postmedia News

Bermuda Triangle plane mystery 'solved'

Two of the so-called Bermuda Triangle's most mysterious disappearances in the late 1940s may have been solved.

Scores of ships and planes are said to have vanished without trace over the decades in a vast triangular area of ocean with imaginary points in Bermuda, Florida and Puerto Rico.

But journalist Tom Mangold's new examination for the BBC provides plausible explanations for the disappearance of two British commercial planes in the area, with the loss of 51 passengers and crew.

One plane probably suffered from catastrophic technical failure as a result of poor design, while the other is likely to have run out of fuel.

Sixty years ago, commercial flights from London to Bermuda were new and perilous. It would require a refuelling stop on the Azores before the 2,000-mile flight to Bermuda, which at that time was the longest non-stop commercial overseas flight in the world.

The planes would have been operating at the limit of their range. Today planes arriving at the tiny Atlantic island have sufficient reserve fuel to divert to the US East Coast 700 miles away, in case of emergency.

And the planes of the post-war era were far less reliable than today's airliners.

British South American Airways (BSAA), which operated the route, had a grim safety record. In three years it had had 11 serious accidents and lost five planes with 73 passengers and 22 crew members killed.

Unsolved mystery

On 30 January 1948, a BSAA Avro Tudor IV plane disappeared without trace. Twenty-five passengers and a crew of six were on board The Star Tiger. No bodies or wreckage were found.

The official investigation into the disappearance concluded: "It may truly be said that no more baffling problem has ever been presented.

"What happened in this case will never be known and the fate of Star Tiger must remain an unsolved mystery."

At 2,000 feet you'd be leaving very little altitude for manoeuvre - in any serious in-flight emergency the plane could have lost its height in seconds and gone into the sea Eric Newton Air accident investigator

But there are a number of clues in the official accident report that reveal the Star Tiger had encountered problems before it reached the Azores.

The aircraft's heater was notoriously unreliable and had failed en route, and one of the compasses was found to be faulty.

Probably to keep the plane warmer, the pilot had decided to fly the whole transatlantic route very low, at 2,000 feet, burning fuel at a faster rate.

On approaching Bermuda, Star Tiger was a little off course and had been flying an hour later than planned.

In addition, the official Ministry of Civil Aviation report considered that the headwinds faced by Star Tiger may have been much stronger than those forecast. This would have caused the fuel to burn more quickly.

"Flying at 2,000 feet they would have used up much more fuel," said Eric Newton, one of the Ministry of Civil Aviation's most senior air accident investigators, who reviewed the scenario for the BBC.

"At 2,000 feet you'd be leaving very little altitude for manoeuvre. In any serious in-flight emergency they could have lost their height in seconds and gone into the sea."

Whatever happened to the plane, it was sudden and catastrophic - there was no time to send an emergency signal.

Five US Navy planes disappeared in the triangle area in 1945

The Avro Tudor IV was a converted warplane that was eventually taken out of passenger service because of its poor safety record. Only BSAA continued to fly the aircraft.

Gordon Store was chief pilot and manager of operations at BSAA. In an interview with his local newspaper last November, he said he had no confidence in the Tudor's engines.

"Its systems were hopeless… all the hydraulics, the air-conditioning equipment and the recycling fans were crammed together underneath the floor without any thought. There were fuel-burning heaters that would never work," he said.

Second accident

Almost a year to the day after the disappearance of the Star Tiger, another Avro Tudor IV belonging to BSAA vanished between Bermuda and Jamaica.

Exactly one hour after departure from Bermuda on 17 January 1949, the pilot of the Star Ariel sent a routine communication of his position. But then the plane vanished without trace at 18,000 feet.

According to experts, this would have required a sudden catastrophe.

Again, no wreckage, debris or bodies were ever found.

Fuel starvation at that height was not plausible, the weather report had been good, and pilot error was ruled out.

The plane's poor design may well have been to blame, according to Don Mackintosh, a former BSAA Tudor IV pilot. The cabin heater mounted underneath the floor where the co-pilot sat is his prime suspect.

My theory is that hydraulic vapour escaped from a leak, which got on to a hot heater and caused an explosion Captain Peter Duffey

At the time, aircraft heater technology was still in its infancy.

"The heater bled aviation fuel on to a hot tube - and was also fairly close to the hydraulic pipes," he says.

A pressure switch should have allowed the heater to operate when it was in the air but it was unreliable and was often deliberately short-circuited by staff, allowing the pilot manual control.

The switch prevented inflammable fuel from flowing, but if the heater was switched on manually, gas that may have collected could have ignited.

Captain Peter Duffey, a former BSAA pilot who went on to become a captain of British Airways Concorde, also believes that the proximity of the heater and the hydraulic pipes was significant.

"My theory is that hydraulic vapour escaped from a leak, which got on to a hot heater and caused an explosion," he says.

Mr Newton's report came to a similar conclusion: "If the heater had caught fire down below the floorboards then it could have developed to a catastrophic state before the crew knew anything about it.

"There was no automatic fire extinguisher to put it out like there is nowadays. There was no alarm where the heater was stored… so no-one would know, possibly until it was too late."

The official accident investigation discovered that because of a communications error, search and rescue teams were not despatched until seven and a half hours later.

By then what was left of the plane and the bodies would have sunk.

The report on the disappearance of the first plane, the Star Tiger, said something which, because it could be easily misinterpreted, helped the accident achieve notoriety.

In a moment of philosophical conjecture, the investigators mused that maybe "some external cause may (have) overwhelm(ed) both man and machine".

Those comments from sober-suited British civil servants opened the floodgates for conspiracy theorists, hack journalists and mischief makers, adding to the mystery of the Bermuda Triangle.

How to listen to Tom Mangold's investigation: Inside The Bermuda Triangle - The Mysteries Solved:

Radio 4: 1545 BST, weekdays from Monday 14 to Friday 25 September

Online at the programme website

Airbus Wants to Replace Black Boxes with Real Time Data

ABC's Christophe Schpoliansky reports from Paris:

European plane manufacturer Airbus wants to see the end of the black boxes on airplanes.

In an interview published in the French daily newspaper Le Parisien today, Airbus CEO Thomas Enders announced that Airbus, along with its partners and suppliers, is working on the possibility of sending while inflight the most important flight data in real time via satellites to the airline’s HQs and to no longer solely rely on black boxes which, in some cases, are difficult or impossible to recover or too damaged to be analyzed. “To improve the safety of air transport, we must be sure to recover all the data of a flight” Enders told the newspaper.

How would this work? The aircraft would continuously transmit technical data via VHF if it is less than 125 miles from a reception station or via satellite beyond this distance. The satellite then would relay the technical data to a reception station on the ground. And this station would pass on all the information via phone lines or satellite to the airline company’s reception center.

This comes after the crash of the Air France A330 off the coast of Brazil on June 1st which killed 228 people. The cause of the crash is still unknown and the search for the black boxes have remained unsuccessful despite the mobilization of important means. This search for the black boxes is due to resume in the Fall, with the participation of several countries, including the US. Cost of this new search phase is already estimated at several tens of millions of dollars.

Transmitting data from an airplane is nothing new. An aircraft is already transmitting using VHF or satellites certain technical data to its airline on the ground. Coded messages called ACARS (for Aircraft Communication Adressing and Reporting System) are sent continuously and at more or less regular intervals of about 10 minutes to the maintenance centers of every airline company worldwide. Listed in these messages are, among other things, the aircraft’s flight path, the speed and position of the aircraft, but also alarms which alert maintenance personnel on the ground of issues with the aircraft that would need to be looked at when the aircraft lands at its destination. In all, about a hundred flight parameters are concerned by this system, some of these parameters being also recorded by the Black Boxes. In the case of the Air France crash, 24 ACARS were sent automatically to the airline’s maintenance center outside Paris. These messages, among other things, showed inconsistencies in speed measurements on the aircraft just before all contact was lost.

Implementing such a system will not be easy. And many questions remain unanswered at this time: how many satellites will be necessary to cover the thousands of aircrafts flying over our heads on a daily basis? Where all the data be stored? What will the cost of all this be?

Paul-Louis Arslanian, the head of the French BEA (Bureau d’Enquêtes et d’Analyses, the equivalent of the NTSB in the US), reminded on Monday that experts around the world have been looking for quite a while at the way to replace the black boxes. He also said that France had once more submitted this matter to the International Civil Aviation Organization and that a meeting of the Organization on airline safety is already scheduled for next year.

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