Highest Duty_ My Search for What Really Matters - Chesley B. Sullenberger [43]
This pilot was set to take my plane for a training flight that morning. Taxiing to the runway, he noticed that the nosewheel steering was not working properly. He taxied back to the ramp, shut the airplane down, and reported the discrepancy in the maintenance log. The maintenance crew took corrective action and signed it off.
Later that day, that same F-4 was scheduled for a flight, including a formation takeoff, in which pilots in two jets were going to power up, release their brakes, and then take off in formation, matching each other exactly in acceleration.
One of the pilots in the formation was at the controls of the F-4 that had been assigned to me, the one which had aborted earlier in the day. After he started his takeoff, the nosewheel turned sharply to the left without him commanding it to do so. It took him into a ditch beside the runway, collapsing the landing gear and rupturing one of the external fuel tanks.
He and his WSO were sitting in the damaged airplane, deciding how to extricate themselves, when the leaking fuel caught on fire, and they were engulfed in a ball of flames.
I wonder if I had been the next pilot to fly that plane, would I have read the maintenance record, seen how the nosewheel issue had been addressed, and known to be especially watchful of any evidence that it would fail again?
That pilot and WSO were a good crew. But at their funerals, I was reminded of how a crew must be diligent on every front on every flight.
This was graphically illustrated in my own close calls, too.
One time at Nellis, I was in an F-4, on a high-speed, low-level flight. The goal was to fly as low as possible, which is what I’d need to do if I ever had to fly below enemy radar. I was flying just a hundred feet off the ground at 480 knots, and there were hills I had to go over. The techniques I was practicing required me to maneuver the jet so it would barely clear a hill without getting too high above it. Flying too high would make me obvious to enemy radar.
Doing this properly took a lot of practice. Each time I had to raise the nose to fly over the hill, and then push the nose back down after we’d cleared the hill. It was a bit like riding a roller coaster. If it was a steeper ridgeline, I’d come up to it, pull up steeply to clear it, and as I crested the top, I’d roll inverted, upside down, and then pull down the back side of the hill and finally roll back to the upright position.
At one point, I came to a ridgeline, thought it was tall enough that I would be able to pull up to the crest, roll inverted, and pull back down the back side. At the top of the ridge, I realized I didn’t have enough altitude ahead of me to complete the maneuver. It was a potentially fatal misjudgment on my part. I had to quickly push myself back up into the sky and then roll out.
I had seconds to correct the situation, and I managed to do it. But let me tell you: The incident got my attention. There were pilots who died after making similar misjudgments.
When we got back into the squadron building, I took responsibility for what happened. I turned to the WSO who had been with me and said, “I’m sorry, Gordon. I almost killed us today, but it won’t happen again.” I then explained to him exactly what had happened and why.
After I had been at Nellis a few years, I was assigned to an Air Force Mishap Investigation Board. We investigated one accident at Nellis in which a pilot in an F-15 had tried an aggressive turning maneuver too close to the ground. He didn’t have enough room to complete it. The vast desert practice ranges we used, north and west of Las Vegas, had elevations starting at about three thousand feet above sea level and going much higher. If you’re