The Crowd Pleasers

by Pete Fusco

  It’s been suggested that only a pilot with Kvochur’s test-pilot heart and thousands of hours in every modern Russian fighter could have avoided the spectators and ejected safely with mere seconds to think about it. A Russian aviation expert afterwards dubbed Kvochur “a pilot by the grace of God.” A humble Kvochur replied to the comment, “We are all here by the grace of God.”

  On April 17, 1980, a U.S. Navy Lockheed P-3 Orion dropped six members of the U.S. Army’s Tropical Lightning Sport Parachute Club near the reviewing area on Pago Pago’s Central Square as part of American Samoa’s Annual Flag Day celebration.

  Lt. Allen R. Glenny, the P-3 pilot, had been briefed that, except for dropping the skydivers, he was not to participate in the airshow. Nonetheless, for unknown reasons, Glenny attempted to fly under a tramway cable strung across Pago Pago Bay between Mount Alava and Solo Hill. The P-3’s vertical fin struck the cable. The aircraft crashed in the parking lot of the historic Rainmaker Hotel, killing the seven-member crew and a tourist.

  Glenny had told others that he planned to do more than just drop the skydivers. However guilty of bad judgment Glenny may have been, all who watched the crash said it appeared he guided the doomed four-engine Orion to the hotel parking lot and away from Central Square, where thirty thousand people watched the show.

  On July 6, 1979, U.S. Air Force Colonel Tommy Thompson was flying low-level aerobatics in a Fairchild Republic A-10A Thunderbolt II in an “air carnival” at Chicksands Royal Air Force Base in Chicksands, England. A witness said that the A-10 began a sudden dive and that Thompson could be seen in the cockpit wrestling with the controls. He said the aircraft managed to climb a bit and miss a crowded fairgrounds and barracks. The A-10 flew out of sight of the fairgrounds and crashed in a field by a main road, killing Thompson.

  Military investigators later said there was evidence that Thompson stayed with his aircraft to avoid hitting spectators rather than eject. They said he had taken evasive action; one report called it a “sideways election.” According to a United Press International story, a local schoolboy was certain of it. “He must have sacrificed his life to save a disaster. I think he was a hero.”

  Thompson’s controls may have become jammed. The conditions that led to the accident were similar to other A-10 incidents. The crash was most likely the result of a foreign object left behind at the factory in a sealed “white area” of the A-10. The A-10 was designed with a “manual reversion” system of cables that allowed the pilot to manually control the aircraft in case of hydraulic failure. Mechanisms for both hydraulic and manual controls were sealed in the “white area.”

  There were at least two other A-10 accidents caused by jammed controls. In one of them, a pen was found in the “white area.” The Air Force ultimately grounded all A-10s until each was inspected.

  On May 30, 1988, Royal Air Force Flt. Lt. Peter Stacey was demonstrating the world’s last flyable Gloster Meteor before ten thousand spectators at the Warwickshire Air Pageant at Coventry Airport in England.

  For about four minutes, Stacey put the Meteor, the first operational British jet, through a normal routine of loops and rolls. The Meteor’s airbrakes had been extended throughout. Without stowing the airbrakes, Stacey entered a wingover to turn back to the display area. He extended the landing gear and the aircraft slowed.

  Stacey had configured the Meteor for a condition that had become infamous as the “Phantom Dive,” in which the airbrakes disrupted airflow over control surfaces at slow speeds and high angles of attack. Added drag from an extended landing gear exacerbates the problem. The danger is the possibility of an uncontrollable dive. Stacey, as one of the few pilots entrusted with the old Meteor, would certainly have known about the “Phantom Dive” and that it had cost other Meteor pilots their lives. He was either distracted or had done the same thing before without incident.

  The Meteor, which was not equipped with an ejection seat, banked sharply and the nose dropped to 45 degrees below the horizon. The aircraft headed directly toward a housing subdivision, only seventy-five yards away, when it crashed into an open area.

  The Glasgow Herald interviewed eyewitness Frank Aston the following day. Aston had no doubt that Stacey crashed to avoid hitting the houses. He said when he first saw the airplane, the pilot, “appeared to be fighting it and seemed to be winning. But he must have realized he was running out of space and so he ditched it on the open ground. There was a big explosion and a ball of fire. He didn’t have a chance.”

  The community placed a stone marker at the site. An inscription pays the greatest homage of all to Flt. Lt. Peter Stacey: “TO HONOUR A MAN WHO GAVE HIS LIFE FOR OTHERS.”

  Thirteen years later, on June 4, 2001, it wasn’t a military jet faced with the ultimate pilot dilemma but a propeller-driven World War Two-era Spitfire fighter. Pilot Martin Sergeant was one of a flight that consisted of eleven Spitfires, plus a Hawker Hurricane, at an airshow in Rouen in France. During the flying display the Spitfire’s engine began trailing smoke and quit.

  A grass landing strip had been designated for such emergencies but it was full of spectators. Martin elected to turn away from the grass strip and attempt a landing on the paved runway, which was clear. Martin’s Spitfire stalled in the turn and crashed, killing him. His self-sacrifice, seemingly made without a second thought, was apparent to all on the ground.

  Both Belarusian pilots in a Sukhoi Su-27 flying at the Radom Airshow near Warsaw, Poland, on August 30, 2009, were killed when they elected to stay with their aircraft rather than hit dwellings ahead of them. The twin-engine jet had completed a slow-speed, low-level wingover close to the ground. Instead of adding power and afterburner and flying out of it at the bottom, the aircraft descended straight ahead and crashed among trees. It’s thought both engines had failed.

  A military spokesman said the SU-27 pilots “did not eject and steered the plane away from the town, avoiding graver consequences at the cost of their lives.” There were no injuries on the ground. Col. Alexander Morfitsky and Col. Alexander Zhuravlevich were killed.

  The above list by no means includes all airshow pilots who sacrificed their lives to protect spectators. Jenny or jet, not enough could ever be said in the praise of those pilots whose last thought on Earth was for the welfare of others.

  40

  SALLY B.

  THE Douglas A-26 Invader light attack bomber of World War Two seems suited, if not exactly intended, for airshow work. It’s mildly aerobatic, loud as hell, sizzling fast, and a bit menacing in a Mad Max sort of way. In other respects, it falls nervously short: a relatively high stall speed, poor pilot visibility, and a roll rate considered good for a light bomber at a few thousand feet but not ideal for rolls close to the ground.

  None of that stopped Don Bullock, an American who flew airshows in England in his A-26 Invader, the Sally B. On September 21, 1980, at the Second Battle of Britain Air Day at Biggin Hill Airfield near London, Bullock boarded six passengers prior to taking off for his performance.

  Bullock flew past the Biggin Hill crowd at high speed, pulled up and began a roll to the left. He never completed the roll. When inverted, the nose of the A-26 dropped abruptly, the roll stopped, and the Sally B. crashed into the Biggin Valley below. Bullock and his six passengers were killed.

  A hint, some might say dress rehearsal, of the disaster came a few months before at an airshow in Mildenhall, England, when Bullock began a roll immediately after takeoff; he changed his mind midway and abandoned the maneuver. Bullock’s original intention and second thoughts were obvious, most especially to the show announcer who openly criticized Bullock in direct language over the public address system. One spectator remembers the announcer telling the crowd, “He shouldn’t have tried that.”

  Bullock rolled his A-26 routinely, despite the manufacturer’s warning against it. The Sally B. was certified in the United States solely for aerial survey work. Bullock ignored the restriction and unilaterally decreed the old bomber fit for airshow work. He flew it well
beyond what was written in the operator’s manual, a bad idea in any airplane but a practice that succeeds just often enough to encourage its continuance.

  The publicity aftermath of Bullock’s Biggin Hill crash lasted longer than that of most airshow accidents, due largely to the six passengers killed and also comments from an outspoken British doctor, Anthony Hall, who was critical of Bullock’s alleged mental unsuitability. Doctor Hall, it turned out, was also opposed to “stunt flying.” He once wrote an outrageous opinion that, “Dangerous stunt flying, like public hangings, appeals to the mentally immature and should also be abolished.”

  Tim Ruhl, a retired airline pilot from Houston, Texas, flies the A-26 Invader Fire Eater for the Houston-based Vietnam War Flight Museum. Ruhl was asked, perhaps unfairly, to comment on the low-level roll that ended so sadly at Biggin Hill some twenty-six years before, a crash he knew nothing about. Ruhl said he does no aerobatics whatsoever in the museum’s A-26. His performance consists of making passes at a reasonable speed before the spectators. He considers it sufficient, and for good reason.

  Douglas A-26 Invader similiar to the plane lost at Biggin Hill airshow. Courtesy of Tim Ruhl.

  “The A-26 is light and fast and it will roll,” said Ruhl, “but if at the bottom of the roll the nose drops a little bit, just a little, that sucker will go down right now. A roll is not something you want to do close to the ground in an A-26.”

  Ruhl’s explanation is precisely what eyewitnesses say happened to Bullock and his passengers.

  If anything worthwhile can be said to result from the crash of an aircraft, it may be that, as a direct result of Don Bullock’s accident, British civil air authorities prohibited the carrying of passengers during airshow performances. Other countries have also adopted the policy.

  In 1946, war-surplus Douglas A-26 Invaders had a disastrous postwar baptism in the world of airshows. In Great Falls, Montana, on August 9, a crowd of twenty thousand watched the wing of an A-26, part of a three-plane formation, clip the tail off a teammate’s A-26, which crashed into a horse barn, killing the three-member crew, three people on the ground, and twenty thoroughbred horses. The aircraft with the damaged wing crashed in a nearby field, killing one crewmember. The third A-26 landed safely. A month later, at an airshow in Twin Falls, Idaho, an A-26 hit the ground at the bottom of a loop, killing four persons on board.

  As a footnote, the Douglas A-26 Invader, which had also been designated the B-26 Invader at one point in its military career, is an entirely different aircraft than the Martin B-26 Marauder. The Douglas A-26 Invader was a light bomber and ground attack aircraft. Nothing changed when it was re-designated the B-26. The Martin B-26, on the other hand, was a medium bomber.

  41

  GATHERING OF EAGLES

  THE fortunate cities that manage to get either the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds or U.S. Navy Blue Angels to appear at their airshow can expect a 30 percent increase in ticket sales. The military teams never disappoint because nothing else quite compares to the bang they bring to the party.

  Civilian performers on the same bill take a stoic approach. Most concede they will not be the highlight of the afternoon at shows where the Thunderbirds or Blue Angels perform. A pilot at a Cleveland, Ohio, airshow in the 1960s remarked, “Flying in the same show with the Blue Angels or Thunderbirds is like having Jesus show up. A tough act to follow.”

  Northrop T-38s as flown by USAF Thunderbirds.

  Military team formation flying is not the safest profession. In their half-century performing at thousands of shows worldwide, the Thunderbirds and Blue Angels have experienced 10 percent fatalities. Relatively few of the accidents occurred at airshows. Most were training accidents, understandable since so much more time is spent practicing than performing.

  On January 18, 1982, four Thunderbird team members were killed flying their Northrop T-38 Talon jets in formation during such a training session for an upcoming show at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Arizona. The tragedy occurred about 10 A.M. at the Indian Springs Air Force auxiliary field in the Nevada desert, during weather conditions described as “clear.”

  The four T-38s entered a basic diamond formation at 100 feet, shot up to 2,500 feet, rounded out the top of the loop and descended at 400 mph down the back side. There was insufficient altitude to complete the loop and the formation followed its leader, Major Norman Lowry, into the ground. All four pilots died instantly. Lowry was thirty-seven, Captain Willie Mays, thirty-two, Captain Mark E. Melancon, thirty-one, and Captain Joseph Peterson, thirty-two. The site is known as “The Gathering of Eagles Range.”

  Initially, all assumed that Major Lowry had misjudged his recovery altitude. After a board of inquiry, aided by an official video of the crash taken by the air force, investigators speculated that there might have been a problem with Lowry’s elevator control movement, perhaps a jammed stabilizer. It would have prevented Lowry from applying sufficient back pressure to clear the ground.

  The crash video was never released to the public, a story in itself. Wilbur Creech, Commanding General, USAF Tactical Air Command, acting on his own with no input from his superiors or air force lawyers, permanently erased the master copy after the air force finished its investigation. Creech’s motives for destroying the tape are not known. It’s possible that he wanted only to protect the privacy of the lost pilots. In any case, he unilaterally forfeited the public’s right to know.

  News networks, which had sought access through the Freedom of Information Act, were out of luck—as were families of the dead pilots who wanted the video to support a lawsuit against the Northrop Corporation.

  No action was taken against Creech for destroying the tape. Not only did he not face court martial, but the air force seemed grateful to the general for shortstopping what would have been a perpetual public relations nightmare. The Indian Springs auxiliary field was later renamed Creech Air Force Base in his honor.

  The Thunderbirds canceled their 1982 show schedule, ending what had been a bad couple years for the team. In September 1981, Thunderbirds leader Lt. Col. David L. Smith was killed in an ejection seat accident. In May of that year Thunderbird second solo Captain David “Nick” Hauck gave his life when he elected to stay with his crippled aircraft rather than endanger spectators.

  The air force, to its eternal credit, did not succumb to pressure to disband the Thunderbirds. The team transitioned to the General Dynamics F-16A Fighting Falcon aircraft and, within a year, was back to the full complement of six aircraft. The new team performed its first show eighteen months after the desert crash.

  Though basically recruiting tools, all military flying teams, no matter the country or the aircraft, demonstrate the value of cohesion and the power of unity over division. Most spectators would be hard-tasked to name any of the individual Thunderbirds or Blue Angels, which is the finest compliment the pilots can receive. Team members remain individuals only until they line up on the runway and push the throttles forward. At that moment, a vehicle with one mind and will is forged from the intense heat of afterburners and concentration.

  42

  CAUTION LIGHT

  A practical parachute was developed in World War One as an emergency device, but it’s a safe bet that within five minutes of the first successful test, someone got the idea to parachute from an airplane just for the hell of it. The idea caught on; parachuting and skydiving has remained a popular sport and an airshow feature ever since.

  On September 11, 1982, in Mannheim, West Germany, thirty-eight civilian skydivers from Wales, France, and West Germany boarded a helicopter made available by the U.S. Army’s 295th Assault Support Helicopter Company “Cyclones” from nearby Coleman Army Airfield. The goal that day was to set a new record for the number of skydivers in a joined circle. The jump was part of an airshow celebrating the 375th anniversary of the city of Mannheim.

  The helicopter, a twin-rotor Boeing CH-47 Chinook, had a crew of five plus one passenger and two journalists from the American Forces Network, all memb
ers of the United States military. As thousands watched, the CH-47, piloted by Chief Warrant Officer Leon E. Shoenborn, started a climb to 13,000 feet, the predetermined altitude for the jump. At about 10,500 feet, Shoenborn told the tower that there had been a loud noise in the aircraft accompanied by a “flickering caution light” on the master caution panel. He began an “autorotation,” a helicopter procedure that allows a very rapid descent. The CH-47 was below 1,000 feet and about to land on the runway when Shoenborn made the decision to land a short distance away because there were too many spectators near the runway.

  When he added power to stop the descent, the forward transmission failed, causing a de-synchronization between the front and rear rotors, which then struck each other. The rotor blades broke up and fell away, followed by the rotor hub and a portion of the aft pylon. The helicopter rolled to its right, crashed, and exploded into a giant fireball. All forty-six persons aboard were killed. It was later estimated that the helicopter hit at a force of 200 Gs.

  It’s never been explained why the skydivers did not leave the helicopter when Shoenborn began the autorotation, either on their own or by a command from the crew. People on the ground watched the crippled aircraft descend and wondered aloud why no one jumped free. Only one skydiver left the helicopter but at too low an altitude for his chute to deploy and was killed.

  An extensive military investigation revealed that ground-up walnut shells, known as “walnut grit,” used to blast-clean the rotor transmission components had accumulated and blocked oil passages in the front rotor, thus starving the rotor of oil and causing the failure. The “flickering caution light” Shoenborn reported was thought to be an indication of low oil pressure in the front rotor transmission. Following the Mannheim accident, about four hundred CH-47s with the same type transmission were grounded for inspection.