F-16 Mishap at Osan Air Base AIB Report Review/Breakdown

The Accident Investigation Board report has been released for the 6 May 2023 mishap involving an F-16 Ejection near Osan Air Base in South Korea.
www.afjag.af.mil/Portals/77/A...
www.cwlemoine.com
The appearance of U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) visual information does not imply or constitute DoD endorsement.
Views presented are my own and do not represent the views of DoD or its Components.

[@plrpilot]

It’s an absolute miracle the pilot is alive. I’ve experienced a situation about 10 years ago where a common fan caused both primary and secondary instruments to fail in the soup. Fortunately, there was no doubt of the failures. I can’t imagine having that low of time and being able to keep the jet close enough to level where he could eject. Kudos to the board for not rushing to place blame.

[@JJUkraine]

Thank you for your service. Bad situation.

[@Kubose]

Something about the idea of crashing a jet and then getting on Slack to message the boys is hilarious.

[@adamraper6993]

Hey boys, grab the truck and come pick me up.

[@daszieher]

and don't forget the beer! ​@@adamraper6993

[@Parkhill57]

Taking a cell phone into combat, is like loose change. I hope they fined him 🙂

[@daszieher]

@@adamraper6993 and don't forget the beer!

[@TheConnorM]

@@Parkhill57in combat situations I’m sure phones are prohibited in such aircraft. Being a training scenario or just a routine flight I’m sure they aren’t worried about it.

[@major__kong]

Would you guys want to talk with one of the engineers who developed Auto GCAS? He loves to talk about it, and it's already cleared for public release. He sits a few cubes over from me.

[@jerseyshoredroneservices225]

That would be outstanding. Hope that the channel accepts your offer 🙏

[@paulm749]

This comment needs to be bumped up to the top somehow.

[@jerseyshoredroneservices225]

@c.w.Lemoine Did you see these comments?

[@akimbo.1887]

Does gcas get disabled when you eject?

[@EShirako]

I'd love to hear about it, really! Hopefully they consider it.

[@aaronzeiger216]

At 400 hours that would have been tough in any plane. Tons of pilots have died in far less complicated situations.

[@2011SoxMD36]

It’s strangely similar to the situation that led to the loss of Block 50 91-0340 at Spangdahlem on 8 October 2019. I was on the crash recovery crew for that one, I’m surprised nobody is drawing parallels here.

[@tommcintosh9158]

Just read the AIB on that crash. Looks just the same, right down to not enough wreckage left to find the electric fault cause.

[@johndeanjdsvihovic8490]

Glad he got out safely!! Old "A" model BLK 10&15 guy here... I can't believe the USAF still uses that POS Stby ADI. Back when I went to RTU the instructors all taught us "Don't bet your life on the Stby ADI". I had my share of INS/ADI failure (pre-GPS) and luckily never came close to having to eject. My big takeaway from this is with all the civilian ADIs out there G5, GI275 etc. Why can't the USAF install something more reliable and larger than the current POS Stby ADI??? You could do the entire fighter fleet for the cost of what was lost in this accident...

[@MavHunter20XX]

It's appears to be fore every issue in the military, overwhelming and overbearing bureaucracy. You know you have to put in an AFTO 22 and then get the program managers together to get them all agree that it's worth the time and money to do it. And then you have to get the money to commit to it. This mishap might finally motivate some general with a "improvement" left to apply on his OPR to get the ball finally rolling.

[@hangpilot1200]

The Garmin GI275 is a beautiful little instrument. $4k to save $28million... 🙄

[@nicholasespinoza9610]

makes sense.

[@johndeanjdsvihovic8490]

@@MavHunter20XX We were actually issued hand held GPS's (Nav only no Attitude function) when they first came out... As they were not going to put that money into an airframe that was going to the Air Guard or AMARG.

[@MavHunter20XX]

@@johndeanjdsvihovic8490 yeah I heard that from a flight instructor how the T-38 where the only ones with GPS navigation, not even an F-16, that was around 7 years ago, more or less.

[@jwmantz]

Had a similar experience in C-130 far out over the Gulf of Mexico on a Navigator training flight where they could shoot the stars and use the LORAN (No GPS in 1972). One VHF worked intermittently. Used whiskey compass and steam gauges to make landfall near NOLA. Navigators were expecting a divert and little free time in the French Quarter. Followed knowledge of geography VFR on top,to get back to Topeka KS. On decent for a Ground Controlled Precision Approach through a 700 ft. ceiling passed a taller radio tower only 100 feet off left wing. Informed young controller that this was not a training exercise. Voice on radio dropped an octave as the supervisor took over. Best part of story. Found supervisor on aviation website 50 years later and he remembered the incident. The OODA loop. At 700 MPH 18 inches from another machine, it's unbelievable how quickly and frequently it cycles.

[@ghettostreamlabs5724]

Mover, you do a great job with these. For us that aren't pilots and are just curious, you make these very easy to understand.

[@pollylewis9611]

Thank you for giving us information about this mishap from your experience flying, just thankful the pilot was able to get out in time, must have been so confusing for him/her, thank you again C.W. hope all is going well with what you are doing.

[@twolfjaeger9626]

I worked on this jet 2010-2011. Glad to hear the pilot's okay! Nice work, Egress shop. From an E&E standpoint, I have _so_ many questions. I wonder when the AC and DC bus c/b panels were touched last and for what, how many hours since the last water sock change, etc. I wonder what indicators would show on the MAP if it wasn't in a smoking hole in a field. Never having seen an issue like this before, I wonder if cycling the gen switch off (I _highly_ doubt that's a checklist item for this problem!) would have cleared up the instrumentation confusion since you should only have the STBY ADI as your only point of reference, or if the standby instruments were malfunctioning as well? But the most important question I have: Is his callsign gonna be "Slacker" now?

[@goodnightmr5892]

😂😂

[@MavHunter20XX]

Early on the F16 inception, there were constant failures, killing her pilots. They were flying directly into the ground because their instruments were malfunctioning. There was a whole movie made. Afterburn was the name. Wish they chose a different name.

[@Harpoon2theRescue]

Easy there Scotty, this ain't the Enterprise.

[@sithticklefingers7255]

Great insights, and thank you for your service! Mover said the F-16 is all electric, and that the power failure coincided with gear retraction, right? Could a gear actuator malfunction (locked rotor, rotating short, etc) draw enough current to pull down the entire system? Also, Would the good people Dryden or Armstrong be tasked with replicating this and developing some recovery procedures in the future?

[@sithticklefingers7255]

@@Harpoon2theRescueAnd this isn’t your high school cafeteria. Dude knows his stuff, you’re just being a troll.

[@major__kong]

I had an instrument fail in training while under the hood. It taught me a very important lesson - carry those suction cup covers they use in training to blank out the instrument and use it during an actual instrument failure. It's very hard to break your scan pattern, and it ends up being very distracting. But it can't be distracting if you can't see it. Not sure how that's supposed to work with glass cockpits, but it was pretty effective on steam gauges.

[@TheJustinJ]

Glass does not have individual failures. Other than blocked pitot, frozen AoA vane, etc. The computer often recognizes the issue and flags it.

[@pliesj]

Glad the pilot had the presence of mind to get out and not try to save the jet, especially given his relative lack of experience.

[@falconlawndart9597]

Mover, your channel is a magnet for me. I was an assistant crew chief on the Thud for about 6-months and then we converted to the badass of all weapons, the phantom 4-years I crewed it for 4 of best years I served. For those who crewed the phantom the majority of us would volunteer to go to the bone yard and bring them back to life. Then we enter a conversion to the lawn dart that made phantom crew chiefs seek counseling (kidding, but seriously). This toy was a preflight, launch, and post-flight I crewed it for 3 years before converted to the Bone. So the F4 C/D were essentially a 2-crew chief fighter/bomber, F16 A/C a 1 crew chief fighter and on 2n shift we had 2-falcons per crew chief. And along comes the Bone, mine was the (Excalibur) 85-0070. While assigned to Dyess it landed nose gear up due to “hydraulic failure” I believe in addition to this failure a cannon plug in the nose gear well came disconnected. I crewed it from 92-95 when my career led me to become a boomer on the KC135/R. The F16 was hard to fly for our Phantom jocks. Fly by cable to fly by wire was a challenge. The Bone was a space shuttle on takeoff and a beast for preflight, launch and recovery. 9-crew chiefs divided by 3 shifts. Thank you for what you do, you’re excellent. Cheers!

[@kenlanier2131]

Grew up watching the F4s take off for Seymore (Shady J), Joined the AF in 88, Parachute Survial Equiment Spec. 4 years.

[@jcheck6]

Interesting you moved on to be a boomer, congrats. Not sure why the F16 was a difficult transition for the F-4 guys, first I heard of that. No issue going from manual controls, ie DC-10 to a fly by wire Airbus. Previously flew the F-4.

[@falconlawndart9597]

@@jcheck6 As we began to add the F16’s to our ramp of F-4’s the maintenance uptick on the F-16 was more than we expected. Speed brakes being shaved, AR receptacle panel dents(pilot and boom). The worst was the EPU firing off in the trap and munitions pin pull. Of course we can’t forget the VHS tapes sucked down the intake. It was a tough start.

[@jcheck6]

@@falconlawndart9597 Thanks for all you did on the line falcon. Still impressed with your move to the tanker. Tanked from all three, -97, -135, KC-10.

[@falconlawndart9597]

@@jcheck6 That’s awesome to hear! The 135 is still the workhorse in the tanker world now more than ever since the KC10 retirements began. Like the B-52, I believe unborn children will be flying the 135 weapon system. The 46 has potential, but how many more years to will it take? Thank you for your service.

[@waltwalton8106]

Thanks for the breakdown of this AIB. Seems like a no win scenario. Like you said it's bad enough to have an instrument failure, but to have the failure without flags and disagreements between them, that's nuts. If you ask me he had incredible courage to stay with it as long as he did. I think I would have jumped out as soon as I was unsure of my attitude.

[@M1Tommy]

Spatial disorientation is so real and debilitating . At night , in clouds and sometimes rain , a friend would tell me , "Fly us straight and level for 30 seconds, 3, 2, 1, go!", and turn off all lighting . Every single time, upon lights (and instruments ) coming back, I would be in a climbing right-hand turn. Accepting the instruments required some willpower ! Oh, time was never more than a few seconds , but seemed like minutes . That was decades ago , but my palms are sweating just remembering . Good vid, sure glad the pilot is ok. Thanks.

[@paperburn]

I remember a commercial jet in bolivia did a controlled 1 g turn into the ground while the aircrew talked themself into controlled flight into terrain

[@M1Tommy]

​@@paperburn Sad situation there. There are times to recognize that our senses are not trustworthy , and we must trust instruments over our senses . That is not trivial , but important to realize .

[@TheJustinJ]

@@M1Tommy Actually, our senses are extremely trustworthy. Our inner ear, sense of balance and spacial awareness, is not trustworthy in the absence of vision. Or steady state, 1g acceleration as found on the surface of earth. Where "down" is in the direction of the pressure pushing back. That is, the direction opposite of the acceleration force. In an airplane, "Down" is perceived as the opposite direction of the acceleration. But this does not correspond to external reality. Where you can be upside down in an airplane, pressed firmly into your chair as if sitting on your couch at home. You can even fly upside down with an open coffee mug. And never spill it. All you have to do is "pull" on the controls slightly. You have to ignore sensations from senses that are not primary senses. And double down on trusting your primary sense of Sight. By looking at the gauges and instruments and flying based on the available data.

[@kenlanier2131]

Being a former AF Parachute Rigger when I hear mishap and ejection, my hair on the back of my neck stands up. Glad the ACESII did its job.Thanks for the stream Mover!

[@kinch613]

As a former Egress troop I was thinking same thing. Expecting a case of beer for egress and chute shop!

[@kenlanier2131]

@@kinch613 Yeah it was really humbling when a pilot would come in after a ejection.

[@wilmaharvey4216]

​@@kenlanier2131THANKS FOR YOUR SERVICE.!!! Loved going by SEYMOUR JOHNSON, on the way to the Beach as a kid.!! Always something in the air for us to see.!!! Highlight of the year for me.!!! Also, Loved the daily Low flybys on the beach.!! Jets, Helicopters, etc, so low you could see the pilots helmets, and sometimes even their faces.!!! Checking out the scenery on the beach.!!😅 MARINE'S flying out of CHERRY POINT, Navy flying down from OCEANIA NAS, etc.!! I know lots of Lanier's, and friends of them.!! They are in WINSTON-SALEM, and mostly from the western side of the county.!! Also, had a dear friend who was a Lanier from down in Lumberton, originally, but lived in Davie county, NC.🤔🤔🤔🤔😉😉😉😉😊❤❤❤🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏

[@kinch613]

@@kenlanier2131 absolutely

[@scooter748driver9]

Had a somewhat similar situation in the AV8B Harrier on a WESTPAC deployment in '92. Took off from Iwakuni on a 3-ship strike to a range in South Korea with a solid overcast from about 900" up to 3,000' or so (not nearly as thick as this MP's weather). A few minutes into the flight I had a Master Caution warning of the STAB/AUG system. The bold face was to RTB so I informed the lead and was instructed to RTB while they continued on with the mission. A few minutes after receiving my own squawk and splitting off to be a single ship I expereicned a total electical failure in the jet - no instruments, no radio, no HUD. Just the standby gyro which would wind down quickly and the wet compass. Thankfully the engine was sound. I was able to find a break in the undercast and get below the weather and make my way back to Iwakuni using the IFR (I follow roads) method. I agree with your comment Mover - those who haven't been there don't appreiate the stress & workload involved for a single-seat jet pilot with instrument failure in the weather. Flying in the weather never bothered me as long as everything was working. But when the instruments go Tango Uniform there are a lot of places I'd have peferred to be.

[@GeraldLaumeyer]

Always enjoy your reviews of situations and your expertise on them keep it up

[@johnaikema1055]

transition to backup, the time available to confirm what instruments were reliable is less than min. that pilot fought his hardest enemy and survived. he needs a beer for his efforts.

[@ARIXANDRE]

Outstanding breakdown, Mover. I'm happy the pilot is safe.

[@Hallen36]

I'm an Army guy flying Hueys, Blackhawks, and cargo airplanes. I never had a primary instrument failure other than simulated where you knew you had a bad instrument. It has to be hard to transition from a HUD to a steam gauge scan. I agree with you, much better to have a complete failure rather than a failure with no indication.

[@TheHawkeye50317]

It's nice that they didn't just automatically blame the pilot. Ordinarily, pilot error seems to be the go to even before they know the facts... More importantly, glad the pilot is ok, other then a very scary flight.

[@salvadordesion85]

Thanks, Lemoine! Your mishap report reviews are insightful. Could you do a review on the A-29 (EMB 314)? Much appreciated.

[@nsha2011]

Awesome review!

[@johnmorrison8942]

Thanks

[@uwekonnigsstaddt524]

Similar incident happened with a Marine F/A-18C leaving the UK for th USA. He was in the clouds and reported instrumentation problems. Unfortunately he didn’t eject.

[@TheProps03]

Excellent brief! Dismissed. 😎👍

[@perspicator5779]

Good report Mover!

[@MavHunter20XX]

This reminds me of when the F16 consistently started to crash into the ground early in its inception due to a wire bundle rubbing against its chassis causing instrument failure; AF and GD kept blaming pilots.

[@privatelisting366]

Had that happen with our 08' Viper ACR (the dodge, not the jet) 3k miles on the odometer and it kept going into engine shutdown when going over bumps, blowing the ASD fuse. Keeping a pocket full of fuses with a brand new super car isn't a good look, just to keep from the embarraassment of getting towed 24/7 when commuting with that beast. Ended up having to get the wiring engineer to come out from the office to show us that it was Chrysler being cheap on wiring lengths. Had to take off both fenders and the belly trays to remove the downstream 02 sensors, that kept wearing through insulation and grounding on the side exhaust metal insulation packs. "Only there for EPA eyeballs, disconnect both were never mapped, the ECU does not look for them... we never thought anyone would want to daily, but would get race exhaust mods immediately."

[@MavHunter20XX]

@@privatelisting366 Interesting parallel you got there.

[@privatelisting366]

@@MavHunter20XX Thanks for mentioning it, have a nice weekend man.

[@Szadek676]

Could you try to reproduce this event in DCS to show us what is going on in the jet and what was probably going through the pilot's mind? It would be an interesting video to watch and see what the procedures the pilot tried to do to save the aircraft before he ejected.

[@ashblythe9598]

You wouldn't be able to reproduce it in DCS, it has a basic script with malfunctions.

[@michaelholts1598]

Now that’s a hell of a statement of charges.

[@patchesthepilot1730]

Shortly after word got out that he ejected, they got a couple of the A-10's (25th stationed at Osan) airborne to start running through the CSAR process. He was pretty close to the airbase so his recovery was expeditious. He ended up going out to the bars with the 25th that night!

[@kylecarmichael5890]

Thank you for calling it Carswell!

[@skid2151]

Mr. Toads Wild Ride! Good call to punch out with the loss of flight instruments. Live to fly another day! Cheers! Skid

[@richardpark3054]

I wonder if reversion to the standby-standby attitude indicator (needle-ball and airspeed) might have provided sufficiently reliable attitude indication to prevent this accident.

[@TXHusker05]

This one made my blood run cold. It is one thing for the jet to be broken, it is another for the jet to be broken and not tell you it is broken while you’re in the soup trying to figure out why everything is lying to you. No ladder in the HUD, drastically conflicting attitude indicators, radio is out, and no visual cues until they broke out of the clouds below 1000 feet looking at a canopy full of ground? That this pilot was able to orient the jet enough to safely eject tells me all I need to know about how good of a pilot they are. There are plenty of far more experienced aviators that would have ridden this jet straight into the ground. We are lucky to have this one still with us to tell the tale and keep flying.

[@EShirako]

Yeah, unreliable but not obviously *wrong* data is the worst. In that 'low in the first place' situation, just the "What the heck?" *Smack it a bit.* "Why is this being so odd?" troubleshooting would take up a notable portion of the time available 'before ground', so...wow. This could have been much worse than it was.

[@warped-sliderule]

Dude, many good points! "Loss of primary instruments" obviously a good simulator scenario to drill. From the "arm chair" if in the soup, there is an event/situation (like attitude ladder goes funky), and a difference between primary and secondary instruments detected, reverting to secondary would seem like the best course of action. Easy from the "arm chair" thus give credit to the MP for his actions.

[@martinfort193]

... a good analysis, thanks (interesting to me is that the HUD in not the primary instrument)

[@devildog_2155]

Are you able to look up USMC mishaps? There are two I have been wanting to hear about. 1 Hornet crash in England, October 2015. VMFA 232. I personally knew that pilot. The other was a Huey crash in 29 palms in January 2015, HMLA 169. I was there (didn't respond) when this happened. I was Crash Crew in Yuma, so I love your reviews of mishaps, I find them very informative.

[@CWLemoine]

Are you talking about Cabbie? The problem with USMC/Navy mishap reports is they’re harder to find since the Navy removed the public safety center site.

[@johnhill7429]

I am a little confused with your statement around the 9 minute mark in that the HUD is not the primary Attitude Reference. In the 1988ish time-frame, Lockheed Martin and the USAF held several meetings and changed the 1F-16C-1 stating the HUD WOULD be the the primary attitude reference in Block 40,42, 50 and 52 aircraft. F-16A's and B's, as well as Block 25, 30 and 32 retained the ADI as primary attitude reference. I was concerned at this and wrote and communicated my concerns with our test pilot, Joe Bill Dryden. He staed that all testing had been accomplished and this change was occurring. The Dash 1 flight manuals for the 40, 42, 50 and 52 aircraft had all been changed by 1991. You state that when you were flying that it had changed back. When did this occur?

[@CWLemoine]

The HUD is not a primary reference for recovery. It is a primary instrument for normal flight. When you have an unusual attitude or spatial D, you transition to round dials.

[@johnhill7429]

@@CWLemoine Thanks.

[@my-yt-inputs2580]

Is there a failure mode in the F-16 where the pilot powers up the EPU manually?

[@johndeanjdsvihovic8490]

The pilot can manually turn on the EPU. However once the system as been corrupted with bad data just applying power from the EPU will not fix the issue immediately. In an unusual attitude recovery at low altitude and in the weather time is one option that you do not have.

[@rickcampbell1846]

I was on a commercial flight on a moonless night, over the ocean, no clouds and I got spatially disoriented. It is a very strange feeling to not know which way is up, down, forward or backwards. Not sure what was the exact cause but it was a strange feeling.

[@frostyrobot7689]

The ADI failures described here remind of that old adage about why sailors take 3 clocks on a boat. If 2 things disagree then how do you know which one is correct ? On the flip side, if every instrument had 2 backups, the cockpit would end up looking like the instrument panel scene in Airplane 😄 Nice review Mover, always learn a lot. Glad the pilot got out in time.

[@michelchaman6495]

Hey Mover question in such a condition do you one communicate the failure (if possible) and then slow down to debug?

[@robertalonzo5725]

Based on what I’ve learned on other channels the priorities are Aviate, Navigate, Communicate.

[@fourshore502]

Hey man i appreciate your videos ok so heres a suggestion for a video but maybe save it for halloween because its a bit spooky! and i dont know perhaps you have already talked about it before you have a lot of videos! but yeah im thinking of the 1976 ufo teheran incident that involved a couple of old F-4 phantoms and iranian pilots if you dont know about it you may want to look into that, really crazy event, supposedly about half of teheran witnessed parts of it. in terms of military aircraft probably the most spectacular ufo event ever on record, apart maybe from that Us army helicopter that was apparently grabbed and pulled by a ufo tractor beam lol. Even if someone does believe in aliens on earth or not, its an interesting case just for flight reasons it was essentially a one on one engagement with a ufo with a lot of really wild things that happened. The ufo sent a smaller ufo towards the f-4 who thought it could be some kind of missile and tried to fire a sidewinder missile at it but suddenly all the electronics in the aircraft just shut down and he couldnt even eject. The ufo did a 360 around him and returned to the larger ufo i think and i think everything in the aircraft returned to normal. Lots of other stuff happened too, anyways look into it if you're interested. Theres another really crazy one the only one at the same level peruvian pilot that tried to shoot one down with an old su-15 or something I believe it was 1980, he actually claimed he blasted it with 30mm shells but nothing happened it just absorbed the shells like nothing and it eventually just climbed out of his reach. Oh and btw the name of the pilot that tried to shoot down the ufo was Parviz Jafari, you can find videos of him speaking about the incident here on youtube. He retired as a general in the iranian air force.

[@Bad_Wolf_Media]

25:27 - Not to be pessimistic, but isn't it still possible we lost a fighter pilot? I hope not, and I'm immensely relieved he (or she, I didn't look at the details) survived, but a young, new pilot having that happen, I'm sure it led to at least a few moments of doubt, if not resignation. Again, I hope that's not the case, but it may have still cost us a pilot, even without costing a life.

[@notorious8361]

I have a lot of IMC time in small singles and multis, unforcasted ice, low ceilings, etc. The absolute worst is when you body decides to flip out and your spatial orientation goes out the window. Night IMC non-precision approaches with turbulence is an absolute nightmare. Thanks goodness for a simple heading bug autopilot.

[@Michael-ol2jn]

Very tough situation for any pilot regardless of experience level. If your attitude indicator fails completely or you get a flag or sometime of failure message, that is one thing. You can switch to your backup and be fine. But when your primary doesn't display any signs of failure other than the readings not making sense, it can become very confusing trying to figure out if the readings really are in fact not making sense, or if they are actually right and you're just disoriented.

[@cptpltM2000]

The USAF Korean F16s starting to upgrade with the APG 83 radar from the block 70 in early 2023. Could there have been some installation issue affecting the electrical systems?

[@MrBen527]

So those artifical, bubble horizons fail often enough to doubt them that much?

[@bodasafur6078]

Hi Mover, i dont know if such a thing exists but surely having a physical reference inside the cockpit to gauge orientation to the horizon in an emergency situation would be hugely benificial and might save the loss of a 25 million dollar asset. In my head i a picturing something like what gliders use , a small length of cord/string . If you become inverted the string will be flat against the canopy if you are upright the string will dangle freely , any bank angle would be indicated , am i missing something here ? Yes its basic n all but in a complete loss of avionics surely anything is better than nothing? .

[@dougsundseth6904]

The problem with that is that such a string (or spirit level, or whatever), will point in the direction of the net acceleration (the combination of acceleration from gravity and from aircraft movement). This is useful for determining turn coordination (net acceleration through the bottom of the airplane), but in a coordinated turn you can be rolling and/or turning and the bottom of the airplane will still be "down". You have to have a gyroscopically stabilized instrument to maintain a horizon reference, and it sounds like the gyroscope in the primary attitude indicator tumbled during the power interruption. The result was that the primary and secondary attitude indicators disagreed on where "down" was. Without visual references, all you can do is pick one to follow. In principle, with enough time, you can do some things to get a better idea of which of those was right, but the pilot didn't have that kind of time. He's lucky to have been able to safely eject when it became apparent (windscreen full of Earth) that the plane was not going to be recoverable.

[@silvertrooper6]

Just out of curiosity, could you not have a simple plum bob hanging from the canopy which should give some slight reference of gravity? Of course, I have absolutely no pilot experience.

[@KerboOnYT]

Gravity would not be the only force acting on it. Imagine a plumb bob in your car and you go around a curve. Now which way is down?

[@kevinm6510]

Hey Mover - how’s your training going? Did you reveal what plane you will be flying for part 121?

[@Fadamor]

Power loss 11 seconds after departure. Possibly caused in the gear bay when the doors closed?

[@thereissomecoolstuff]

Very well explained. From a layman’s view it’s hard to believe he needed to eject when he lost very basic instruments. Oh well $29 mil field plow. Glad the pilot survived. This leads me to a concern about electronic disruption as a weapon. Especially the cascading failures.

[@chrismaverick9828]

Try flying in the soup in DCS or other modern flight sim. You have to really focus down on the instruments, and when one or more are not accurate it may take a bit to figure out which ones to trust. The above pilot had limited time to figure it all out and by the time he understood his situation he was too low and too steep. He'd have pancaked into the ground had he tried to pull it out of the dive. Every pilot needs to be taught to come to their own understanding of when to eject. Most will evaluate for a second or two and then bail. Some will hold on too long and they don't get a do-over. It's a tough field of work, demanding in all aspects. I'm just glad his seat worked.

[@mortyrosenstein4211]

It’s essentially no different than flying visual into instrument conditions weather. Top killer of general aviation pilots. Without the instruments to give your equilibrium a frame of reference for horizon, up and down, left and right, you can before disoriented instantly. Kobe is dead because of this. It makes sense. If he had come out of the clouds higher, he would have had time to fix himself. He’s very very lucky to be alive.

[@thereissomecoolstuff]

@@chrismaverick9828 All he needed was an altimeter and an AOA. he also got a radar lock on his flight lead. He had some tools. You are correct but if you’re not in mountainous terrain keep flying. He was out at 700’. He was near the lower ceiling. Interesting report. CW did a better than avg coverage. We need Dan Gryder to look it over.

[@vincent-wu7bw]

​@@thereissomecoolstuff he didn't pop out of the clouds in a shallow decent though... he probably had just a few seconds between ejecting and the plane hitting the ground. I don't fly in real life but definitely could understand task saturation when you're getting conflicting readings from your instruments and multiple failures. I think you're underestimating the predicament this pilot was in, especially being a fairly low time pilot. I doubt us KZbin and flight sim warriors could have done better.

[@thereissomecoolstuff]

@@vincent-wu7bw I’m completely underestimating his task saturation aspect. I’m also underestimating the $1.5 million we put into his training in how to deal with an instrument failure. $29 million would buy approximately 59 Farm combines for American farmers. They could plow thousands of acres instead of 1 furrow 100’x200’.

[@Idahoguy10157]

Old aircraft. The USAF failed to purchase newer F-16’s. Old cars are like old automobiles. Classics but they get gremlins. Am I wrong?

[@CWLemoine]

Valid.

[@teeembeee]

AF doesn't have an unlimited budget.

[@andysPARK]

Crazy that the redundancies are borked at the same time as the primaries. Can't the one of the redundancies be fully isolated with separate power source? That plane was trying to kill the pilot. Good job wrestling and escaping it 👍

[@earnhar768]

wire chaffing? Didn't they have something similar with an F-16 in 1982? Glad the pilot got out safely.

[@phillipsimmons5]

Yes in December of 1982 Capt Ted Hardival pilot of a F -16 A crash upside down due to wire chaffing which caused his Instruments to multifunction.

[@DestroyTeamAvolition]

From what I understood pilot ejected when he cleared the cloud base. But should he have got out sooner? As you said if he was lower he might not have made it. Should the AIB have recommended a punch at 700ft

[@INOD-2]

He literally didn't know which way was UP until he cleared the clouds and saw the ground. It's best to eject, if possible, with the plane in level flight. If the plane is sideways or upside down upon ejection, things might not go well.

[@EKTORPTULLSTA]

While watching this video I can't help being reminded of the movie Afterburn (1992).

[@Apodalont]

In an electric jet like the f-16 as great of an airplane as it is, when instrumentation starts failing and having only one engine and an epu, it's really fight or flight in a bad situation. Thankful the pilot made the decision to get out and survived.

[@bronco5334]

What is the ADI powered by? Is it vacuum-driven? I'm not an expert on the F-16, but the pilot should be, and if it's on a different power source, he should have known to trust it over the HUD and center console ADI in the case of an electrical loss. My understanding (correct me if I'm wrong) is the HUD and primary ADI are both driven off laser gyros, which will dump instantly in a power failure, while the standby ADI is a physical gyro driven by a vacuum pump, which is more failure-proof.

[@daszieher]

Scary stuff! Good thing he got out unharmed. He'll have a story to tell and more experience to perhaps tackle a similar situation and live again.

[@danielh1708]

When you do the conversions (knots to FPS), he ejected approximately 1.4 seconds before impact at that speed. VERY close call.

[@JoshWalker1]

Holy shit

[@stanislavkostarnov2157]

foggy weather is very common for this season in Korea... I mean, if they were a little south of that they'd be expecting thick fog and swirling moisture for most of the month of June. he was also surrounded steep green hills, meaning, he could have easily been over forested terrain rising into the clouds. he is one LUCKY guy to have survived this... or unlucky to have had this failure. I'd say, he almost ejected too late in the game... should have almost been (I don't have lost control/instruments, unable to fly using standby - eject eject eject)... even as it was... they were so close to the ground that if there were two of them in the cockpit, they would not have both had the time to eject.

[@dampSocks426]

Would autopilot and altitude hold hold have helped?

[@crazypetec-130fe7]

No, because they wouldn't be getting good info from the failed systems.

[@86309]

Mover , where did you source that T-shirt?

[@CWLemoine]

Noonan sent it to me from Folds of Honor.

[@86309]

@@CWLemoine nice.

[@stephenhoda3362]

Scary stuff.

[@michaellingg1852]

Question for the pilots out there, how many hours is considered to be a fairly expert pilot? Or is there like a general consensus of x hours and below novice, then expert, or other levels of expertise? Just curious.

[@GetOffMyyLawn]

Didn't the F-16 have wire chaffing issues early on?

[@BooBooTiger53]

Although a tough situation, especially for an inexperienced pilot, if he had crosschecked his standby attitude indicator with his performance instruments (airspeed, altimeter, VVI), he could have saved the aircraft and not had to eject. The standby attitude indicator is not the most trustworthy piece of equipment, but it was probably pretty well aligned during takeoff and was likely providing accurate information to the pilot during the mishap sequence.

[@thecolter]

I used to see this every day when I was on Growling Sidewinders DCS server.

[@benfletcher6365]

Will you review the viper with belly canards?

[@CWLemoine]

Never heard of it.

[@benfletcher6365]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/iZK9fXiudpJqesUsi=412AYm8vhUUlxM6p

[@stefaan715]

@@CWLemoine I guess it was the CCV test aircraft, he refers to

[@kinch613]

Definitely suspicious when a nose gear WOW switch was R2’d, I wonder when gear was retracted that was a related cause! Great stuff Mover this poor Airman had his hands full. So happy he made it out. As a former Egress troop that ACES II Mode 1 worked as advertised! Time to visit the Egress and Chute shops with a case of beer!

[@Racer1505]

Isn't this the same thing that happened to Capt. Hardshell back in the 80s in a block 15, in korea?

[@TangBengYong]

Another F-16 crashed in May 2024 in Singapore in good weather due to simultaneous failure of its pitch rate gyroscopes, that gave erroneous inputs to the flight control computer. This led to the pilot being unable to control the plane at take-off so he had to eject.

[@kenlanier2131]

I am curuious to learn of the process of how pilots (especially new pilots) deal with getting back into the cockpit after a ejection. No doubt it has to be tough.

[@danielsamson9505]

👌🏼👍🏼

[@ghawk555]

I am surprised the EPU was not activated. Loss of flight display data and possible electrical issues…. Try to get stable emergency power to recover the aircraft.

[@user-kj2it3qy6u]

Is it possible to join the 477th FG (reserve)? I find it hard to believe that airmen can have the perks of reserve flying with an F-22....

[@ronmoore5827]

Electrical gremlins are hard to track down. Way back in the day we had a SCAS unit sending unwanted pitch commands to the flight controls in a Cobra helicopter. Changed the box, seemed ok for a while then it happened again. Long story short it wound up being a bad pin in a cannon plug connection. Intermittent electrical problems are the worst.

[@fredeb67]

Would the old steam guages prevented this or helped the situation?

[@P51]

his back-up AI IS a "steam" guage

[@warfarenotwarfair5655]

I was a Crew Chief from 1999-2009. I don't remember so many mishaps, how many DEI hires were involved?

[@ExtremeRecluse]

I have spatial disorientation in an uncontrolled descent. I break out at 600 AGL. I have two choices; eject or die. I have 2 seconds to make the decision. What do I do?

[@bobbybooshay8641]

Pull up.

[@christopherrobinson7541]

Phone a friend?

[@JoshWalker1]

@@bobbybooshay8641 Not possible dickweed that's why he said two choices not three

[@tjinternational2743]

Jets were all at Osan from Kunsan during airfield construction.

[@mattkelly2004]

Im not a pilot at all, just interested in military aviation. I have never thought about the whole "riding a bullet" the sitting way up on the nose. I would imagine that is a little different then any other platform.

[@rynopot]

If I am in a Viper, in bad weather, and everything happened that you said, I'll sh|t myself - and that's just in DCS! 🤣

[@alaskanstrat6618]

in addition to the aircraft failures lets not forget the beacon failed on the seat ... like wtf man , MP could have been seriously lost forever , not cool .

[@donaldsiler6779]

I flew this old airliner behind me 4008 hours 167 days mostly in clear weather doing aerial survey from 2500 feet to 23000 feet and ill tell you I saw stuff happen that if it was in clouds probably would not be here. We over banked and slipped and slid to get online and the gimbal on the HSI just wore itself out all the time. Sometimes shit happens and it's not your fault and you can't overcome it. Had a connecting rod come off a piston that put a nice hole in the block. Never did find the alternator or hear of it killing anyone.

[@stephenbritton9297]

Kid was handed a shit sandwich and made the right call to get out. Glad the AIB isn’t trying to stick it to him.

[@TheDboy82]

Im surprised the USAF has pilots flying F16s with only 400 hours, that seems very low

[@CWLemoine]

You’ll be even more shocked when you learn they fly F-35s and F-22s too… that’s been how it works forever.

[@rosetzu_nagasawa]

is this related to Singapore's F16 "gyroscopic failure"?

[@CWLemoine]

No.

[@tommaxwell429]

What a pucker factor. These aircraft are so complex and sophisticated. While DCS is great, nobody dies and it is really not like the real thing. I can't imagine being in that situation. I flew an Cessna 150 in which the HSI failed. It took me a while to figure out what was actually going on. That was in VFR conditions. There was no real risk involved, but the mental confusion that ensued was very unsettling.

[@twistedfingersproject]

I know times have changed since I went through flight school back in the late 80s and their is greater competition for flight hours. Does total flight hours in this context mean "military only" flight hours or total flight hours logged (e.g., civilian and military)? Most of my buddies that went into the Air Force were seasoned pilots before they ever signed up. Some were not old enough to get an automobile drivers license. I have to believe that the MP had more flight hours than 423 total just getting through basic flight school and meeting FARs. Not to mention getting IFR and any other F-16 required ratings after as well. Maybe I'm just old school but that seems really low total hours to me.

[@CWLemoine]

It’s military only, but the FARs (CFRs) do not apply to military flying.

[@twistedfingersproject]

@@CWLemoine Thank you for the clarification..

[@P51]

"startle-factor" is one of the new buzz words at the airline

[@bmw_m4255]

the older aircraft can have unreliable instruments. I have seen where they do not make the instrument anymore and it has been rebuilt 100 times, plus shipped to korea, so possibility of damage. Got 7 RMI's bad from stock on an ISR aircraft. I feel your pain on the T38. I have seen many shaky ADI's that are hard to tell your orientation. I have seen multiple C14A gyros bad from stock. Wiring harnesses are beat up from decades of MX. Pins break, wires break. Bulkhead connectors can deform with pressurization.

[@michaelmcmanus5196]

How much time under radar takeoff flying in the wx did the young pilot have? Is possible the pilot didn’t have a mechanical and this was truly a loss of SA via vertigo but thought there was a failure of equipment? Asking and not judging. We always move forward to improve and remain safe. Glad the pilot is alive and walking among us. 🙏

[@CWLemoine]

No. The malfunctions were confirmed by the flight data recorder analysis.

[@chrzoc]

I’ve flown or have been a trunk monkey for a multitude of rediculous approaches when it comes to your standard cadre of PA’s and NPA’s (NDB or VOR circling, RNP (AR), CAT II’s and III’s), but a PAR/SAR down to fully socked in minima I imagine must seriously tighten one’s sphincter a few notches.

[@MichaelJM]

In the report it says "he followed his training and referenced his back up horizon display called the Standby Attitude Indicator (SAI), to determine how the aircraft was flying.... The SAI showed the airplane flying at an angle directed toward the ground which the pilot knew was not happening as he just corrected visually...." It sounds like he was struggling to figure out what the correct horizon was and wasn't having luck using either indicator, for whatever reason. Agree this wasn't his fault. Seems like he did his best under bad conditions and it got him out alive.

[@nicholasespinoza9610]

Like many people here I love aviation and follow many related aviation channels. In many famous air crash investigations it is determined that the pilot is at fault because they lost spatial awareness and did not use their instruments to regain control, this the first case that I am familiar with where the instruments failed and based on the host speaking looks like it is more common then I originally thought. Must have been super scary for pilot who can trust his inner ear or his instruments.