Distractions

[@cmsinx]

FS film and apart from the Professional acting ( Nick Ashby) very true to life. Pressure on the execs and Eng supervisors was enormous. Prime reason for making the film. Most RAF wives were solid.

[@abagatelle]

Superb acting, and not just by the pros either. One of the best flt sfty films ever. Thanks for uploading, brought back lots of memories.

[@GT-sl7wg]

I remember seeing this Flight Safety Film back in training days……Brings it all back ….day to day life on Squadron….🙄Oh and the bloody stats!!! RAFG were very keen on those!

[@angusmcangus7914]

As a former RAF pilot (1970s and 1980s) I can say that this is realistic. Life on a front-line squadron could be like that at times. I knew a few of the blokes in this film.

[@abagatelle]

👍

[@cryptohunt2552]

Did you ever fly Lightnings?

[@angusmcangus7914]

@@cryptohunt2552 I trip in a T5! Operationally I flew Harriers and Tornadoes.

[@cryptohunt2552]

@@angusmcangus7914 The Lightning had a very short range, but it's rate of climb and ability to beat other NATO fighters in flat out races and practice stern interceptions (Concorde) was phenomenal.

[@12345fowler]

I'm sorry I don't really understand what is being depicted in this film as an issue. The constant interruptions between various tasks and people maybe ?

[@davidmuir6849]

I was transported back into my Raf days ,this was exactly how it was ……better than watching top gun 😊 Regards Dave Ex sooty cpl

[@aaronbeschizza9596]

My Dad served for 23 years, embarking on many tours around the world, risking his life and limb for Queen and Country and yet, his two cameos in this film are all that get spoken about! You know it's bad when most people ask to see this video rather than his service medals! 😂

[@karlkeller6788]

At 22:10 the plaque on the wall is from my Wing when I flew the RF-4C (117 TRW) in the Birmingham Air Guard.

[@tonyhaynes9080]

Would that be the Alabama Air Guard, please? I was at Coltishall when they deployed over to us. I worked in the runway caravan at the end of the runway.

[@karlkeller6788]

@@tonyhaynes9080 Yes Sir, that was us.

[@stevetheduck1425]

I recall a squadron of OV-10 Broncos deployed to Colt one time.

[@anandmorris]

Love all these comments from RAF past and present. Thank you all for your service to our great nation! ❤🇬🇧❤🇬🇧

[@Steeyuv]

Coltishall! Saw a guy rehearsing his Lightning display in the seventies. Heard him as well...

[@keltacuk8112]

A great piece of film,just shows you how small things can have a tragic knock on effect!

[@BenJamin-tx7ol]

I don't understand, I never worked on Jags, so I may be wrong, but what has the MASB got to do with the ejection seat ? The Master Armament Circuit Breaker is, as far as I remember concerned with the aircraft armament, being on or off wouldn't affect the ejection seat, that has it's own safety pins Other than that a very realistic and lifelike film, apart from how easily the Chief changed his posting, that would not have happened. That is the Air Force we all knew and 'loved'

[@JuanmaBaiutti]

Jag was underpowered. Losing an engine heavy on take off probably needed to eject stores as mandatory action in the emergency procedure. Pilot delayed ejection by being focused on trying to eject the stores. Probably ended up ejecting out of parameters due to that (old ejections seats despite being an amazing tech still had their limitations)

[@thomasdarwin6174]

A depressing ending but this shows that military flight operations take a hell of a lot of planning and preparation with little or no margin for error. I always thought the Jaguar was a neat little airplane with its chunky looks and heavy duty landing gear.

[@magna4100]

"Must be back 'ere by ten, shit or bust." Wow, love that line. Must use it in conversation (Nick wont mind)

[@kenstevens5065]

I never served in the air force but climbed the greasy pole in retail. Retired now 15 years but I always thought management in the UK which seems lacking here has never been universally treated seriously. It's something a lot of people just seem to drift in to. Cost cutting and insufficient resource in this case? I do hope things have improved and that the RAF current good safety record isn't due to contraction in aircraft numbers and overall flying hours but in improved management.

[@stevetheduck1425]

I recall another RAF film about distractions where a pilot eventually taxied out in front of another Jag landing. He was an actor, recall seeing him on telly.

[@jeffster1957]

Richard O'Sullivan from Man about the house.

[@meertenwelleman6249]

That's in an RAF instructional movie.

[@meertenwelleman6249]

This is also such a movie.

[@petermitchell6348]

@@jeffster1957 Affirmative.

[@stevetheduck1425]

@@jeffster1957 That's him.

[@zenzen9131]

100% realistic. I did 22yrs and came out as a Chief Tech

[@ivanpennell7664]

Are you Zen of Brawdy and KH250 fame ?

[@zenzen9131]

@@ivanpennell7664 No sorry

[@BenJamin-tx7ol]

Again I never worked on Jags, but on the Lightning the MASB was removed by groundcrew and exhibited to the pilot before taxying, and it had nothing to do with the ejection seat.

[@davegoldsmith4020]

Cannot remember the name of the Sgt in light blue shirt and no pullover worked with him running the line at Lossiemouth in 1977/78

[@MalcolmMolyneaux-y7h]

I went from the bright lights of St Mawgan flight line to the darkest depths of a hangar at NMSU at Kinloss. So as it says, the rough with the smooth 😂😂😂😂

[@Bigglesworthicus]

so the moral of the story is don't ever get married

[@angusmcangus7914]

It did make life complicated.

[@GT-sl7wg]

Always thought it was a singlies life !!!

[@TheFlagsofDawn]

Great to see -dim Jones guy radford Mac zit John Hodgson 54 squadron memories… early 80s 27

[@francessweeney2308]

There were a lot of people who indirectly caused the chain reaction that lead up to this crash: . The Cpl doing gate duty when he was required on the floor to fix the Jaguar . The Wing commander leaving it until the day before to submit paperwork . Senior Engineering Officer for allowing the Jaguar to be released when there were question marks whether the engine had been repaired . The chief technician for signing off the work without checking it On the day of the crash: . The pilot who is not performing to required standards- send him to fly a cargo plan full of rubber horse s##t out of RAF Lynnam . The serviceman who answers the call to general office as Ashby is leaving and mistakenly says he's available. . The clerk who distracted Ashby with information about incorrect paperwork. He should've asked if he has time to talk about the squadron paperwork. . The technician who agreed to bring the form 700 out to be signed even though the aircraft had not been checked. . Finally, Nick Ashby was responsible ultimately for allowing all of this distractions into the cockpit. He failed to perform any checks which would've shown the ejection seat wasn't armed. Engine failures can happen to even the best pilots, what matters is how it's handled and having a safe means of escape if an emergency landing is not possible. Distractions are one of the leading causes of death or serious injury. If you think you're multi-tasking, in reality you're moving from 1 task to another not fully focused on any of the tasks. It's called inattention blindness and it's responsible for many fatal mishaps. Case in point, flight 1141 July 1988, a 727 was preparing for take off. The pilots were chatting to a female flight attendant about paychecks, their colleagues sex lives etc. For 15 minutes the cockpit voice recorder heard conversations ranging from their paychecks to fellow pilots sex lives. The pre-flight checks were recorded but although the captain's for flaps set at 15 degrees and green, the first officer responded less than 0.5 of a second later; not enough time for the action to be done on that aircraft type. The trim alarm that warns the pilots the aircraft is not correctly configured for flight was inoperative. The aircraft taxied but crashed killing 14 of the 98 people on board. The Captain, first officer and flight engineer all survived and were dismissed. However the flight engineer was reinstated after appealing his dismissal.

[@ukraine7249]

And what about the nagging wifes???? They hold the blame In my opinion they should be locked up

[@nigelhall6714]

Although belated...you pass with flying (lol) colours!

[@raymondyee2008]

RIP SQN LDR Ashby.

[@altaylor3988]

1st Law in R.A.F. .... You are married to the R.A.F. first and foremost. 2nd Law. Your Rifle takes presidency Next in line. 3rd Law. Girlfriends/Wives are not R.A.F. Issue.

[@c8136132]

That Chiefy used to be in Crossroads

[@reubendobbs8011]

Mechanic wasn't he

[@c8136132]

@@reubendobbs8011 yep he was married to the blonde one, Diane I think it was

[@TheGrumpyEnglishman]

Stan Harvey his name was!

[@gerrymooney5382]

@@TheGrumpyEnglishman Stan Harvey was his character, his name is Edward Clayton

[@markjackson5665]

3:25 those curtains would’ve distracted me! 😬

[@iolaire137]

We had some like that in our first AMQ with matching DPM sofa/chairs and swirly psychedelic orange carpets.

[@trevorhare9393]

1:35 the man coming in the door is actor Christopher Owen from the British version of House of Cards! (Among many other roles.) Confused. I assumed this was an internal RAF training film with RAF personnel playing themselves.

[@cyclesgoff9768]

This is what happens when the chiefies stopped wearing brown dust coats, chaos. 😄🤣

[@iolaire137]

And WO's in duffle coats in the winter.

[@citizenphaid1880]

The old leans forward stick forward jag crash

[@pcka12]

Was it just a story or where the Jaguar avionics updated with electronics derived from games machines?

[@stevetheduck1425]

Probably the other way around. Military electronics will quickly get 'ploughshared' into civilian use, as long as they don't end up sold to our opponents.

[@pcka12]

@@stevetheduck1425 at that time things like the Jaguar had 'solder through circuit boards whilst domestic electronics had moved on to IC chips!

[@thewalkingsketchbook]

Any idea to what year this was?

[@trevorwilliams6815]

Early to mid 1980s?

[@TonVerkleijT3]

Why didn't he eject?

[@Mors_Inimicis]

How come ‘Nick Ashby’ has a Red Flag patch? Could he have been on exchange at Nellis ?

[@abagatelle]

No, it didn't denote an exchange but participation (if I recall correctly, though I flew Harriers on Red Flag but never got a badge, so you may be right).

[@laguna3fase4]

....and this was part of the reason why I took redundancy in 1996.

[@darrenowen3338]

and I took free PVR too. Too much being asked for the wages being paid.

[@Jimmythefish577]

So by quitting you actually made the problem worse…

[@jpofgwynedd3878]

Amazing

[@Vladimirthetiny]

High time for another upload😅

[@laguna3fase4]

Apparently the Jaguar had a higher rate of fatalities than other types.

[@stevetheduck1425]

There were safer aircraft at the time, but it was much safer than planes from earlier generations such as the F-104.

[@neilstevens2062]

More to do with pilot error unfortunately. I know one exchange pilot flew straight into the wash due to the weather, grey sky, grey sea. I saw him off that day. Really sad as he was a really nice bloke. Bjornstad was his surname (excuse the spelling) Another got shot down by a 92 Sqn Phantom, Steve Griggs was the pilot but he banged out and survived. theaviationgeekclub.com/former-raf-jaguar-pilot-tells-the-story-of-when-he-was-shot-down-by-a-raf-phantom-interceptor

[@AlberRatman]

@@neilstevens2062 Correct, the high risk low level training of the RAF with an aircraft that had no Terprom GWPS untilo its last days saw so many CFIT accidents and mid air collisions. Only 12 Jaguars in RAF srervice were lost by technical malfunctions and 6 of those were maintenance errors. The other 53 were CFIT or Mid airs. Jaguar was a safe airframes compared to Lightnings!!

[@aoaxa]

@@AlberRatmanI was a JEngO on Lightnings (5 Sqn) in the mid-80’s and a SEngO on 54 Sqn in the mid-90’s. A hell of a lot of pressure on 5 Sqn - we lost 2 pilots and a 3rd aircraft pranged on landing. Proud as hell that we didn’t lose a pilot or aircraft during my time on 54 Sqn. But the pressure was turned down a little by the mid-90s - no TacEvals, less operational press-on-itize, although we did deploy like crazy. My wife suffered enormously, as did all the rest of the families. Easy to romanticise - the reality was brutal (although the guys were superb)….

[@richardgeorge8612]

were they real RAF personnel in the film?

[@sepecatjaguar5041]

Bar the Sqn Ldr, Chief Tech and wife, the Squadron staff were real personnel serving on 54(F) Sqn or Coltishall.

[@Jonathankph]

17 30 Is that Dim Jones? kzbin.info/www/bejne/iYLRdYWGjMhohZo

[@richardgeorge8612]

@@sepecatjaguar5041 thank you

[@jcale1000]

@Micheal Mccann he must have been reincarnated. A few years later he cropped up in an episode of minder! ! Ian Redford I think.

[@angusmcangus7914]

@@Jonathankph Yes.

[@kwesit1]

95, this happened for real

[@bonesshed.]

Who was the pilot ?

[@richardvernon317]

@@bonesshed. Flt Lt Greg Nobel of 41 F Squadron in January 1996. As he was taxing out, one of the ground crew on the squadron heard strange noises coming from one of his engines. That was passed on to the ATC tower, who told Nobel that there could be something wrong with the aircraft. Nobel let the other two aircraft in the formation take off and then did some slam checks on his aircraft to see it anything was wrong. He couldn't find any issues, so pushed the throttles forward to take off and failed to push them through the gate into reheat. He failed to note that the aircraft was not in reheat until too late and tried to take off almost at the end of the runway, he managed to get airborne and started to raise the undercarriage, when the main gear caught the crash barrier at the end of the runway and pulled the aircraft into the ground. After going through the perimeter fence and across a road into a cornfield where the whole of the aircraft was engulfed in a fire. He tried to Eject, unfortunately, the seat was broken in half by the impact and it failed to operate correctly. Story I heard from somebody who saw the fireball at the end, was top half of the seat left the aircraft, bottom half didn't and the pilot was thrown out of the cockpit and into the fire.

[@buffplums]

Lossie isn’t a bad place

[@allano937]

I loved Lossie. Ex 8 sqn

[@neilstevens2062]

I had a cracking tour up there on 226 OCU and met my wife as well. Happy days.

[@stevetheduck1425]

I recall that few wanted to be posted there, but they all seemed to have enjoyed it later.

[@bonesshed.]

@@allano937 My first ever det was a month with 8sqn late 80s with the Shacks to Cypress. Man, I got mess up bad 🤣

[@bonesshed.]

@@neilstevens2062 I was a squipper on 226 in the late 80s, early 90s, then when it became 16R. Good times

[@TheFatNumpty]

Human factors.....

[@SimonAmazingClarke]

Typical wives getting in the way. That was one of the most difficult parts when I was in the RAF. Trouble is, she was in the mid when I met her.

[@meertenwelleman4600]

That's not a very nice thing to say, Simon.

[@SimonAmazingClarke]

@@meertenwelleman4600 it was the biggest problem that I had to contend with. Yes, it was upheaval everytime you had to move but it was part of the job. It is only my opinion.

[@meertenwelleman4600]

It is a genuine problem, ofcourse, especially in a big country. An uncle of mine was a naval officer and he moved with his family to various Dutch cities, but also had a Belgian and Paris posting. My father was a high ranking Dutch officer. Training was at the start of his career in France and later in Germany, with Harriers and NF-5's flying overhead. But he never moved. That's how it goes.

[@robd2184]

Was this an RAF safety film or a BBC drama ?

[@iainbradford4254]

It was an RAF safety film. Not just actors here, some of these were real ground crew and pilots.

[@abagatelle]

@@iainbradford4254 I was a Jag pilot at Bruggen (31) when this came out, a superb film and very true to life. Great acting and very well produced. Really good effort.

[@iainbradford4254]

@@abagatelle Great, so you got to do some real LL in Germany vs my 1,000ft .....I was a bit later and GR4s on IX(B) ;-) My uncle was on 31, but a bit earlier, F4s at Bruggen.

[@abagatelle]

@@iainbradford4254 Yeh, 250ft. Church spires made great IPs!

[@neilstevens2062]

@@iainbradford4254 very much so, i was the liney meeting the A/c 2.09 mins. Jimmy Froud was the pilot behind the ops desk, Paul Kirkwood was the CPL running, Dusty Rhodes just to name a few. Its the first time i have seen the film after all these years.

[@bw8827]

It should have been about a Mosquito squadron, as the wooden acting would match the aircraft.

[@andyvan5692]

flight safety?, more like ground safety, as it is presumably the ground handlers job to ensure the seat ejectors are ARMED, as this is after all this, the cause of this fatality.

[@iolaire137]

Safety pins are passed by see off crew to pilot who stows them securely on the cockpit coming.

[@abagatelle]

No, the MASB was set to Arm by the pilot when taxying out. Same in the Harrier.

[@12345fowler]

Safety is a global goal and a team effort, so no point arguing about who in the team is responsible. The team win or fail as a team.

[@andyvan5692]

@@12345fowler yes, but with so many people around this aircraft, such a pity no-one spotted it in time. and what is the point of such 'safeties' if it endangers the pilots?, esp. if the person in charge of removing them don't do their jobs properly, just like the "herald of free enterprise" ferry accident, if only the error was spotted in time!!

[@medler2110]

I thought the problem was he couldn't clear stores when he lost the engine, because he failed to change the switch during his pre-flight checks as was distracted by the late arrival of the form. The time he messed about trying meant he ejected too late.

[@paulbarker5179]

I love all the civvies commenting on here totally clueless.

[@ukraine7249]

I’m guessing that this film was an educational one designed for reminding women that their attitudes towards their husbands can have consequences. I actually blame the wife’s for this accident Being married twice I understand how their attitudes change once they’ve married into service life. I can relate first hand how you have to re-explain and remind them of what they knew they were getting into when they made their commitment Personally I don’t think marriage is compatible with an effective Military Too much cost and far too much stress on the men having to defend the country Wife’s everywhere should watch this video

[@johnfisher7143]

My dad was RAF, he spent most of his career sorting out domestics, tracking down awol airman over 90% of whom were having marital or relationship trouble, fights over women, etc, etc, you get the picture. How they ever ran an effective service with all that going on is beyond me.

[@johnthorburn1913]

Typical crab. More worried about his claim.

[@rubybrady7051]

Oh how posh. I say old chap, we could win any war with American help.

[@medic7698]

Silly gratuitous comment. The film is a product of it's time. If you don't like it, you have a choice not to look at it.

[@someboy89]

orange rock ets

[@davidbell8320]

Think the other way round matey

[@MOPARdave999]

Have some respect eh. That kind of stuff happens and when it does, it can get messy.

[@stevetheduck1425]

Privilege doesn't help when you parachute into a fireball...