http://www.navytimes.com/news/2009/11/coastguard_crash_111609p/


As the Coast Guard plans a Friday memorial service, officials are offering few details on the possible causes for a mid-air collision between the service’s C-130 Hercules transport plane and a Marine Corps AH-1W Super Cobra off the coast of California that killed nine service members.

The Cobra was flying in formation with another Cobra helicopter and two transports on a nighttime training mission Oct. 29 when the accident happened. Another pilot saw the aircraft collide in a fireball.

Although this was the second mid-air collision involving military aircraft in a week, this crash stands out because it involved military aircraft that were flying two separate missions and were completely unaware of each other, said James Huston, a former Navy fighter pilot and San Diego lawyer who has worked on helicopter crash cases.

“It’s extremely rare,” he said.

Four California-based Marines were killed in a midair helicopter collision Oct. 26 in Afghanistan. In that incident, a Super Cobra collided with a UH-1N Huey in central Helmand province. Investigators still are looking into the cause of that crash.

As of Tuesday, the Coast Guard had not recovered the seven Coast Guard and two Marine Corps service members lost in the crash 15 miles east of San Clemente Island. The Coast Guard also has not recovered the missing boater that the Coast Guard’s Sacramento-based C-130 crew had been searching for the day of the accident.

The accident happened at 7:10 p.m. in airspace uncontrolled by the Federal Aviation Administration and inside a so-called military warning area, which is at times open to civilian aircraft and at times closed for military use, FAA spokesman Ian Gregor told the Associated Press. He said did not know the status of the airspace at the time.

Minutes before the collision, the FAA told the C-130 pilot to begin communicating with military controllers at Naval Air Station North Island, but it was not known if the pilot did so, Gregor said.

The Coast Guard can’t comment on specifics about the timeline and other details because they are part of an ongoing investigation, said Carlos Diaz, a spokesman at Coast Guard headquarters in Washington.

“We just want to give the investigators every opportunity to run through the cause and control factors to the crash,” Diaz said.

The Coast Guard is in the process of finalizing a salvage plan and could not comment on specifics, said Public Affairs Specialist 1st Class Allyson Conroy, a Coast Guard spokeswoman in San Diego.

The four-engine plane was conducting its search from an altitude of 900 to 1,000 feet, and visibility was 15 miles. Capt. Tom Farris, commander of the Coast Guard’s San Diego sector, told the Associated Press it’s not unusual to have a high volume of military traffic working in training areas, and pilots in the area are responsible for seeing other aircraft around them under a so-called “see-and-avoid principle.”

“See and avoid” is used for clear flying conditions, and pilots are responsible for making sure their flight paths are clear, Huston said.

“You have to keep your head on a swivel,” he said.

The aircraft also have operating lights and mandatory red flashing anti-collision lights that should have made it easy for the pilots to see each other, Huston said. Although some flight training involves flying without lights to test night vision goggles, that type of training is conducted in closed air space and was unlikely to have been performed in that heavily trafficked military space, he said.

Moving from FAA air space to military-controlled air space usually is seamless, with air traffic controllers physically handing off locations to each other, Huston said.

“You’re given a new frequency within seconds,” he said.

Another former pilot, however, said timing could have been a factor if the Marine Corps formation was on the edge of the military airspace just as the C-130 crossed over the border.

The Coast Guard plane might not have had enough time to contact the military air traffic controller before it encountered the Marine Corps formation, said Tony Kern, chief executive officer of Convergent Resources. The Colorado-based company develops training materials for Coast Guard and Marine Corps instructors on teaching teamwork in the cockpit.

“If timing didn’t play a role here, then what happened? Who dropped the ball here?” said Kern, a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel and B-1B pilot.

Both Kern and Huston identified another factor that could have led to the crash: If the C-130 descended to get a closer view of the water, it could have missed seeing the slower-moving helicopter formation below it. The Marine pilots wouldn’t have been able to avoid the crash because they would not have seen the plane until it was on top of them, Huston and Kern said.

Each situation is different, but the fact that two mid-air collisions occurred within a week of each other should be a lesson to all pilots that they need to be extra vigilant about keeping their flight paths clear, Kern said.

“It’s one of those things you can never let slide — you should be practicing it and refining it every single day.”
Crash victims

Coast Guard C-130 crew:

• Lt. Cmdr. Che Barnes, 35, aircraft commander, of Capay, Calif.

• Lt. Adam Bryant, 28, co-pilot, of Crewe, Va.

• Chief Aviation Maintenance Technican John F. Seidman, 43, of Carmichael, Calif.

• Aviation Electronics Technician 2nd Class Carl P. Grigonis, 35, of Mayfield Heights, Ohio.

• AET2 Monica L. Beacham, 29, of Decaturville, Tenn.

• AMT2 Jason S. Moletzsky, 26, of Norristown, Pa.

• AMT3 Danny R. Kreder II, 22, of Elm Mott, Texas.

Marine Corps Super Cobra crew:

• Maj. Samuel Leigh, 35, of Belgrade, Maine.

• 1st Lt. Thomas Claiborne, 26, of Parker, Colo.