We had delivered 677 production Chinooks, flown twelve thousand, five hundred hours on production Chinooks without an accident. Number B-678 marred that record when it crashed on our flight ramp a few minutes after initial lift off. The nose pitched up, the aircraft fell in on its tail, rolled over on the left side, and caught fire.
Fortunately several members
of the crew were right there and were able to assist our 2 pilots and the crew
chief getting out of the aircraft. All
suffered some minor injuries. The crash crew extinguished the fire but the
aircraft was a total loss.
The pilots stated that they
had pressed the control centering button, the nose pitched up, and there was
nothing they could do about it. There
was a complete loss of pitch control.
It didn’t take long to find
the problem, given the evidence. A
quarter inch bolt in the pitch control did not have a nut installed and fell
out. It was hard to believe this could happen.
The Quality records require the mechanic who installed the bolt to place
his stamp on that job along with every other critical bolt in the control
system, it was stamped.
In addition a stamp is also
required by the inspector who checked the job, it also was stamped. The two employees involved had each been on the job for over 15 years
with a clean record. They were given
time off, I don’t remember how much.
As a result of this incident,
the Army authorized the installation of bolts that will not come out even if
there is no nut. This applied to every
critical bolt on the aircraft. Some of the large bolts on the rotor cost over
$100 each. The Marine Corp followed some time later.
A copy of a Special Edition
of the Boeing News is inside the front cover of this book.
No comments:
Post a Comment