A Quarter Century
Prior to the crash in Georgia on Monday, Training Squadron 86 had gone over 25 years without an accident, which remains the record.
The Pensacola News Journal reports that the Victims identified in Monday Navy jet crash. Retired Lieutenant Commander Charles McDaniel of Cantonment was the pilot, flying as a contractor. The passengers were: Marine Captain Jason Paynter of Pensacola, Naval Flight Officer instructor, and two students, Marine First Lieutenant Shawn Nice of Levittown, Pennsylvania and Navy Ensign Zachary Eckhart of Orefield, Pennsylvania. They were all assigned to VT-86.
It will take months for the cause of the crash to be established.
2 comments
“It will take months for the cause of the crash to be established.”
Why is that?
It’s the military system of accident investigation. Everyone knew almost immediately following my first “aircraft incident” why it happened, but the military creates a board and gathers all of the information, even things that are only tangentially connected to a crash, and then reviews it all before it issues a report.
Military reports always come with recommendations of corrective actions, in addition to findings of facts.
Military aircraft don’t normally have data recorders , “black boxes”, for security reasons, so that’s a big problem for accident investigations. Because it was a training aircraft, this Sabreliner might have had them, which would speed things up, but six months is considered quick for a military investigation.