F-16 Accidentally Blown Up By Technician

a reply to: Byrd

At least he got a confirmed kill.

a reply to: StallionDuck

Maybe it's just me, but i suspect sabotage. I just do not see how this happens without intentionally trying to make it happen.

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: dragonridr

Shaw bird. They're known for hangar foam parties and leaving jets laying around.

Cough...cough* them boys be crazy. ive been out to shaw before since i live 30 miles away during the air shows. No that boy is lucky he will still have a janitorial job after this one.

originally posted by: SR1TX
a reply to: StallionDuck

Maybe it's just me, but i suspect sabotage. I just do not see how this happens without intentionally trying to make it happen.

I take it you never been round a southern mechanic before then. Least the boy scored 700 points in ace combat.(500 points for gun kills and 250 for partial)

a reply to: SR1TX

there was a bunch of people who didn't do their job right, or at all.

this seems like the guy took for granted everyone did what their jobs were and this 'accident' happened.

i haven't dug into the story yeet but i wonder if they were training or something because it sounds like HE rounds were loaded(as opposed to the blue ones that have no HE) then again it was pretty close range.

it will be interesting to see what comes from all this, im not saying it couldn't possibly be a deliberate act, but it just seems like laziness at it again.

very very lucky no one was seriously injured, sucks about their hearing but at least they are alive.

Perhaps someone more knowledgeable than me on these matters might be able to answer this question for me?

How many people would have to have failed to do their jobs, before this technician got at this aircraft? I only ask, because it seems to me that no one should be sent to work on a plane by their superiors, unless their superiors know that the plane has been demounted of all its ammunition, munitions, and even its fuel in some cases. Unless it was this technicians job to do all those things himself (I am going to go out on a limb here and say that those things combined are the work of several people), he has to be given some sort of slack, surely?

I mean, who would think that a person would be sent to perform maintenance on a plane with live ammunition aboard it, outside of the most extreme circumstances, like during hot war with a major power? Surely, the tech had every reason to expect that in order for him to be tasked with going over the craft, it would have to have first been made ready and demounted of all armaments!?

originally posted by: TrueBrit
Perhaps someone more knowledgeable than me on these matters might be able to answer this question for me?

How many people would have to have failed to do their jobs, before this technician got at this aircraft? I only ask, because it seems to me that no one should be sent to work on a plane by their superiors, unless their superiors know that the plane has been demounted of all its ammunition, munitions, and even its fuel in some cases. Unless it was this technicians job to do all those things himself (I am going to go out on a limb here and say that those things combined are the work of several people), he has to be given some sort of slack, surely?

I mean, who would think that a person would be sent to perform maintenance on a plane with live ammunition aboard it, outside of the most extreme circumstances, like during hot war with a major power? Surely, the tech had every reason to expect that in order for him to be tasked with going over the craft, it would have to have first been made ready and demounted of all armaments!?

In the end you’re responsible for your safety, you can’t rely on everyone else who’s touched the bird before you to have followed all proper procedures. He should have verified that all mechanical and electrical interlocks were in place before messing around with the canon system. In this case he would have had to go out of his way to disable safety interlocks to allow the snafu so I personally think the buck stops with the groundcrewman.

originally posted by: yuppa

originally posted by: SR1TX
a reply to: StallionDuck

Maybe it's just me, but i suspect sabotage. I just do not see how this happens without intentionally trying to make it happen.

I take it you never been round a southern mechanic before then. Least the boy scored 700 points in ace combat.(500 points for gun kills and 250 for partial)

50 points deducted for? 😝

a reply to: BigDave-AR

I get that. But what I am saying is, surely the plane should not have had any ammo in it by the time the dude got to it. If you are telling me it was his job to check, I understand that and he messed that up. But... he didn't make the big mistake here. No matter what he would have had to do to get the thing to spool up and actually fire, the fact is the plane should have been unloaded and ready for maintenance by the time he got to touch it at all, unless I have ABSOLUTELY misunderstood what happened, and the entire gamut of people who got to it before, have arguably failed to do their jobs a damned sight more thoroughly, than this one ground crew person.
I mean, missing a check is a lame move. But failing to perform an entire unloading procedure is a HELL of a lot harder.

You have to go right the hell out of your way to simply fail to perform such a task.

"I was cleaning it and it went off"?

a reply to: TrueBrit

It's just like being handed a gun. You should visibly verify whether or not it is loaded unless you saw it done with your own eyes.
But yes, likely a couple people screwed the pooch in this chain of accidents. That's how it always is. It's rare that one single thing going wrong leads to an accident.

a reply to: TrueBrit

Generally you have at least two people, including the one that screwed up, that goofed(keep in mind this is based on US procedures). Ammo troops are supposed to remove any ammunition from the gun beforehand, and sign it off. Then he should have checked the books and verified they were removed and the gun mechanically locked out.

MSN link no worky,

a reply to: Byrd

I love how the collection of stories shows an A-10 GAU-8, an RAAF EA-18 that burned on the runway at Nellis, and a bunch of destroyed buildings, all with basically the same headline about this aircraft being destroyed.

You break it, you buy it.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Hey Zaph, correct me if I'm wrong, but doesnt a aux power unit or the engine havre to be running to fire the gun, it is both electrically driven and fired?

originally posted by: punkinworks10
a reply to: Zaphod58

Hey Zaph, correct me if I'm wrong, but doesnt a aux power unit or the engine havre to be running to fire the gun, it is both electrically driven and fired?

I believe the on board battery is able to spin up the cannon.

a reply to: punkinworks10

I *think* they need a Dash 60 power cart, but on that I'm not positive.