[Military.com] One of these unverbalized warnings was about the increased likelihood that the aircraft would yaw, or move against the direction of a desired turn, when operating on a single engine as angle-of-attack is exceeded.
At this point, the aircraft was flying on one engine, with landing gear and refueling probe extended, as the captain worked to maintain control of the plane and hydraulic fluid cautions continued to blare.
"The cycling [hydraulics] cautions were very distracting and [the pilot] became overwhelmed with flying the jet," investigators found. " ... Despite over 4,000 flight hours, he never had a situation where the jet was fighting him so much."
Things started to go really wrong. After restarting the right engine, the pilot climbed and angle of attack increased from 8.5 to 9.3 degrees. At 9.4 degrees, the aircraft started to move out of control. The captain maxed throttles at both engines, then pulled them back. Inadvertently, he lit the afterburner for just the left engine, which exacerbated the adverse yaw, pulling the plane further out of control.
Oh Fudge.
The plane began to buck and roll, now completely outside controlled flight. Ejection was quickly becoming the only option.
Good on the Capt. Airplanes you can buy. Experienced personnel not so much. |