An Army investigation found an F-35 pilot with no previous experience in the type was at the controls of an Utah National Guard Apache attack helicopter when it crashed at a base in the state in February.
According to Salt Lake City’s KUTV, which got a copy of the report, the pilot was a colonel, and he had just 35 minutes of sim time in the Apache before he took off on an orientation flight with a master warrant officer who was qualified in the type.
The investigation found that on the colonel’s fourth attempt to hover and land the Apache at the army facility at South Valley Regional Airport (U42) in West Jordan, Utah, he lost control.
“In a moment of panic and due to his great unfamiliarity with the … helicopter flight controls,” an investigator wrote, “the [colonel] reverted to his fixed-wing…training and applied downward movement…This motion…was not the proper input in a [rotor-wing] aircraft.”
The investigation also found fault with the master warrant officer, saying “overconfidence…led to inadequate aircraft flight control management and inadequate altitude selection with an unqualified person on the helicopter’s flight controls.”
Editor’s Note: This article first appeared on AVweb.
