Belgian F-16 Completely Destroyed By Another F-16 After Mechanic Accidentally Fires Cannon On The Gr

[Winston]

I wonder if US military aircraft T.O.s are translated into other languages. That would be one heck of a task if so.

Belgian F-16 Completely Destroyed By Another F-16 After Mechanic Accidentally Fires Cannon On The Ground
14 Oct 2018

https://theaviationist.com/?p=62176

A Belgian Air Force F-16 has been destroyed and another aircraft damaged when the M61A1 Vulcan 20mm cannon on board a third F-16 was accidentally fired on the ground by maintenance personnel at Florennes Air Base in the Walloon area of Southern Belgium on Friday, Oct. 12, 2018.

Multiple reports indicate that a mechanic servicing the parked aircraft accidentally fired the six-barreled 20mm Vulcan cannon at close range to two other parked F-16s. Photos show one F-16AM completely destroyed on the ground at Florennes. Two maintenance personnel were reported injured and treated at the scene in the bizarre accident.

In a nearby hangar, positioned at the extension of the flight line, a technician was working on an F-16. It is said that by accident the six-barrel 20mm Vulcan M61A-1 cannon of that F-16 was activated. Apparently, the cannon was loaded and some ammunition hit the FA128. This aircraft had just been refuelled and prepared together with another F-16 for an upcoming afternoon sortie. After impact of the 20mm bullets, FA128 exploded instantly and damaged two other F-16s.

The news report published late Friday went on to say, “The F-16 was parked near a hangar when it was accidentally fired upon from another F-16 undergoing routine ground maintenance. Several detonations were heard and thick black smoke was seen for miles around. Civilian firefighters have even been called in to help firefighters at the airbase to contain the incident. About thirty men were deployed on site and several ambulances were dispatched. The Aviation Safety Directorate (ASD) is currently investigating the exact cause.”

The accident is quite weird: it’s not clear why the technician was working on an armed aircraft that close to the flight line. Not even the type of inspection or work has been unveiled. For sure it must have been a check that activated the gun even though the aircraft was on the ground: the use of the onboard weapons (including the gun) is usually blocked by a fail-safe switch when the aircraft has the gear down with the purpose of preventing similar accidents.

Because strict weapons safety protocols, especially with live ammunition, are in place during ground handling it is extremely rare for maintenance personnel to accidentally discharge an aircraft’s weapon.
It is the second time this year an accidental discharge of live aircraft weapons has happened in Europe. On Aug. 7, 2018, a Spanish Air Force Eurofighter Typhoon accidentally launched an AIM-120 Advanced Medium Range Air to Air Missile (AMRAAM) while on an air policing mission near Otepää in Valga County, southern Estonia. The incident occurred only 50km from the Russian border.

 

[mpitfield]

I know zero about this subject but I would have thought that this could only happen with a bit of effort or in the case of a failure.

 

[Nytrunner]

Because strict weapons safety protocols, especially with live ammunition, are in place during ground handling it is extremely rare for maintenance personnel to accidentally discharge an aircraft’s weapon.

For US personnel, yes. We don't know how foreign militaries alter or adapt maintenance procedures (or the planes themselves).

According to a coworker that's ex-AF, there's no way the plane should have had a) ammunition onboard during maintenance b) the firing mechanism in any sort of position to actuate c) open control lines to fully activate the weapon system. Someone worked really hard to make this able to happen, and it was probably a procedural team effort

 

[Rex R]

see also 'USS Forrestal fire 1967'
Rex

 

[Banzai88]

For US personnel, yes. We don't know how foreign militaries alter or adapt maintenance procedures (or the planes themselves).

According to a coworker that's ex-AF, there's no way the plane should have had a) ammunition onboard during maintenance b) the firing mechanism in any sort of position to actuate c) open control lines to fully activate the weapon system. Someone worked really hard to make this able to happen, and it was probably a procedural team effort

Not completely accurate, strictly speaking. There are TONS of times in 26 years in the Navy that I worked maintenance issues on loaded helicopters and jets. Happens all the time in a tactical environment, although the NATURE and EXTENT of said maintenance varies based on load out, tactical footing, mission requirements, and maintenance crew experience. Usually, stateside such maintenance is done in a LOLA (Live Ordinance Load Area) to prevent such a thing, but onboard a carrier it happens on deck all day and most of the night, too.

What does have to happen is that the aircraft has to have:

• Ground power
• Probably main avionics systems activated (default state is "ON" unless breaker is pulled), although not always
• Armament systems activated (default state is "ON" unless breaker is pulled, modern aircraft mostly self-identify the ordinance that's on their rails)
• Master Arm switch activated
• Weight Off Wheels either made "true" with wedges in the switches or a "Master Arm Override/Weight Off Wheels Ground Maintenance Override" activated

At that point, it's simply a matter of selecting the correct weapon or station on the weapons panel, waiting for computer acknowledgement, and to pull the trigger. That's nearly 100% the way that ordinance stations and guns are tested on deck before loading......but with missile simulator test sets that identify as missiles/bombs/etc.

Example 1: I'm the one that accidentally discovered the software glitch in 1997 in the F-14D (years after it was in the fleet) for just such a potential mishap. I discovered that I could lock a LIVE missile (Phoenix or Sparrow) on certain stations onto a radar diagnostic test target from the back seat and initiate a launch with ONLY flipping up the Master Arm switch in the front seat. The diagnostic fooled the armament computer into thinking that it was flying and had a valid target.

Plane captain had accidentally activated the Master Arm switch while doing a turn around inspection on the jet between tactical missions. I was checking out a radar discrepancy. Imagine my surprise when my headset beeped with missile tone and the missile lock lights were lit!

Needless to say, after we confirmed it onboard with numerous run checks, and sent a metric butt ton of messages asking if what we had discovered was not a glitch....the entire maintenance doctrine on the F-14D changed overnight when it was discovered that the missile test set had circuitry that did NOT work the same as a live war shot.

Example 2: Ordies used to test the F14 (all models) gun drive motor by applying power, shoving weight off wheels wedges in, hitting the master override switch in the nose wheel well, and testing for gun drive voltage by disconnecting the plug in the boarding ladder well and putting a piece of safety wire in the female pins, hitting Master Arm, selecting GUN, and pulling the trigger........to shock the living shyt out of the junior guy holding the wire! The only thing preventing the gun from firing then was the fact that the plug was disconnected. That's the quick and dirty 'check', and it works, but it's NOT in the manual.

So, it can happen.

 

[Andrew_ASC]

Dad flew UH-1 cargo slick Hueys in Vietnam during the war. His chilling stories were of several accidents with FFAR unguided rockets from the gunship helicopters going active while on ground and actually killing several allied crews. The vertical rocket pod stack launchers were then replaced with the cylinder LAU type. Additional proceedures were implemented to reduce risks associated with arming gunships. His humbled opinion was they should have never had armed helicopter gunships on ground pointing towards the other helicopters during reloading. It was a preventable accident.

 

[Mushtang]

However the radio still works. Funny as that may seem, with all this mess the radio is the only thing really working good. Clear as a bell, don't ask me how.

 

[georgegassaway]

I know zero about this subject but I would have thought that this could only happen with a bit of effort or in the case of a failure.

Yeah, I woulda thought that it was not possible to activate any weapon when the vehicle is on the ground. Such as:

Airspeed zero (or below flying speed to account for wind on the ground) = weapon lockout.

Weight on wheels (or even gear down) = weapon lockout.

Perhaps there are such safeguards but the mechanic accidentally "manually" moved a mechanism normally activated by a servo/solenoid/cable.

I do know that some (if not all) WWII fighters could fire their guns on the ground. There was a procedure for adjusting the aim of the guns that involved having the fighter pointed at a target, tail jacked up as needed to make the fuselage level, and fire a few bursts to later make adjustments if the rounds didn't hit the target directly enough (IIRC, with the guns spaced out on the wings, they were aimed to be crosseyed a bit so that the rounds would all intersect at a point at say 1000 feet, or whatever was the optimal far range distance).

But that was WWII. And given other ground accidents such as aboard aircraft carriers in the 1960's, more safeguards were put into place. But of course that does not mean there's hard lockouts to prevent this sort of thing from happening.

 

[Rex R]

in the early 80s Lockheed was 'bore sighting' the 20mm cannon in the F104s the shop I worked at happened to be next door to the firing pad(50' or so)…I can attest to fact that those guns are LOUD. the Lockheed guys told us that we might want to put on the ear defenders when we heard them crank up the motor generator, they did we did, and the visiting crew saw that and said 'it's not that noisy on the flight lineBRRRAPP' they didn't quite hit the ceiling when they fired the gun, but it was close .

 

[grouch]

The airspeed zero thing would prevent firing in certain flight attitudes so that wouldn't work. I.e., high alpha or stalling maneuvers. I always assumed a squat switch would be involved but what do I know?

 

[Marc_G]

I think that damage would buff right out.

 

[MClark]

Who gave the Belgians real bullets?
Did the maintenance crew go to Virginia Tech?

M

 

[grouch]

Dude really??