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Tomcat Explosion
An explanation for the mysterious Tomcat explosion, quoted from another website:
 
This is my first post on Ebaums and really I am posting to clarify a few
things.

1) I am a Navy Air Traffic Controller.
2) I was stationed aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72) From 1994-
1999.
3) I was on Marshal Control in the Carrier Air Traffic Control Center
(CATCC) when this accident happened.

I’m not certain how many specifics I can get into. I do not think I can
get into where we were exactly or where we were going. However, the
accident report has been declassified and as such I can relay a few
pertinent facts about what happened.

I was tracking the Aircraft and he was traveling at a high rate of speed.
He never requested to do a flyby on the John Paul Jones and since he was
inside my airspace (out to 60 nautical miles) he should have made a
request to do so. Fact is he never was in communications with me at all.

Naval investigators concluded the loss of the airplane was due to "pilot
error" because Bates failed to take the required action to prevent his
plane from going into an uncontrollable spin after an engine stall.

The F-14 he was flying was an F-14A and the engines on that series were
prone to compressor stalls when making high angle of attack maneuvers, at
high speeds, in dense atmosphere (read: Low altitude). At the time of
this accident they were transitioning to the F-14B with engines that were
30% more powerful.

Because of the great distance between F-14 engines, asymmetrical thrust
becomes a real problem should one engine fail.

Going outside of the official mishap investigation; it would appear to me
that just prior to the explosion, LCDR (Lieutenant Commander) Bates place
his aircraft in a very hard turn. If you look at the video, you will
notice the aircraft flying at a 90-degree wing down attitude just prior
to the explosion.

As I stated earlier; Naval investigators concluded the loss of the
airplane was due to "pilot error".

Some of you may recall there was an F-14 accident in January of 1996. In
this accident the pilot requested an "Unrestricted climb" and his
departure took him vertical. He was observed to pass into an overcast
layer of clouds at nearly a 90-degree angle of attack. Shortly after he
was seen going into the clouds, his aircraft reversed direction and
impacted a house. The pilot, RIO (Radar Intercept Officer) and three
people on the ground were killed.

The findings on this accident were also found to be "pilot error".

Can you guess who the pilot of the later flight was? If you guessed LCDR
John Stacy Bates you would be correct.

In a period of 16 months, there were 4 losses of F14's in LCDR Bates'
squadron, VF-213 the Fighting Black Lions. Two of which were attributed
to him.

Not my cup of tea, but FYI, a rescue party from the USS John Paul Jones recovered the air crew.

For more that you may not care to read, the pilot of the plane in this video was also flying the F-14A that crashed shortly after takeoff from Nashville International Airport on January 29, 1996, killing the pilot, the RIO, and three people on the ground.

Dan is right and the fly-by was approved by the Commender Air Group (CAG) as part of a series filmed for television. The crew was fine except for being real wet and a bit spooked. Too bad the pilot bit the dust later in his career. Just as an aside, in non-fatal accidents like this, the aircrew enjoys watching the tape as much as anybody else and listening to the catcalls of their buddies.

The TF-30 engines powering the F-14A were very similar to the ones which powered my F-111s and were really stretching the state of the art in meatallurgy. What happened most likely is a fan blade came apart and penetrated a fuel tank. When that happens on the ground or in the air, you are going to lose the aircraft. I have seen it twice, both non-fatal, and we lost both aircraft, one in-flight and one running up for take-off. The fire on the ground did not go out until the saddle tank ran out of nearly 10,000 lbs of JP-4. One reason we went ot JP-8, which is kerosene-based instead of gasoline-based.

Ovi sa F/A-18 su mi se nekako više svidjeli.