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VP-50 P-3C BUNO: Unknown 10/7/68-3/21/91 Hometown: Raymer, TN |
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VP-50 P-3C BUNO: Unknown 10/7/68-3/21/91 Hometown: Raymer, TN |
Naval Planes Collide in Midair; 27 Believed Dead
Crash: The all-weather aircraft were flying in stormy skies on a training mission off the San Diego coast.
Los Angeles Times, March 22, 1991
By NORA ZAMICHOW, TIMES STAFF WRITER
SAN DIEGO--In the worst naval air crash in decades, 27 crew members are believed to have died in the midair collision of two Navy P-3 Orion anti-submarine planes during a training mission Thursday off the San Diego coast.
The crash occurred 60 miles southwest of San Diego at 2:30 a.m. as a storm pounded the area, Navy officials said. Search-and-rescue workers discovered wreckage from the downed planes but as of late Thursday they had not found any bodies in the heavy seas. The crewmen are listed as missing, but Navy officials said they had little hope that any survived.
The collision--believed to be the first of its kind involving the all-weather Orion--occurred as one plane flew to relieve the other, which had been airborne for seven hours. Fourteen crewmembers were aboard one Orion, 13 were on the other.
The two aircraft were assigned to Patrol Squadron 50 based at Moffett Naval Air Station in Mountain View where the military community south of San Francisco was stunned by news of the collision.
"We're a small community," said Lt. Cmdr. Frank Pearson, assistant Chief of Staff for the P-3 patrol squadrons at Moffett, which is almost three hours away from the crash site. "When something like this happens, it affects us all."
The P-3 Orion is a sturdy turbo-prop that was used in the Persian Gulf to search for mines and also is used to fly into hurricanes to monitor their strength. The Orions that collided were conducting a routine anti-submarine warfare training exercise.
A Navy helicopter crew flying six miles away and sailors aboard the destroyer Merrill nine miles away reported a ball of fire and loud explosion about 2:30 a.m., said Senior Chief Petty Officer Bob Howard, a spokesman for the Pacific Fleet's Naval Air Force.
The planes' altitudes have not been determined, but the aircraft can fly as low as 500 feet over the water, Howard said.
Investigators also have not determined what role the stormy weather might have played in the crash. About two hours after the incident, the National Weather Service reported a funnel cloud off the coast near Ocean Beach, about 60 miles from the accident.
"Obviously, weather is being considered--it's always a factor," Howard said.
Several pilots, however, said the P-3 is capable of handling considerable turbulence.
"It's a hard, rough ride but it's got a lot of power and it's amazing how much the aircraft can take...Multiply the turbulence [sustainable] on any kind of airline flight by 10--they're amazing," said Lowell Genzlinger, a National Center for Atmospheric Research pilot who has flown the Orion into storms for the past 12 years. "But no airplane is going to handle a midair collision--that's like running into a brick wall."
At the time of the crash, visibility was 3 to 7 miles and waves were 4 to 5 feet. Heavy rains were following from thick cloud cover.
"Certainly weather conditions, while not optimal, were within the operating range and capability of the P-3," said Howard.
The two aircraft, which had been in radio contact with the battle groups, were not using air-to-air radar but relying on their assigned altitude, an official said.
One expert familiar with the aircraft, who asked not to be named, said the crash was more likely to be a result of the pilots' inability to see.
"You can assume any time there's a midair collision---whether military or civilian--it results from the inability of one or both pilots to see. The primary means that pilots have to avoid collision is the human eyeball--if they are flying at night and in bad weather, the abbility of the pilots to see each other is more difficult," he said.
Names of the missing crewmen had not been released Thursday as Navy officials began contacting next of kin.
About five ships combed the sea in search of bodies as aircraft flew overhead. It has not yet been determined how long the search will continue, Howard said. But, rescue efforts began almost immediately after the crash, when the crew of the nearby Navy SH-60 helicopter saw the fireball, flew closer--and identified floating debris from the planes.
About 20 minutes after the incident, the Merrill--also participating in the training exercise--arrived at the crash site to help search for survivors. But none had been found by Thursday evening.
The Lockheed-manufactured P-3 Orion, named after the Greek god of the hunt, is a fixed-wing plane that typically carries a crew of about a dozen.
In Navy service for 29 years, the plane has a good safety record, officials said. Since the Navy began using the P-3 three decades ago, there have been 38 crashes in more than 6 million flight hours, a rate that compares favorably with other military aircraft, officials said.
The last P-3 accident occurred Sept 25, 1990, at Crowes Field, part of Moffett Field, when a plane landed hard and was engulfed in flames. Three were injured in that accident. In 1983, a P-3 crashed into a mountain in Hawaii killing 14.
Before this week's crash, five men had been killed in naval aviation accidents so far during the 1991--or about one-fifth of the total who died during the previous year in such mishaps.
At Moffett Field, a base of 6,000 military and civilian personnel, the flags flew at half-mast and word about the tragedy spread fast--"as soon as it happened," an airman said.
"It's a big letdown," said the airman, who asked that his name not be used. "It makes you feel pretty sick. Those are brothers."
Navy Releases Names of Some in Collision
Air tragedy: No bodies or survivors have been found. The service lists 19 of the 27 crew members presumed dead, including a Glendale man.
Los Angeles Times, March 23, 1991
By NORA ZAMICHOW and CHRISTOPHER ELLIOTT, TIMES STAFF WRITERS
SAN DIEGO--Even as Navy search teams scoured ocean waters Friday for signs of survivors and debris from the midair collision of two of its planes, officials released the names of 19 of the 27 crew members presumed killed in the worst naval accident in decades.
The remaining eight names are expected to be released today, once relatives are notified.
Word of the deaths shattered families around the country.
Among them was the family of Richard Anthony Tafoya, 21, of Glendale, a 1987 graduate of Glendale's Hoover High School. Tafoya enlisted in the Navy during his senior year to pursue his dream of becoming a "Top Gun"--one of the Navy's best fighter pilots.
Standing in the driveway of the apartment building where Richard grew up, Tom Tafoya, 25, said his little brother, the youngest of the three Tafoya children, was well on his way to fulfilling his goal.
He was accepted into the Navy's Officer Training School, Tafoya said. He was so close to becoming a pilot, so close...:
His death seemed impossible, said his sister Valerie Tafoya, 23. After all, just last weekend Richard had driven down from Moffett Naval Air Station near San Francisco to visit his family.
"He was very family oriented," she said. "All his nieces and nephews loved him because he would play with them and he always seemed happy."
In San Diego, meanwhile, Navy officials reported that they had found two lines of debris, including exposure suits and helmets, about 100 yards apart in the ocean.
And at Moffett, in Mountain View, a grim-faced group of Navy officials--buoyed until Thursday morning by the military victory in the Persian Gulf--announced the beginning of two separate investigations to determine what caused the crash that apparently took the lives of Tafoya and 26 others.
The two all-weather P-3 Orion turboprop planes collided in a fiery flash in stormy weather at 2:26 a.m. Thursday 60 miles southwest of San Diego. One plane apparently was arriving to relieve the other, which had been airborne for 7 1/2 hours.
Rear Adm. Tony Maness, commander of the Pacific Fleet's Patrol Wings in Moffett--from which the planes had originated--said the Navy had ruled out mechanical failure, although he would not elaborate. "We have no reason to expect mechanical complications," he said.
The plane that was about to be relieved had reported a minor problem with an auxiliary communication device, but Navy officials and an industry expert insisted the problem would not have contributed to the crash. The flawed equipment was a datalink device, one of two means the planes' navigator-communicators have of talking with one another.
"It's no more significant than if you are driving down the freeway and the car radio quits working--it's not going to cause you to crash into another car," said Jim Ragsdale, spokesman for Lockheed Corp., which manufactures the plane.
Navy officials believe key communications were working and tht the pilots were in contact minutes before the planes collided.
When flying P-3s over water in operations like the one this week, the pilots, aided by a sonar buoy approach each other at least 1,000 feet above. They are not guided by a control tower, and must negotiate their own maneuvers and inform each other of their altitude, an activity called "freelancing."
Both pilots had to complete a two-year training program to qualify for certification, which included a minimum of 800 flying hours. This was their first tour flying the P-3s. The rest of the crew's experience ranged from two years to more than 30 years, Maness said.
"Something went wrong," Maness said. The purpose of this investigation is to find out "what went wrong."
In Glendale on Friday, the talk among friends and neighbors who had gathered to console Richard Tafoya's family was not of mechanical failure or the lack of it, or even whether stormy weather was the culprit. It was of a young man's passion for playing his guitar and for running--both of which his family said he excelled in.
They recalled that he had received a varsity letter in football his senior year at Hoover, earned good grades and was well-known both at school and in his neighborhood.
"He was an unselfish person, one who would do anything to help others," his brother said. "He had many, many friends in Glendale and in the Navy."
Navy Halts Search for Bodies from Collision
Los Angeles Times, March 26, 1991
By NORA ZAMICHOW, TIMES STAFF WRITER
SAN DIEGO--Officials have halted their search for bodies and debris from the midair collision last week of two Navy planes and are focusing on the task of piecing together clues to determine what caused the worst naval aviation accident since World War II.
Navy officials also have released a complete list of the 27 crewmen aboard the two P-3 Orion turbo-prop planes in the ill-fated flight. A memorial service is scheduled in honor of the crews at their base, Moffet Naval Air Station, Thursday--exactly a week after the crash.
After combing the sea last week, Navy officials found fuel and debris from the crash, including a piece of one plane's tail section.
Five Navy ships looked for survivors in the waters 60 miles southwest of San Diego and were joined by a Mexican minesweeper that offered assistance Friday. Navy planes from San Diego, as well as from Moffett, scanned the sea from the sky. By Friday night, the search was halted.
It represents a tremendous loss when you lose that many professionals, and we take each one of those losses very personally--it just emphasizes to us that what we do is a dynamic, difficult and dangerous business," said Senior Chief Petty Officer Bob Howard, a spokesman for the Pacific Fleet's Naval Air Force.
San Jose Mercury:
A final salute
Navy says goodbye to 27 fallen airmen
San Jose Mercury News:
By NICK ANDERSON
Mercury News Staff Writer
Published: Friday, March 29, 1991
The commander of Patrol Squadron 50 lionized these 27 airmen. To John Martin Mauthe, they were ever-laughing, ever-loving, ever-handy and ever-inspiring. And on this bright, breezy Thursday afternoon on the lawn at Moffett Field Naval Air Station, one week after a dread, rainy morning at sea near San Diego, who would doubt Cmdr. Mauthe?
While 27 folded flags lay stacked on a white tablecloth to his left, Mauthe told brief tales of his shipmates, the men of Crew 2 and Crew 11, who died in the only collision of two Navy P-3 Orion patrol planes.
On Petty Officer 2nd Class Michael L. Germeau, 22: "If it was broke, and it was electronic, he could fix it."
On Lt. Cmdr. Robert A. Nemecek, 33: "He took pleasure in beautiful things, and he gladdened all our hearts."
On Petty Officer 3rd Class Richard A. Dabbs, 22: "His unmistakable Tennessee drawl always permeated the sky."
There were others. Men who were steadfast, men who glowed, men who flew with passion, "the nicest person you ever met," and a man who "loved music, Mustangs and motorcycles."
Twenty-five of the dead were from Mauthe's submarine-hunting squadron. Two were from a specialized training group riding Mauthe's planes.
Two were lieutenant commanders, five were lieutenants, and three were lieutenants, junior grade. Among petty officers, five were first class, four were second class, and six were third class. There were two airmen.
As for those who came to pay respects on the base's ceremonial Shenandoah Plaza, there were 3,000. One thousand were seated, and 2,000 stood, some at ease, and some at attention in dress black.
Naval emissaries came from patrol squadrons in Canada; Brunswick, Maine; Jacksonville, Fla.; and Barber's Point, Hawaii. Families came from as far away as Rhode Island and as near as San Jose. Some wore black cowboy hats and jeans; some wore pinstripe suits.
It was a day for flags.
The four-star blue-and-white flag of Adm. Frank Kelso, the Navy's member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who was present, flew atop the admiral's mast.
His colors were dwarfed by the giant garrison flag, a Stars and Stripes 15 feet high and 34 feet wide, that rippled like a parachute in the gentle wind. To the plaza's rear flew two triangular chaplain's pennants, emblazoned with a blue cross and a blue Star of David.
The ceremony, which followed Navy tradition to the letter, went like this:
Officers read Scripture from the Old and New Testaments, parts of which taught the assembled warriors how God would end war. "The bow He breaks, He splinters the spear, He burns the shields with fire," read one psalm.
Then, after "Amazing Grace" and some words of reflection, the 27 flags were given to widows, mothers and fathers. Twenty- seven times, a name was read, a sailor rang a chromed bronze bell lightly, and a casualty officer marched to the seated family, bent over, offered the cloth triangle, murmured condolences and snapped a salute.
Afterward, two P-3s streaked low over the plaza, one behind the other, from east to west. They veered south, and people cried.
The families then went to a private reception
For Desiree Dyer, widow of Petty Officer First Class Jimmy Dyer, the ceremonies are not yet over. On April 22 will come his funeral, at Arlington, Va. Jimmy Dyer, a Sailor of the Year in 1988, would have been 32 that day
"He loved flying," Desiree Dyer said before the memorial. "He said there were two ways he wanted to go. You couldn't write one of them. Flying was the other."
Grief hits home at Moffett Field in wake of crash
San Jose Mercury News:
By DAVID BANK
Mercury News Staff Writer
Published: Saturday, March 23, 1991
A Navy chaplain who helped prepare a young Moffett Field airman before his wedding last year met the newlywed bride for the first time Friday. A few months after she became a wife, she has become a widow.
A Red Cross volunteer answered a phone call from another flier's landlord who wanted to know whether his tenant would be coming home to feed his dog. He won't.
And a Navy casualty assistance call officer helped another survivor begin to fill out forms. She'll get a $3,000 payment right away, 90 days of free rent, about $824 per month and other benefits. But her dental care privileges expire at the end of the month.
Families and friends began gathering from all over the country, and Moffett Field's chapel was packed Friday as grief over the death of 27 airmen in the collision of two P-3C Orions settled over the base on a gray day.
At the same time, dozens of support personnel began to help survivors make arrangements for life after the Navy.
'Things we have to do'
"Yesterday, there was so much adrenaline and everybody was doing what they had to do," said Capt. Edward Murray, the base command chaplain. "Today is the exhaustion phase. Yet we still have all these things we have to do."
The number of people at daily Mass has more than doubled, said Murray. The chapel has become a safe place for normally stoic military men to cry, he said. In counseling sessions, emotions have ranged from numbness to disbelief to anger.
"One of the stages of grief is anger," Murray said. "It can be at God, at the Navy, at anybody. When you have 27 men die, it's unfair."
Elizabeth Redmond of Sunnyvale, wife of a missing crew member, said her husband, 26-year-old Lt. Dennis L. Redmond of Freehold, N.J., "loved his country and loved to fly."
"That's where he had to be when he went. He wouldn't have it any other way," she said.
'I just hope it went fast'
Redmond said she hoped that the crash was quick and painless. "I just try and hope it went fast," she said. "I told him when he left to fly safely and bravely, and I know he did."
Redmond expressed gratitude for the support of other Navy wives and said the last thing her husband said to her was "that he loved me."
With no remains to be shipped for hometown burials, a memorial service tentatively scheduled for Thursday may be the only time many in the base community can formally say farewell.
"There's an extreme desire to come here," said Karen Gershanov, Moffett Field station manager for the Red Cross. "This is the place to come to say goodbye." Outside the gates of the base, there will be other efforts to salute the dead. The city of Mountain View will fly its flags at half-staff until Tuesday evening. A moment of silence will be observed at the dedication of the new City Hall on Saturday.
Radio trouble suggested in P-3 collision
San Jose Mercury News:
By SUE HUTCHISON
Mercury News Staff Writer
Wednesday, April 24, 1991
Navy pilots flying P-3 Orions on a routine mission off the San Diego coast last month may have had trouble communicating with each other as one plane came in to relieve another and the two collided, a tape of the pilots' final conversation revealed Tuesday at a naval inquiry into the disaster.
The inquiry began last Thursday in San Diego and was moved to Moffett Field Naval Air Station on Tuesday to investigate the March 21 crash that killed all 27 crew members.
The tape, which was often obscured by static, indicated that the pilots switched to a different radio channel, which the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln was not set up to receive the night of the crash. The Lincoln had been tracking the planes.
The unmonitored conversation, which may have contained crucial evidence about the cause of the crash, was not taped.
"The radios did not seem to be operating very well," Lt. Scott Krambeck told the investigators after the tape was played at the inquiry. Krambeck did not begin his shift on the Lincoln until three hours after the 2:14 a.m. crash, but he was among the first to screen the tape.
Commander Jim Rockwell, the Navy attorney orchestrating testimony for the inquiry, and the panel of three officers charged with investigating the crash also questioned Petty Officer Terrence Whitfield, who had been in charge of monitoring the planes from the Lincoln during the ill-fated turnover.
The investigators asked Whitfield about the altitude and separation of the planes.
Though they acknowledged that the planes were operating "free-lance" -- navigating on their own rather than being controlled from the Lincoln -- the investigators repeatedly asked Whitfield why he hadn't alerted the pilots when he could see on his console that the planes were flying very close together.
"The P-3s are always free-lance with us," Whitfield said. "The P-3 guys can do everything the ship can do. They have their own radar. They don't really need us."
Whitfield estimated that the submarine hunters -- Poppa 3 Juliet, which was ending its shift, and Yankee 9 Charlie -- had been only two to four miles apart minutes before the crash, but he said that was not unusual and that he had been confident the pilots were well aware of each other's position.
"I remember telling the first one, 'I have your playmate coming down. He's in range,' " Whitfield said. "I think he said 'I'm at 2.5' (2,500 feet above sea level) and the other guy said 'I'm at 12 (12,000 feet).'
"They were close together, which I was told was normal for those guys. They were following each other . . . and told me they had a full understanding of where each other was."
Rockwell said he expects the inquiry to continue through Thursday. He plans to present evidence detailing the maintenance history of the planes, crew qualifications to fly them and qualifications and training of the Lincoln operating personnel.
Rockwell said that the majority of witnesses yet to testify will be Moffett Field commanders.
Only after the evidence makes its way through the prescribed naval chain of command will it be available to the public, Rockwell said.
Two Navy Planes Collide Over Pacific; 27 Missing
San Jose Mercury News:
March 21st, 1991
Associated Press
SAN DIEGO - Two Navy submarine-hunting planes collided Thursday, and all 27 people aboard were feared dead in cold, choppy waters 60 miles off Southern California, authorities said.t>
The Navy listed the crews as missing, but there was little hope any of the crew members from the downed P-3 Orions survived.
The all-weather planes were engaged in an anti-submarine warefare exercise when they collided in bad weather, authorities said.
"I think we have to be realistic here," said Senior Chief Petty Officer Bob Howard, a Navy public affairs officer at North Island Naval Air Station. "It is very cold out there. We're talking about what apparently is a mid-air collision...two aircraft. I would say it would be very grim."
Still, he said, the Navy was conducting an aggressive air and sea search of the crash site.
Search and rescue teams saw some debris from the planes but found no signs of life.
There was no word on how long the search would last, but Howard said the Navy would make "extraordinary" attempts to retrieve remains and wreckage.
The aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, the destroyer USS Merrill and at least two other ships, along with helicopters and fixed-wing planes, were assisting in the search.
A Navy helicopter crew flying in the area and sailors from the Merrill reported a ball of fire and loud explosion about 2:30 a.m. PST, Howard said during a briefing at North Island Naval Air Station.
He said the accident occurred over the Pacific Ocean about 60 miles southwest of San Diego.
The collision occurred as one P-3 Orion was arriving to relieve the other, which had just completed its part of the exercise, Howard said. Officials were uncertain how much contact the pilots had before the crash, he said.
Howard said it was believed 13 crew members were aboard one P-3 Orion and 14 on the other. The planes were on a training mission from Moffett Naval Air Station near San Jose. Names of crew members were withheld pending notification of their families.
The P-3s were in contact with land- and sea-based air controllers during the exercise, but officials were uncertain who was directing them at the time of the collision, Howard said.
Showers and strong winds were reported in the San Diego area overnight. The National Weather Service said pilots in the area reported severe turbulence about the time of the collision.
Howard said the Navy was uncertain what part, if any, weather played in the collision.
The P-3 Orion, driven by four propellers, is regularly used by weather forecasters to fly in hurricanes.
Pieces of Planes Found
Investigators may never know why Navy planes hit.
New York Times-MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--Searchers found only small pieces of debris Friday in the ocean area where two Navy planes collided Thursday off San Diego, and Navy officials say that the cause of the crash may never be known.
"It is possible that upon conclusion of this investigation we still may not know," Rear Adm. Tony Maness said Friday at Moffett Naval Air Station.
The lost planes, both large submarine-tracking P-3 Orions, were based at Moffett, south of San Francisco.
The planes, on a routine training mission, crashed at 2:26 a.m. Thursday. The crash occurred as one plane moved in to relieve another that had been training since Wednesday evening.
One plane held a crew of 13 and the other 14. Navy officials said the chances of finding survivors were slim.
Two Florida men, Petty Officer 3rd Class Denny Farquhar of Brooksville and Lt. Ned W. Metcalf of Sarasota, are among the missing.
Navy ends search for wreckage
March crash of Moffett-based planes killed 27 crewmen
21JUL 91 SAN DIEGO (AP) -- The Navy has finished searching the area where two P-3 Orions collided over the Pacific Ocean, killing all 27 crewmen aboard both planes, official said Thursday.
The submarine-hunting planes assigned to Patrol Squadron 50 at Moffett Naval Air Station in Mountain View, collided March 21 during a training exercise.
Search crews looking for mission tape recorders recovered six spooled rolls of tape and various lengths of loose tape. They are being transcribed but will not be made public because the tapes are classified, said Navy Cmdr. Sheila Graham.
A navy court of inquiry will reconvene Monday at North Island Naval Air Station to hear more testimony to try to make a final determination of what caused the accident about 60 miles southwest of San Diego.
Radar tapes from the Fleet Area Control and Surveillance Facility at North Island show the planes were flying at their assigned altitudes of 3,500 feet and 2,500 feet when one pilot suddenly veered up and smashed into the belly of the other aircraft.
Investigators believe pilot error was involved in the accident, one of the worst in recent military history. Mechanical failure, air traffic controller error and weather have been ruled out as possible causes.
Radar tapes reviewed during earlier court of inquiry sessions show that one plane had been in the air 7 1/2 hours, veered up and struck the other craft that was arriving to relieve it.
Both pilots were flying under visual flight rules and were not receiving flight instructions from the Fleet Area Control and Surveilance Facility, which was monitoring the exercise.
The pilots had requested permission to change to a radio frequency not normally monitored at the facility shortly before communication stopped between the two planes.
Crewmen of a minature Navy sub located wreckage from the planes May 29 following a month long search of the ocean floor.
No bodies were found after the accident and no remains of any crew members are known to have been recovered. One plane carried a crew of 13 and the other carried 14.