F-35C crash in SCS

[tbm3fan]

What I would like to know is how the hell did these unauthorized videos get off the ship and leaked to the press? If I were Captain of the Vinson I would have immediately shut down internet access to all and told the crew, in no uncertain terms, the consequences of any videos leaked. I know today's generation likes to film everything and release it onto the internet as soon as they can but stuff like this is highly confidential and out before an investigation is close to finishing. Being older than AR, or is he BC, these sailors need to be brought up on a Captain's Mast at a minimum if not more.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/07/asia/...hnk/index.html

[tbm3fan]

Something on YouTube of course. I have to assume the plane was using the Maritime Augmented Guidance with Integrated Controls for Carrier Approach and Recovery (aka Magic Carpet). It was a picture perfect day for landing a plane on a carrier and I doubt this was a nugget so I have to wonder where the fault will lie? Pilot is involved with Magic Carpet so is it him, the system, or both. Super expensive lesson.

[Albany Rifles]

Yeah there some Sailors who are going to be in very deep shit over all these photos and videos getting out.

[Native]

I remember this one.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1t9FRL51x8g

[Gun Grape]

Not sure anyone would get in trouble. They use to broadcast the feed on ships TV during flight ops.

Its unclass.

[tbm3fan]

Here we go. The three I was waiting for. An F-14 RIO; F-18 Pilot, Air Wing LSO; and an F-14 Pilot who was also the X-32 chief test pilot.

W at the bottom of the screen for wave off.

[Albany Rifles]

Not sure anyone would get in trouble. They use to broadcast the feed on ships TV during flight ops.

Its unclass.

Gunny, it was my understanding the still photo of the jet in the water was not an official DOD photo and was not cleared for open distribution, same with the PLAT video.

[Albany Rifles]

Here we go. The three I was waiting for. An F-14 RIO; F-18 Pilot, Air Wing LSO; and an F-14 Pilot who was also the X-32 chief test pilot.

W at the bottom of the screen for wave off.

Fascinating discussion. Didn't realize about the landing system in the F-35. We've come a long way since my uncle was landing an FM-2 on to a CVE!!!

Thanks for sharing.

[Gun Grape]

Gunny, it was my understanding the still photo of the jet in the water was not an official DOD photo and was not cleared for open distribution, same with the PLAT video.

Yea, there are problems with the still photo being put on social media. Defiantly someone can/should get in trouble for that.

The CCTV footage is more like taking the PoD off ship, or a copy of the CCTV libo port brief. All are widely disseminated (every berthing compartment and mess decks have TVs)
unclass but are really for internal consumption. Releasing unclass info might get a reprimand an/or changes to SOPs but I don't see the Navy chasing that individual down.

But I do see more mandatory training classes on OpSec

{edit} just watched the video and listen to what the PAO said concerning the leaks "Its just the world we live in"

[Albany Rifles]

{edit} just watched the video and listen to what the PAO said concerning the leaks "Its just the world we live in"


Yeah, I was taken aback just like the men in the video were...my reaction as well. I was surprised to find out comms were not locked down.

And the discussion on complacency...that hit home. I certainly have seen that halfway through exercises and training events. When we went to live fire training the halfway point is where we tended to see the most errors/accidents. All 3 installation safety offices noted that and provided heads up cues to us all. Anyone remember the safety dot on their watches?

[TopHatter]

Four Chiefs, Ensign Facing Charges Over Release of USS Carl Vinson F-35C Crash Video

SAN DIEGO, Calif. – Four senior enlisted sailors and a junior officer are facing charges for their alleged role in releasing government video footage from aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson (CVN-70) showing the ramp strike of an F-35C Lighting II Joint Strike Fighter last month, USNI News has learned.

Following the investigation into the leak of a cell phone video recording the crash from Vinson’s Pilot’s Landing Aid Television (PLAT), the Navy has charged one senior chief, three chiefs and an ensign with failure to obey a lawful order under Article 92 the Uniform Code of Military Justice, Cmdr. Zach Harrell a spokesperson for Naval Air Forces told USNI News.

Harrell would not identify the sailors when asked by USNI News.

The video from the PLAT – a tool to help pilots make the correct approach for a carrier landing – and a subsequent view of the landing area and angled deck of Vinson appeared on social media in early February. Filmed from a space aboard Vinson, the video shows the ramp strike of the F-35C assigned to the “Argonauts” of VFA-147 Strike Fighter Squadron, the 95 mile-an-hour slide of the fighter down the angled deck of the carrier, its slide into the ocean and the start of damage control on the flight deck.

In the audio, a landing signals officer at the rear of the aircraft carrier can be heard yelling for the pilot several times to “wave off” – the order to abort the landing. Following the crash, radio calls go out to recover from the water the pilot who ejected from the F-35C and to start damage control.

The Navy elected to charge the sailors with the PLAT video, but not the sailors who were behind a photo of the F-35C floating on top of the ocean or a video from the stern of the carrier that showed the ramp strike from below the flight deck. The rationale was that the PLAT video was a government document released without being properly cleared, rather than images or video footage from a personnel device, a spokesman told USNI News.

“The sailors being charged under Article 92 are either being charged on a general orders violation theory or as a dereliction – as in they negligently failed to execute a duty not to record and leak onboard footage,” Rob “Butch” Bracknell, a former Marine and military lawyer, told USNI News on Thursday.

“There are two reasons to charge this conduct: Leaking footage of a mishap might reveal platform or performance vulnerabilities to an adversary – maybe not in this case – but they want to deter the conduct in other cases and they want to deter sailors recording onboard systems with personal cell phones and broadcasting them.”

In 2016, Kristian Saucier pleaded guilty to federal charges for taking cellphone photos in 2009 of the reactor spaces of nuclear attack boat USS Alexandria (SSN-757). He was sentenced to a year in prison and later pardoned by former President Donald Trump.

“Saucier’s photos were of classified spaces, but I can see the Navy resetting the scale on taking photos of the insides of Navy platforms generally,” Bracknell said.

The Navy has wrestled with balancing the benefits of having cell phones aboard ships and aircraft for morale with the risk of leaks.

In 2020, former acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly stepped down from his position after the leaked audio of a speech he made to the crew of USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71) surfaced. During the speech, Modly criticized former commander Capt. Brett Crozier over a letter to senior Navy leadership warning about the dangers of a COVID-19 outbreak aboard the carrier leaked to The San Francisco Chronicle.

Policies on personal devices for use on ships and aircraft are periodically under review, USNI News understands.
_________

[Albany Rifles]

I'm glad they are going after the goat locker and not some aviation maintenance striker. Definitely sends a message. The ensign is going to end up as the piss officer in Diego Garcia for the tenure of his short career.

[TopHatter]

US Navy pulls sunken F-35 stealth fighter up 12,400 feet from the bottom of the South China Sea

• The US Navy has fished a sunken F-35C stealth fighter jet out of the South China Sea.
• The jet crashed on January 24 while conducting routine flight operations.
• Recovering the plane was a priority given the sensitive nature of the advanced technology and the location of the crash.

The US Navy has managed to recover a sunken F-35C stealth fighter jet from the South China Sea a little over a month after it crashed on the deck of aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson and fell into the sea.

The carrier-based fifth-generation fighter jet crashed on January 24 while conducting routine flight operations, according to the Navy, which initially characterized the incident as a "landing mishap."

The wrecked aircraft was recovered from a depth of 12,400 feet by a team from 7th Fleet and Naval Sea Systems Command using the diving support construction vessel (DSCV) Picasso and a CURV-21 unit, which is a remotely operated vehicle that attached rigging and lift lines to the aircraft, the Navy said in a press release.


The recovery of the wreckage of a sunken F-35 stealth fighter jet from the South China Sea.US Navy Photo

In the days that followed the incident, a photo of the F-35 after the crash appeared online. Then, a video was leaked showing the plane crash on the deck of the Carl Vinson, burst into flames, and slide across the flight deck and into the sea. The Navy confirmed the authenticity of these visuals.

The cause of the crash, which injured seven service members including the pilot, remains under investigation. The ship was ready to fight again within about 30 to 45 minutes of the incident.

Cmdr. Guy Snodgrass, a former US naval aviator and TOPGUN instructor, previously told Insider it's impossible to tell from the video whether the crash was due to human error or a technical malfunction.

"The one thing we know is certainly true is that for whatever reason, the pilot or the airplane got too low on the approach, and that's what caused the ramp strike," Snodgrass said, adding that it is likely a slow airspeed contributed to the crash.

While it is common practice for the US military to take steps to retrieve its assets in these situations, experts said retrieving the plane as soon as possible would likely be a priority given the sensitive nature of the advanced technology on the aircraft. It was argued that the Navy needed to recover it before a foreign power like China could get its hands on it.

"There's a huge opportunity for the Chinese if they were able to get a copy of an actual F-35 to reverse-engineer its features, which they can't do just based on the intelligence gathering they've conducted," Bryan Clark, a former US Navy submarine warfare officer and defense expert at the Hudson Institute, previously told Insider.

"Maybe the bigger concern is if they got ahold of an actual F-35, it would help them to figure out how to better counter it," he continued.

The Navy said it took 37 days from the time of the incident to recover the aircraft, which will be delivered to a military installation in the area for further investigation and evaluation.
________