Award winning AWACs crew ties safety to mission

Published Oct. 10, 2013
By Staff Sgt. Jacob Morgan
380th Air Expeditionary Wing Public Affairs

SOUTHWEST ASIA -- An E-3 AWACS crew from the 968th Expeditionary Airborne Air Control Squadron began to experience problems while flying over Afghanistan on an airborne command and control mission. The pilot observed low oil quantity on the indicator light for the number three engine. Shortly thereafter, the oil temperature increased and pressure decreased forcing the crew to shut down the engine.

With one engine inoperable, and having just refueled, the aircraft became too heavy to maintain a safe altitude over Afghanistan's mountainous terrain. The aircraft commander, U.S. Air Force Capt. Edwin Font, the co-pilot and the navigators immediately started to descend and plot the return to base. The flight engineer and the pilot began to calculate the precise amount of fuel needed to return to base safely to determine how much excess fuel to release.

Approximately an hour after the number three engine was shutdown, the pilot was alerted to the same problem for engine number four. Losing one engine was bad, but losing two engines on the same wing is a worst case scenario for any crew. Because they were over water, the aircraft commander alerted everyone on board to don their life preservers. With engine number three down, the pilot decided to bring down the thrust in engine number four, but not shut it off completely. This action would save the engine for landing. Eventually, the crew of more than 20 and the aircraft returned safely.

"I was nervous after the landing," said Font. "You don't have time to think about the consequences in the air. You remember what you have trained on and act accordingly. As aircrew, you have to take care of the people inside the plane first, and then the aircraft itself. Safety is built into our culture because flying is inherently dangerous."

For their ingenuity and skill displayed while in an exceptionally difficult situation, the aircrew from the 968th EAACS composed of a pilot, co-pilot, navigator, instructor navigator and flight engineer won the Air Forces Central Command Aircrew Award of Distinction.

Font attributes his crew's actions directly to training, specifically rehearsal of concept drills. Rehearsal of concept drills that individual AWACS crews practice before deployment are driven by two different requirements, checklists of procedures and lessons learned from aircraft mishaps.

"We take scenarios that other crews have been through and we run through them and decide how to react," said Font. "We talk about them and incorporate them in training, so we are ready if it ever happens."

Aircraft mishap lessons learned are taught across the operational Air Force. Investigations of mishaps and sharing of the lessons is largely managed by wing safety programs.

The 380th Air Expeditionary Wing safety program assists flight safety officers in each specific squadron, said U.S. Air Force Maj. Brett VanderPas, 380th AEW chief of flight safety. Wing safety ensures people learn from mistakes stressing the importance of not repeating them.

"We hold quarterly flight safety meetings recapping historical data, mishap rates, mishap trends and findings on related aircraft or situations and brief safety representatives," said VanderPas. "It does not have to be the same airframe for other crews to get a good lesson from a mishap. Task miss-prioritization lessons, for example, making a radio call over handling the jet, are universal among aircrew."

In addition to the quarterly meetings, the wing safety office provides mishap reports and relevant mishap trends to the squadron flight safety officers for training purposes. The sharing of reports and data is universal between the operational and training environments.

The culture of 'safety first' among aircrew is ingrained in daily activities. Only days after the flight, Font was approached to share his experience and lessons learned.

"Education is key," said VanderPas. "If you're not thinking about safety, you're probably not taking the right course of action."

380AEW Article

AWACS

AWACS

Safety