Commander’s firing preceded helicopter crash
According to the Associated Press, Lieutenant Colonel Edward Pavelka was fired from his job as commander of the Marine Heavy Helicopter Squadron 463 on January 11, 2016. He was relieved of his duties by Brigadier General Russell Sanborn, commander of the 1st Marine Aircraft Wing because the general had “lost confidence” in Pavelka’s leadership. Three days later on January 14th, two helicopters from the squadron crashed and 12 Marines were lost off the coast of Oahu.
Pavelka was replaced by Lt. Col. Eric Purcell, who spoke at a Jan. 22 memorial for the Marines.
[…]
The two helicopters crashed off Oahu’s north shore shortly before midnight. Rescue crews spotted debris 2 1/2 miles off of Oahu hours later. The five-day search spanned from the western coast of Oahu to the northeast corner of the island.
All four life rafts from the helicopters were found but they were empty. There was no indication anyone had been on any of the rafts, based on their condition and the lack of any personal effects, the Coast Guard said.
From the Marine Corps Times;
A Marine official familiar with Pavelka’s removal told Marine Corps Times that the commander was “not able to maintain material readiness standards … for optimal use of manpower, material, facilities and funding.”
This is going to be a long and ugly investigation.
Category: Marine Corps
I’m afraid you’re correct, Jonn. But it’s necessary.
Even as a non-aviator, I know damn well that flight operations are unforgiving as hell – regarding both training and maintenance. The margin between success and failure in each area is small. And the consequences for a failure in either area are often extreme.
Your comments remind me of General Walsh’s speech to incoming freshmen at the Air Force Academy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFBpxB5zgnY
My son was in basic training that year and his good friend was in that freshmen class, so I was really interested to hear what he had to say.
Out of everything he said, the one point that really stuck with me was his explanation of why they made recruits do things like pick threads off of their uniforms. He said that it was to emphasize how a tiny thing can mean the difference between life and death. Then he showed real life examples of airmen dying because of mistakes that meant a fraction of a second was lost.
It’s very difficult to keep that edge. My eldest son is a truck driver and they are told that most accidents happen to experienced drivers because they become complacent.
RIP to those lost, and condolences to their families.
Jonn, Hondo, I agree that its going to be a long and deep investigation. There’s a lot of unanswered questions and Pavelka was fired. If I was lead investigator, I’d be starting with him.
To be fired is a disgrace to his reputation and it affects people different ways. To loose so many is so heartbreaking and I pray for their families. Hopefully we’ll find out what really happened…?
You are correct Hondo. This guy should have been replaced a long time ago. What happened to inspections?? In the Navy I know this would have not happened. Checks and balance.
What a mess…
Godspeed to those that perished. I wonder if it wasn’t done on purpose as a suicide…
I’m certain the investigation will turn in that direction.
Pavelka was not among those killed.
The bean counters are looking for someone to blame. Whether they did anything or not. Even if it was pilot error a living scape goat is needed in todays service.
RIP warriors.
There’s been plenty of dead ones too. Remember USS Iowa’s turret explosion?
Turret, breech block, powder room and coal storage bunker rooms are of the most dangerous spaces on a battleship.
There was no gay love triangle, IED or other cause … it just blew the fucht up! PERIOD!
Just like the USS Maine …
Explosion is at 4:50 …
Here is a great loading and firing sequence on board the USS Wisconsin:
Note the six bags of high volatile powder used to propel the projectile … this is the danger:
I’ll bet the over-pressure around the muzzles of those bad boys is flat nuts.
One of my HS classmates was in Turret 2.
Hit home, hard.
The way I heard it, a Chief Gunner’s Mate with a wild hair up his ass who really should’ve known better was doing some really poorly-thought-out experiments with the propellant when the breech catastrophically failed. Supposedly the Captain was aware and went full CYA when it happened.
Not sure how reliable the source was, but it’s certainly plausible. If course they used it as an excuse to retire the fast battleships again, at least until the next time that ginormous asskicking guns on a nuke-proof platform are needed.
The way I heard it was that the USN had authorized (actually pushed) a series of tests to see how much range could be added to the 16″ guns by overloading on propellant.
“Works in Theory” was the justification for the experiments.
Pavelka was canned because…because–we don’t know. The birds that went down were the result of…of–we don’t know. It is tempting to make a connection between the two events but there may be none at all. That confidence was lost in Pavelka’s leadership may mean any number of things having nothing whatsoever to do with his decision making affecting the loss of the a/c. In fact, if there is evidence that any a/c were not airworthy pilots unfit to fly, it would have been incumbent of those who relieved Pavelka to ground the a/c and pilots pending assessment and evaluation. Clearly, that did not happen. So, yeah, this may get ugly and sticky.
Ah greed! Bad stuff happens in an inherently dangerous occupation!
Well put.
Agreed.
Unfortunately the finger pointing is going to start soon.
I Swear The Muffin Man Made Me Do It….
And we’re gonna get just as caught up in jumping at shadows while lowing with the herd as everyone else.
We’ll flat out forget that there’s every reason to no longer trust any high level investigations, military or political and that honor means nothing more than making sure someone else takes the blame.
Mix into all that the reality that media reports are only ever accurate on accident.
But, we’ll all do our part and shriek and holler along with the crowd. I’m including myownself in that too.
Well in Aviation there’s a paper/ computer trail. This shouldn’t take long, he might not be the only one if someone else was signing off on some things.
12 Marines plus the aircrew – GONE.
Pilot error? Poor maintenance? I refuse to speculate on that. I’m sure there is enough blame to hand around. I will wait for the outcome of this investigation.
As a mech, I don’t know what poor maintenance is. I was a CDI inspector and I know that Q.A. wasn’t biting on this so we will see the outcome on this.
I wonder if they have the same part shortages we experienced in the mid-90’s. When I was on shore duty at the East Coast RAG for UH-3’s and SH-60F’s.
It got to the point where we cannibalized two aircraft to the point where they were just airframes lurking in a dark corner of the hangar.
Hell, it was so bad that I would have to go ‘requisition’ fasteners (nuts, bolts, screws, and washers) from the civilians at NADEP around midnight with a flashlight.
It’s hard enough getting an aircraft flight worthy, it makes it even harder when you don’t have the parts.
Hanger Queens.
Sounds a helluva lot like the Carter Admin plus most of 1981 (before the first Reagan budget for DoD really became effective – 1981 spending in DoD thru Sep was essentially Carter’s last DoD budget.)
The Clinton years really sucked. We were drawing down from the Cold War, and the dipshit in the big chair tasked us with more commitments (Bosnia, Iraq, Somalia, etc.)
Do more with less…a lot of good Airwing Sailors got out as a result. Our deployment turnaround times were damn near non-existent by the time I got out in 1997. What was a 1.5 year work-up schedule was down to .5 to .75 for COMNAVAIRLANT.
At least Clintoon had a lowered threat and a “peace dividend” to work with. Carter tried to do the same damn thing during the height of the Cold War – AFTER DoD’s budget and personnel had already been hacked with a meat-ax post-Vietnam.
Was not a particularly good time to be in uniform. It still amazes me the Soviets didn’t come west in about 1980 – or head south to the Persian Gulf in 1979.
Maybe they figured there was plenty of time once they rolled up the Afghans in early 1980, and we see how well that went.
SEA: I’m kinda surprised the Soviets weren’t already occupying a big chunk of territory to the west of Afghanistan in Nov 1979.
Ah, yes, the wonder years. It’s a wonder we survived them. You know things are bad when the cann point and local fabrication become prime sources of supply.
Additional info, the KMCAS base commander was “relieved of command” less than a year ago. I was working a construction site then, the Marines and their NCOS are the best. The officers seemed incompetent at best.