Sailors with the Navy’s VQ-4 Fleet Air Reconnaissance Squadron at Tinker Air Force Base, Oklahoma, make preparations for moving an E-6B Mercury out of a TACAMO hangar bay in 2013. (Air Force photo by Mike W. Ray)
Defense Tech: One of Navy's Nuclear War Contingency Aircraft Damaged in Hangar Incident
A Navy plane was being towed out of a hangar last week when its tail clipped the top of the structure, leading to what could amount to millions of dollars in repairs.
An E-6B Mercury, a nuclear command-and-control aircraft, was being moved at Tinker Air Force Base, Oklahoma, on Thursday as part of its daily operations when the vertical stabilizer at the rear of the aircraft struck the hangar, said Lt. Travis Callaghan, a spokesman for Naval Air Forces. The incident has been labeled a Class-A mishap by the Naval Safety Center, meaning the damages to the aircraft likely total at least $2 million.
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2 comments:
What am I missing here? 2 million in damage? Not a gentle bump and totally preventable.
"What am I missing here?
That is actually it was "at least" $2 million damage to the aircraft. The cost of fixing the hanger is not mentioned but no doubt will be lots. The initial reporting of bad news from the military does have a tendency to be understated for perhaps public perception purposes but perhaps also for military purposes.
Think of the recent deaths of marines over there somewhere. I can't remember the specifics but it was like 3 perhaps 4 dead and a similar number wounded kind of report with no qualification regarding the extent of the injuries suffered by the wounded.
Pure perception considerations there for sure which came out a couple weeks later when one of the wounded died from his wounds. Four, and four wounded sounds better from a PR perspective than four dead, four wounded, one with life threatening injuries. I read an article some time ago about one guy who was reported as wounded, which was for sure true, but, simply wounded when he was missing his arms and legs.
My guess, the plane is a write-off and the "at least" is going to be a hundred million, or, so particularly given the tracking equipment on board. Imagine the money that goes into developing and building such a plane and yet there is no sensor on the door jam of the hanger to warn of a pending accident? Maybe there was but battery was dead.
Apparently there is a picture of the wreck on a social site if you want to chase it down and a comment that suggests this is the fifth such "accident" this year to date. If so could it be something akin to ....... sabotage?
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