ASN Wikibase Occurrence # 57224
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| Date: | Thursday 22 May 1986 |
| Time: | |
| Type: |  Grumman A-6E Intruder |
| Owner/operator: | VA-65, US Navy |
| Registration: | 162181 |
| MSN: | I-674 |
| Fatalities: | Fatalities: 2 / Occupants: 2 |
| Other fatalities: | 1 |
| Aircraft damage: | Destroyed |
| Location: | Oceana Boulevard, NAS Oceana, Virginia Beach, Virginia -
 United States of America
|
| Phase: | Initial climb |
| Nature: | Military |
| Departure airport: | NAS Oceana, Virginia Beach, VA (NTU/KNTU) |
| USS John F. Kennedy (CVA-67) off Puerto Rico | |
| Confidence Rating: |  Information is only available from news, social media or unofficial sources |
A-6E Intruder BuNo. 162181 of VA-65, US Navy, based at Oceana Naval Air Station in Virginia. On May 22, 1986, on a flight to Puerto Rico to join the USS John F. Kennedy (CVA-67). Crashed just after take off into a field about a mile from a runway with wreckage hitting a station wagon killing the occupant, a pregnant woman. According to a contemporary newspaper report (see link #5):
"Patrick Hayes was driving down Oceana Boulevard, his 3-year-old screaming in the back seat, when he looked to the left and saw the streaking A-6E Intruder jet begin to peek over the treetops at Oceana Naval Air Station in Virginia Beach.
"It wasn't flying right," the Virginia Beach man recalled Monday. "It looked like a sick pig in the air...It was just lumbering." Within seconds, on that overcast day nearly three years ago, the low-flying 47,500-pound jet careened to the right and crashed in a ball of flames on the roadway, killing the pilot, the navigator and a pregnant woman whose car was hit by the debris.
Hayes' account of the May 22, 1986, crash that killed three people came in U.S. District Court, where the jury is being asked to decide whether the jet's 26-year-old pilot, Lt. James P. Hoban, was a hero or a hot dog trying to show off.
His widow, Elizabeth Hoban, contends that the plane's manufacturer, Grumman Corp. of New York, gave the Navy a faulty plane that failed her husband, stalling after takeoff and leading him to veer right to avoid a patch of homes before the jet crashed. She is seeking $4 million from Grumman.
But Grumman - backed by the Navy's own investigation of the crash - contends that Hoban caused the crash himself, attempting a risky, low-altitude stunt on takeoff even though he had been disciplined for doing it once before.
Seven witnesses to the crash, including four Navy officers from Oceana, took the stand Monday in the 3-day-old trial. Their statements seemed to suggest that Hoban, who was delivering the jet to the aircraft carrier John F. Kennedy, tried to pull the wrong stunt on the wrong day.
Cmdr. John C. Meister, a squad commander at the Oceana base and the officer who oversaw the Navy's crash investigation, said Hoban failed to follow the air station's flight rules by not climbing to an altitude of 1,000 feet on takeoff before attempting any turn.
Meister also said Hoban tried to execute a hard right bank while only about 300 feet off the ground, seriously miscalculating when he failed to extend his wing flaps to give the high-speed jet more lift at a slow speed.
The jet went into an "aerodynamic stall," Meister said, noting that a computer analysis and his own re-enactment of the maneuver - at a higher altitude - resulted in the same conclusion.
"The fact that he was at this lower altitude than he could have been, or should have been, reduced his margin of error," Meister said.
Meister said Hoban had tried the maneuver before during a training exercise at Pensacola, Fla.
Lt. Cmdr. Felix M. Usis III, a search-and-rescue pilot who was refueling his helicopter when the crash occurred, said he first saw Hoban's Intruder as it quickly taxied toward the runway at an excessive speed. Usis said he could see Hoban and his navigator, Lt. Michael F. Wilson, in the cockpit."
Sources:
1. Flight International 16 May 1987
2. https://pilotonline.com/news/military/oceana-has-had--plus-aircraft-crashes-over-decades/article_01959fc2-a46d-581f-9230-a7c05a52810a.html
3. http://web.archive.org/web/20171103001143/http://www.ejection-history.org.uk:80/aircraft_by_type/a6_prowler.htm
4. http://www.joebaugher.com/navy_serials/thirdseries21.html
5. http://articles.dailypress.com/1989-04-18/news/8904180171_1_oceana-naval-air-station-a-6e-intruder-jet
6. http://va.findacase.com/research/wfrmDocViewer.aspx/xq/fac.19890712_0000050.EVA.htm/qx
7. http://openjurist.org/907/f2d/1138/hoban-v-grumman-corporation
Revision history:
| Date/time | Contributor | Updates |
|---|---|---|
| 10-Jan-2009 11:55 | ASN archive | Added |
| 01-Apr-2016 21:07 | Dr.John Smith | Updated [Cn, Operator, Other fatalities, Location, Country, Phase, Departure airport, Destination airport, Source, Narrative] |
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