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Date: | Wednesday 22 December 1982 |
Time: | |
Type: | McDonnell Douglas F-15C Eagle |
Owner/operator: | 53rd TFS, 36th TFW, USAF |
Registration: | 80-0025 |
MSN: | 671/C174 |
Fatalities: | Fatalities: 1 / Occupants: 1 |
Aircraft damage: | Destroyed |
Location: | Herschbach, Rheinland-Pfaltz -
Germany
|
Phase: | En route |
Nature: | Military |
Departure airport: | Bitburg AFB, West Germany |
Destination airport: | |
Confidence Rating: | Information is only available from news, social media or unofficial sources |
Narrative:22 December 1982 : F-15C, 80-0025, of the 53rd TFS, 36th TFS, USAF, crashed near Herschbach, West Germany. According to an eyewitness report:
"...I heard that it was likely the pilot accidentally put his lap belt over his main oxygen hose while strapping in for a practice scramble. When we scrambled in those days, it was a haul ass situation with things happening very fast. Many guys have accidentally connected their lap belts over their oxygen hoses including me. Nothing bad happens until you turn your heat to the left and stretch to see even further left and aft. Then the hose can become disconnected by the force (designed that way to make it easier to egress during emergencies). Then you're breathing cockpit air.
What's supposed to happen is that a little valve comes down on the pilot end of the hose and makes it difficult to breathe so you know you have a problem. But it is a very, very simple valve that can easily be jammed in the open position. So a pilot flying at high altitude might not notice the very gradual onset of hypoxia. On bad weather days in Germany, we would fly in the high areas (typically 305 W or E) in the 30-35 thousand altitude range. The cockpit pressure would be about 15,000 feet give or take at that altitude. So it is probably likely there might have been some kind of cockpit pressurization problem as well. Normally, when there is, we start to get oxygen mask air under pressure to compensate for the increased cockpit altitude. But if his hose was disconnected, he would not have gotten that warning. It's likely that he was alive but unconscious when his jet struck the ground."
Pilot Captain Jeffrey Roether did not eject, and was killed.
Sources:
1. Davies, Steve; Dildy, Doug (2007). F-15 Eagle Engaged—The World's Most Successful Jet Fighter. Botley, Oxford, UK: Osprey Publishing. ISBN 978-1-84603-169-4.
2.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_F-15_losses#1980s 3.
http://web.archive.org/web/20171029221354/http://www.ejection-history.org.uk:80/aircraft_by_type/f-15.htm 4.
https://airforce.togetherweserved.com/usaf/servlet/tws.webapp.WebApp?cmd=ShadowBoxProfile&type=Person&ID=174604 5.
http://www.f-15.nl/wo.html 6.
http://www.joebaugher.com/usaf_serials/1980.html Revision history:
Date/time | Contributor | Updates |
18-Dec-2014 03:42 |
Dr. John Smith |
Updated [Operator, Total fatalities, Total occupants, Other fatalities, Location, Country, Phase, Departure airport, Source, Narrative] |