How To Create Your Own Fireball - military aircraft engine problems

Approach, Dec, 2000 by Jim Stanley

During a day Case-I recovery, I was a single F-14A Tomcat in a low holding pattern overhead mother. The cycle had been short, so I had a lot of fuel to dump in order to make my max trap weight. This was the first sea period during our work-up cycle, so our mindset was for maximum conservation of fuel. When it came time to push out and proceed to the break, the dump switch came on, and I took advantage of the full five-mile circle to give me time to dump all the fuel I had been hoarding. Rolling out at a three-mile initial, I still had about a thousand pounds that I needed to get rid of, but I didn't want to dump on mother, so l secured the dump switch and told my RIO we would get rid of a little more on the downwind.

I found my interval on downwind and broke after giving him plenty of separation. I chopped the throttles to idle and thumbed out the speed brakes. I brought the wings back out, slowing through 300 knots, put the gear down as I rolled out on downwind, thumbed the boards back in and turned the dump switch back on as I said, "Dump's on" to my RIO. I lowered the flaps at 200 knots and began to concentrate on my pattern.

"Six hundred feet, one point two miles abeam," I thought as I brought the throttles up to capture 15 units AOA for an on-speed airspeed of 140 knots at a max trap of 54,000 pounds. As I looked outside to judge my abeam distance and glanced down at the TACAN-DME for a crosscheck, I noticed the master-caution light blinking. I glanced down at the caution-advisory light panel and saw myriad lights. At the same time, the flight controls started to get sluggish, and I glanced at the airspeed indicator, which was slowing quickly through 130 knots.

I advanced the throttles to military power but knew immediately that the engine response was not going to be enough to accelerate back to flying speed. I realized that an engine had failed, but I wasn't sure which one, so I did the boldface for single-engine failure on takeoff. As I lowered the nose to capture 14 units on my AOA, I selected full afterburner on both engines and raised the gear handle. I'm not sure why, but at that moment, I glanced in the left rear-view mirror and, to my complete disbelief, saw a huge fireball erupt around the left engine and vertical tail!

I though we had just had a catastrophic engine failure, but the aircraft was still flying. I deselected afterburner and assumed an ejection position, while I traded altitude for airspeed. If I couldn't fly away from the water, I would rely on my RIO to eject us both on my call. The fireball disappeared, and I concentrated on flying away from the water. Descending through 300 feet on the altimeter, I finally gained enough airspeed to begin climbing back up to pattern altitude. By now, everyone in low holding had seen the fireball and knew that we were in trouble. A voice came over the radio saying that we were leaking something and to check that our dump switch was off. I quickly secured the dump switch as I scanned the caution-advisory panel to determine the problem. In the Tomcat, no single light or voice says, "Engine failure," only the engine instruments and numerous caution lights that indicate loss of a generator, an engine stall, or a loss of hydraulic pressure. I quickly determined that the right engine had failed, but I was still worried about the left engine, where I had seen the fireball.

Even though the fight-engine instruments showed the engine was off, I checked and double-checked the throttle response of both engines until I was satisfied that the right engine was indeed no longer operating. I secured the right throttle as my RIO broke out the pocket checklist. We didn't trust the left engine and wanted to get the jet on deck as soon as possible. Since we were still on downwind, all we had to do was make an easy left turn to final to set up for a straight-in approach. We contacted tower and told them of our intentions. The boss, having seen the fireball, cleared us to land immediately. As I set up for the straight-in, my RIO and I quickly went through the single-engine-landing checklist.

While we were talking to tower and paddles, to inform them of our landing weight, I missed the pushover point and immediately got high on glide-slope. Not wanting to develop an unrecoverable rate of descent, I never made it back down to the glide-slope and flew a high pass all the way to a bolter. I selected zone-3 afterburner for the climb. After a little lateral P.I.O., some left rudder, and a helpful, "Raise your gear call," from paddles, I was climbing again to pattern altitude. At this point, I took a deep breath and took stock.

The right engine had failed in the break turn. The left engine was working fine, despite the fireball I had seen. The jet was flying on one engine, with no abnormal engine indications. I realized the fireball was my own doing: I had activated the dump switch on downwind, and when the right engine failed, I selected afterburner to accelerate and arrest my rate of descent. The afterburner flames had ignited the fuel being dumped. The same thing has scared many a Tomcat aircrew who have launched at night with the dump switch on. My RIO never had the opportunity to yell, "Dump off," because everything happened so quickly. Satisfied my aircraft wasn't about to fall apart, I flew a rails single-engine pass to an underline OK4-wire.