"I've Never Seen Flashes That Bright From TP Before!"

Flying Safety, May, 2001 by Lt Col Richard D. Turner

The bullets looked "TP blue" on my preflight inspection...hadn't they?

Safety preface: We've all heard the seemingly timeless adage of "breaking the chain of events" to prevent a mishap. Once again, the truth behind such a simple statement conies to light--quite literally in the unexpected explosions of one hundred rounds of High Explosive Incendiary 30mm rounds...

The sortie was briefed as a night two-ship to the local conventional bombing range with a high-time wingman. We each planned to drop six bombs and shoot 100 rounds of TP (Training Practice) using NVGs on the high-illumination night. Our jets were already late and number two ground-aborted due to an engine problem. Single-ship takeoff, en route and range operations went smoothly until the 45-degree High Angle Strafe (HAS). My first HAS pass was planned as a short, 20 to 30-round "sighting burst" to establish a combat offset for the next pass. The unlit target was situated in the center of a 600-foot-diameter circle marked by four lights positioned on the edges at the 12, three, six and nine o'clock positions. The first pass bullets generated a lot of "sparkles" as they chewed into the standard "painted bus" target. The Range Control Officer (RCO) called an enthusiastic "Hit, One" as I maneuvered for the second and final pass.

I planned to shoot the remaining 70-80 rounds on this second HAS pass. This longer burst also created a lot of "sparkles," but in a larger area than the bus should have occupied. I reasoned that they must be hitting the hundreds of near-hit BDUs (inert practice bombs) scattered near the target. Again, the ranger called "Hit, One" as I safed the gun and flew to a base position for my last bombing event. As I approached base, the ranger radioed, "You sure that's TP you're shooting there, One?" to which I replied "That's all they'll load." And then that sinking feeling hit me as the RCO said, "Well, I've never seen flashes that bright from TP before!"

The bullets looked "TP blue" on my preflight inspection...hadn't they? I didn't use a flashlight, but they definitely weren't yellow...were they? Besides, maintenance isn't allowed to load High Explosive Incendiary (HEI) rounds and park the jet on the normal parking ramp, are they? And, even if that were legal, I would have seen something about HEI in the aircraft forms, and I had reviewed those thoroughly...hadn't I? No, I told myself, these have to be TP rounds loaded in my jet! The remainder of the sortie was uneventful as 1 dropped my last two BDUs, made a half-dozen dry Maverick passes, and then departed the range for home. But just to ease my nagging suspicion, the first thing I did after shutting down in the chocks was to open the gun bay and re-check the bullets with a flashlight. They weren't blue TP: They were yellow HEI!

For most Safety Officers, the events leading tip to an incident/mishap are like links in a chain, and this one was no different. Let's trace each link in the safety chain so that you, the reader, can comprehend how dozens of small mistakes and rushed decisions resulted in the temporary loss of a valuable training range and cost hundreds of man-hours in EOD clean-Lip efforts. We were very fortunate that no one was hurt... or worse.

It all began Thursday at 2000 hours the week prior, as the aircraft was loaded with HEI and two MK-82 general purpose bombs on the Hot Cargo Pad for an Army live-fire exercise. During the preflight engine intake and exhaust inspection, the Crew Chief noticed feathers in the exhaust. A borescope inspection was accomplished, and two fan blades were found to be damaged beyond T.O. limits. The determination was made at that point that the engine would have to be changed. Maintenance Supervision "MND'd" (maintenance non-delivery) the sortie and requested that Weapons come out and download the MK-82s so the jet could be towed back to its normal parking spot. There was no immediate requirement to download the HEI prior to repositioning the aircraft, so it was held until later (Link One).

After the aircraft had been towed back to its normal parking spot on the flight-line side of the ramp, the crew chiefs began dropping the engine for replacement and worked until their shift was over, not being able to complete the job they had started. With ongoing major engine maintenance, neither electrical nor hydraulic power could be applied to the aircraft. Without aircraft power, the weapons load crew was unable to download ammunition from the jet, and the task was further delayed (Link Two).

Ironically, Friday was a Group Safety Day, and no maintenance was performed. On Saturday, the weekend duty crew came in to finish installing the engine. It was installed and operationally checked. The aircraft was pronounced Fully Mission Capable (FMC); however, it was late in the day. The weekend duty weapons crew made the decision to wait and download the HEI ammo first thing Monday morning (Link Three) because maintenance had already produced sufficient FMC aircraft for all of Monday's scheduled sorties.