Tower, Say again! - near accident in Saudi air space

Combat Edge, April, 2003 by C.J. Will

My flight lead is safe, his jet is shut down, and the fire chief has declared the emergency over. The pins are barely in the HARMs before I start thinking about all the things we did wrong.

It only took a few seconds to saturate my cave man-sized brain, and I'm still caught in that post-Emergency Procedure (EP) daze where everything that just happened seems a bit surreal. In a span of 5 minutes, my flight had to deal with a complex EP, complications, and a communications nightmare. The only thing I'm sure of is that there's no "Sim" or stand-up procedure to prepare me for what just happened.

Flying over Iraq can be anything from downright boring to a bit too exciting, and anywhere in-between. Over the past several weeks, it has occurred to me that the most dangerous part of flying in Operation SOUTHERN WATCH may rot necessarily be the Iraqi "gunners." Instead, we seem to be in greater danger of running into each other on our way to and from Iraq. A common theme is the communications barrier and lack of "understanding" that seems to prevail between the Saudi controllers and our aircrews. For any given flight, the biggest lessons learned seem to involve "communications." Today was no different.

Any day I get to fly is a good one. Period. Today the dust was actually on the ground (as opposed to the air, in my ears, nose, teeth, and shorts), and a nice easy breeze made the desert almost tolerable. As usual the sunrise was worthy of more than just a cursory glance, and they even served blueberries with breakfast. Getting off the ground, to the tanker, and into the Area of Responsibility (AOR) seemed to be easier than-usual. I could actually see the Kuwaiti coast from Iraq, and there were no dust storms to obscure visibility. The Iraqis decided to stay indoors today, so my job as wingman kept getting easier. Stay visual with lead, stay in formation, and stay off the radios.

If there's one overarching rule to tactical aviation, it might sound something like "Don't EVER let your guard down." I let mine down.

Somewhere between Kuwait and Prince Sultan Air Base (PSAB), I relaxed. About .69 seconds later, my flight lead made a call over inter-flight that got my attention. "One's got a hydraulic problem." I stayed silent, and began closing the formation to provide support. Immediately, lead asked for a vector from me direct to PSAB. I gave him the vector, and he asked me to take communications while he worked the EP. Our initial coordination was sound, we were both on the same sheet of music, and were headed home. All was well.

The problem got worse. "Alright, I'm showing zero B system pressure, my A pressure is erratic, both my generators are showing failed, and my EPU (Emergency Power Unit) is running." Great. The dreaded PTO (Power Take Off) shaft failure. My only real comfort was that we'd both probably seen this about a hundred times in the simulator. Assuming the failure was contained in the accessory gearbox, there should've been no other problem. The EPU should be running on high-pressure bleed air, so hydrazine shouldn't be a problem yet. I'm already assuming too many "shoulds."

I responded "two's supporting," was cleared to chase, and began running the checklist with lead. I set the IFF to 7700, and made my first call to Saudi control. I called the controller and advised, "Viper 01, emergency, direct PSAB, request higher." What I heard made me just about swallow my chewing gum. "VIPER 01, CONTROL, NEGATIVE!! YOU ARE NOT CLEARED DIRECT, GET BACK IN THE CORRIDOR."

What? I'm sorry? Back where? I called again, this time more clearly and slowly, as I was sure he didn't understand. "V-I-P-E-R 0-1. E-M-E-R-G-E-N-C-Y. Direct P-S-A-B." I re-checked my squawks, and waited for the clearance. Again, the reply was NEGATIVE, VIPER 01. RETURN TO CORRIDOR IMMEDIATELY AND RESUME LAST ALTITUDE CLEARED."

We continued to climb and continued direct PSAB. I continued to argue with the controller for several more calls, wasting valuable time. During my argument with control, we reached a 1-to-1 glide ratio and continued working the checklists. Lead called again, "One's got an EPU Run Light," indicating that his EPU was running on hydrazine, and not on bleed air. "My throttle's at mil (full power without afterburner), my EPU fuel is decreasing, and I can't seem to get my EPU Run Light off." I advised lead to start running the "Abnormal EPU Operation" checklist as well, and turned to the page to give him support. I've got to admit it -- I started to sweat a bit. This was getting worse, not better.

Finally, about three calls too late, I made a final call to Saudi control advising them of our intentions and sent the flight to approach. Our newest challenge: we were about 10 miles from the field, I hadn't called the Supervisor of Flying (SOF), hadn't called the Top 3 (squadron supervisor), and nobody in the tower knew where we were. All they heard was a call on guard from another aircraft attempting to communicate our intentions to Saudi control. I guess the other aircrews couldn't believe the Saudi controller's response either and assumed that control just didn't understand. At this point, we hadn't gone over our landing plan with the SOF, hadn't gotten any last-minute sage advise from our Top 3, and were on a visual downwind to land.