MH-60 GUNEX-Related Things Falling Off Aircraft By AWSCS (NAC/AW/SW) Wade Hove
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uring FY19, the MH-60 community reported an average of 32 things falling off aircraft (TFOA) every six months, spanning numerous mission areas. The recognized causal factors were divided into two categories: material factors and human factors. The material subcategories were the failure or malfunction of aircraft systems and aircrew or support equipment, while human factor subcategories involved failure to use proper risk management and crew resource management and aircrew and maintenance procedural noncompliance. The majority of TFOAs involved material failure or malfunction as causal.
Photo by AWSCS Wade Hove
Diagram 1. USN and USMC GUNEX-related TFOAs
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As a community, we need to get a handle on the controllable aspects causing TFOAs. Doing so will effectively increase flight crew lethality and the Navy and Marine Corps’ ability to effectively deploy assets worldwide. From July 2018 through August 2020, the Navy reported 94 gunnery exercise-related TFOAs; 63 from MH-60S and 31 from MH-60R. These mishaps and 91 hazard reports cost the Navy $119,484. Of note, 56 of them were attributed to material factors and 38 cited human factors as their primary cause. Defective equipment (material causal factors) listed for these TFOAs included night vision goggle retention lanyards, M-240D discriminators, ammo can bungie cords, IZLID 200P lens covers and mounts along with GAU21 link chute adapters, feed tray cover latches and various retention screws. In contrast, the USMC only reported nine GUNEX-related TFOAs. Of these nine, six reported defective equipment and three identified human factors as the cause. Diagram 1 depicts GUNEX-related TFOA totals for Navy MH-60 series aircraft and USMC rotary and tilt-rotor aircraft from July 2018 to August 2020. It also shows TFOA data from FY 2017 to June 2018. Table 1 shows, with increased fidelity, GUNEX-related TFOAs from July 2018 through August 2020 for the same series aircraft.
