90 Days to Contemplate

By LCdr. Thad Johnson

y the time I came on the controls, the collective was coming to the stop. The helicopter was leveling out, but we were descending too fast to prevent hitting the runway. The sideward drift (that I had not picked up) caused the mainmount to depart, directly exposing the skin, as well as numerous antennae and other fragile components to the concrete. We bounced back into a hover, and I jammed left pedal to arrest the rightward spin that was developing because of the large amount of torque we had pulled in the recovery. We settled out and were flying again. It would be another hour and forty minutes to coordinate and affect a safe landing with a missing mainmount.

How had we gone from practicing autorotations in our SH-60B to becoming the mishap crew of a Class Bravo? An aircraft mishap board would convene to determine just that, and I would have a 90-day FNAEB process during which to contemplate what had happened.

It didn’t take long for me to realize one of my biggest failures. I was on the way to the hospital for blood work, a mandatory long form, and interviews that evening, when it hit me: I was the aircraft commander, and I had stopped training. I believe most of the failures in mission planning and CRM, which were cited later, stemmed from this fact.

During my copilot’s autorotations, I was uncomfortable because of the late, nose-high attitude he used to arrest groundspeed on each one. I took the controls from him on the first one and put my hands on the controls at least two other times. I felt a little foolish for taking the controls the first time and voiced as much because we recovered somewhat high. I talked with him about different ways of flaring and asked if anyone had told him his flare was aggressive. My comments were perceived only as academic discussion.

At no point did I communicate my discomfort or take on a directive or instructional approach. I was

having an internal conflict whether my comfort zone or his autorotations needed to be adjusted. I personally had not practiced in a while—more than 30 days since my last one and almost 60 days since I had done more than one. I monitored whether he was recovering within NATOPS-established parameters, but I failed to address my discomfort in a meaningful, productive way. What caused me to take such a passive approach to my copilot?

I should have been good at training. I came to my department-head billet after a successful stint as an FRS instructor. As it turned out, my disassociated tour had been cut short enough that most of the senior lieutenants in my new squadron were previous students of mine on one flight or another.

I no longer was an instructor, though. In fact, when I checked in to my department head tour, it actually was a goal of mine to shed what I perceived as a reputation I had developed at the FRS. I think I was considered to be a “hard” instructor (there probably are more descriptive, less-printable words). Back then, I was tacitly aware of this reputation, but I didn’t really care. I sought to train, earn the respect of my peers, and the approval of my boss. A senior instructor who was a big part of my IUT syllabus once asked me point blank, “Would you rather be liked or respected?” It was a no-brainer, I thought at the time. But this fleet tour was different. This was the tour where I would lead a detachment, and I wanted to be the leader my detachment wanted to follow. Who wants to follow someone they don’t like?

The mishap copilot was not a student. He was a qualified FRS graduate and H2P. This fleet aviator also was a full-lieutenant and had been in the squadron a little longer than me (almost a year). He really was a nugget, though. Never having been underway, he had the minimal flight hours to prove it. He also hadn’t done autorotations in some time.

So, when the day of the mishap flight came, I did not do the things an instructor would have done. In preflight planning, I did not review my copilot’s grade sheets or previous flight history. I didn’t discuss him with any of my peers. I might have discovered that he had struggled with autos in the FRS. During the brief, we conducted the requisite ground ORM sheet, but when hazards (lack of experience and currency) were identified, we did not discuss a mitigation strategy. As an instructor with a student, I probably would have reviewed the auto profile, addressed specific verbal calls to expect from one another, and talked about minimum recovery and mandatory waveoff criteria. In flight, we would have started working on his flare technique after the first auto made me feel uncomfortable. I would have given clear direction to change the way he was flaring and demonstrated different techniques, if needed. Why didn’t I?

Maybe I didn’t want to step on my copilot’s toes or offend him. I wanted to be liked a little more than I wanted to be respected, and I hadn’t considered we can be both. Maybe I had gotten out of the habit of teaching, having flown almost nothing but department-head NATOPS check rides in the latter part of my time at the FRS. Maybe I was not proficient enough at autos at the time. Maybe I had gotten complacent. The “why” is not really as important as the “what.” I had stopped training. Our NATOPS says, “A HAC shall demonstrate positive leadership ability and maturity of judgment to command and train flight crew members in all phases of the assigned mission.” If I had fulfilled my responsibility to train, and had had a more appropriate approach to my copilot, we would have had a little longer brief and done a few more autos in the pattern. Then, maybe none of them would have hit the ground. Never miss an opportunity to train, and always be ready to lead, whether it is easy or not.

LCdr. Johnson flies with HSL-49.