ASN Wikibase Occurrence # 178539
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| Date: | Friday 21 April 1967 |
| Time: | |
| Type: |  General Dynamics F-111B Aardvark |
| Owner/operator: | General Dynamics |
| Registration: | 151973 |
| MSN: | A2-04 |
| Fatalities: | Fatalities: 2 / Occupants: 2 |
| Aircraft damage: | Destroyed |
| Location: | Calverton, Long Island, New York -
 United States of America
|
| Phase: | Take off |
| Nature: | Test |
| Departure airport: | Calverton, Long Island, NY |
| Confidence Rating: |  Information is only available from news, social media or unofficial sources |
Crashed and destroyed 21-04-1967 after a double engine failure on take off from the Grumman Flight Test Facility at Calverton, Long Island, NY, at the start of a test flight. Both test pilots on board - "Buck" Wangman and Ralph Donnell - were killed.
BuNo 151973 crashed on 21 April 1967 on takeoff from Grumman’s Calverton airfield. The inlet cowl position selection switch was improperly set so the translating cowls closed when the landing gear handle was raised. The resulting loss of adequate intake air caused engine compressor stalls and the afterburners to blowout at 180 feet above the runway, with the aircraft only reaching 220 feet before beginning to lose altitude. The attempt to eject using the escape capsule was not successful and both Grumman pilots, Charles Wangeman and Ralph Donnell, were killed in the ensuing crash. (Approximately 70 seconds later, during the post-crash fire, the escape module rocket fired and the capsule was propelled in “a flat trajectory” to a point about 400 feet forward and to the left of the aircraft.) Although the primary cause of the ejection failure was determined to be a design deficiency in the ejection initiator unit itself, a review of the ejection failure resulted in identification of ten major and many more minor design flaws in the ejection capability which had to be corrected.
Sources:
1. El Siglo de Torreón 22 April 1967, p10
2. http://www.joebaugher.com/usaf_fighters/f111_4.html
3. http://web.archive.org/web/20170921070650/http://www.ejection-history.org.uk:80/Aircraft_by_Type/F_111/F-111.htm
4. https://www.findagrave.com/page=gr&GRid=2659486
5. http://www.joebaugher.com/navy_serials/thirdseries19.html
Media:
_(16515210383).jpg)
Revision history:
| Date/time | Contributor | Updates |
|---|---|---|
| 11-Aug-2015 19:55 | TB | Added |
| 11-Aug-2015 19:59 | TB | Updated [Operator] |
| 15-Feb-2016 20:58 | Dr.John Smith | Updated [Cn, Location, Phase, Departure airport, Source, Embed code, Narrative] |
| 15-Feb-2016 20:59 | Dr.John Smith | Updated [Embed code] |
| 29-Apr-2021 11:05 | Adellaida | Updated [Aircraft type, Location, Operator] |
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