Here's a forum post by someone claiming to have been shown this accident during USAF pilot training. Quote: "They show us this video to show how not to do things."
http://tinyurl.com/32jsjgHis summary of the events on the tape:
Emergency: Engine fire.
Flight Lead thought he had an engine fire, had his wingman check it out: Correct, that's one of the major reason fighters fly with wingmen, just for such a situation as this.
@ 0:48 Flight Lead declares an emergency and states intentions: Correct
@ 1:23, wingman reports confirmed fire in right engine-says to shut it down: Sorta correct. Good on wingman, was exactly what he should have done. Bad on lead if he hadn't shut down the engine yet.
@ 1:41, Wingman says fire is still burning: Good on wingmen, he needs to let lead know what's going on
@ 1:56, Wingman asks to confirm engine is off: Debatable. He takes 15 seconds to ask, but on the other hand, he probably doesn't want to clutter up the radio if flight lead has his hands full.
@ 1:58, Flight lead confirms he has engine off: Either he had it off for a while, or he just turned it off. If it was off for a while, he was wrong. He should have got an update from the wingman much sooner. If he just turned it off, he was wrong because he took WAY too long to perform that critical action.
@ 2:00, Wingman RE-confirms there is a fire in the right engine.
Stop. There is one action now. Only one. EJECT. That's it. Period. Dot. The end. No debate. This isn't WWII. People don't deadstick flaming aircraft anymore. Every engine fire checklist in every ejection seat aircraft in the USAF ends with: If a fire is confirmed eject. He needed to state his intentions to his wingman, get his stuff together, get in a good ejection envelope, and punch. There's no other answer. None. Yeah, if you're over a city or something, it may be a good idea to quickly point the aircraft in a more open spot if the pilot still has control, but where that flight was taking place there is farm land and that's about it.
@ 2:10, Flight Lead states he will fly back to land: Wrong. Dead wrong.
@ 2:15, Wingman says "copy": Dead wrong. As a wingman, he shouldn't tell lead what to do, but reminding lead what the checklist actually says to do might be a good place to start. Actually, that's what he's supposed to do.
@ 3:07, Wingman says "Misty 1, it's your call, but this thing is burning." : Wrong. He was trying to not step on leads toes, but at this point, its clear #2 knows what's going on and knows the correct steps. Eject. He's no longer helping lead like he needs to. Lead gives no response.
@ 3:34, Lead asks to confirm right engine on fire, gets conformation of fire still burning: See above.
@ 3:43, #2 tries to throw lead a hint of fire stagnation once he slows down. Its his way of saying "follow the squealing checklist" but lead isnt getting or chooses to ignore the hints.
@ 4:00, Lead, "This is going to be a bad one.": That should be a clue that the steps being taken are wrong ones.
@ 4:10, Lead asks #2 to go over the stagnation again, #2 again tries to throw a hint. Wastes 19 seconds talking. #2 is making things worse now.
@ 5:02, once lined up with the runway, lead is flying 350 knots on a straight in. That's crazy. He's about 180 knots too fast. Aircraft want to fly and even being 10-20 knots fast drastically lengthens landing distance (up to 50% in some cases). Think what 180 knots will do.
@ 5:25, he is having extreme difficulty controlling the jet at 300 knots with the gear down. Fighter type aircraft are much more sensitive than most people would assume and at that speed and configuration, his aircraft is extremely sensitive. He's getting into pilot-induced-oscillations as he's tiring to get it down. That's an extremely bad place to be when landing. Hundreds of people have died because of that though the years.
@ 5:33, he finally smacks it down at 260 knots. Tires aren't even rated to go that fast on most aircraft (not sure about the F-15 though). He's going way to fast to aero brake. If he pulls the nose up like he's supposed to, the aircraft will start flying again.
@ 5:51, wingman tells lead to "get it stopped." Waste of airtime again. Entirely unhelpful.
@ 5:52, Lead says he can't stop and he'll need to punch: Un-needed, un-helpful communication, wastes his brainbites.
@ 6:07, Only kills about 80 knots, STILL hasn't ejected. Wingman FINALLY says to "get out." That's something he should have said at 1:41 or earlier.
That the aircraft ended upright is a surprise. Most aircraft in that situation flip over which usually results in the death of the crew.
