Pilot Error Possible in Helicopter Crash

The pilot of a Marine helicopter that crashed during combat maneuvers at Twentynine Palms may have lost control of the craft while trying to make a steep turn very close to the ground, Rep. Robert E. Badham (R-Newport Beach) said Wednesday.

The CH-53E Super Stallion helicopter with five Marines on board was attempting to make a landing when, according to witnesses, the pilot appeared to have “lost it,” Badham said. Badham conferred Wednesday with representatives of the Marine Corps’ congressional liaison office and Sikorsky Aircraft Co., manufacturer of the Super Stallion.

“They described the maneuver to me, which was the final maneuver of the aircraft, which I have taken to understand is a very difficult maneuver,” Badham said.

“He was making a low-altitude, high-angle-of-bank turn into a landing zone, and it was apparent that the pilot lost it. By lost it, some people say he departed from controlled flight, or lost control of the aircraft,” Badham said.

Marine Corps officials said they have “not discovered anything that would indicate a mechanical failure,” Badham said, despite the Super Stallion’s record of six crashes in the past two years which have killed a total of 15 Marines. Four servicemen were killed in Friday’s crash at Twentynine Palms, and a fifth is hospitalized.

As military investigators probed the wreckage of the mammoth, three-engine helicopter, they found a sheared-off bolt from what Badham said was the helicopter’s engine control system, initially suspected as a possible factor in the crash.

Not ‘Fatigue Fracture’

But Badham said that subsequent metallurgical tests at the North Island Naval Air Station in San Diego indicated that the fracture in the bolt was a “shear fracture” and not a “fatigue fracture,” indicating that the break probably occurred when the helicopter hit the ground.

Lt. Timothy Hoyle, a spokesman for the Marine Corps Air Station at El Toro, which oversees aviation operations at Tustin and Twentynine Palms, denied reports that base officials had sought special inspections on similar bolts in other Super Stallions. “They’re not doing anything more than routine maintenance checks on the helicopters,” Hoyle said.

But he added that the Marine Corps would not comment on Badham’s account of the crash because it might prejudice the military’s investigation.

Despite assurances from Sikorsky and the Marines that the crash probably was not due to a mechanical failure, Badham said he will press on with his call for an investigation of the CH-53E to determine whether there are any mechanical defects that have not been corrected.

Defects Said Corrected

Marine Corps officials in March told a subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee on which Badham serves that defects in the Super Stallion’s tail rotor that contributed to past accidents were corrected last fall.

“I think more than anything, he is a little distressed, frankly, that the Marine Corps would confront his procurement subcommittee in March and make the statements that they did and then no sooner than a month and a half later, they’ve got another one go down,” said William Schreiber, Badham’s field representative in Orange County.

“Whether it was pilot error or not, the impression it leaves in the minds of the public is that it (the helicopter) was not airworthy,” Schreiber said.

Tuesday afternoon, family members, friends and co-workers of the four Marines killed in the crash gathered for a memorial service in the theater at the Tustin air station, a ceremony that was closed to the public.

Rites Were to ‘Pay Homage’

“The purpose of the service was to pay homage to those that gave their lives in the service of their country,” Hoyle said.

Killed in the crash were the pilot, Capt. Michael D. James of Santa Ana; the crew chief, Sgt. Dulles Arnette of Garden Grove; the first mechanic, Lance Cpl. Michael A. Weaver of Tustin, and a passenger, Capt. David R. McHugh of Yorba Linda.

The only survivor, the co-pilot, Lt. Andrew D. McClintock of Laguna Hills, remains hospitalized in San Diego in stable condition.