Human tragedy. (Grampaw Pettibone).

A section of F/A-18 Hornets was on a night air-to-ground training mission. The section entered the target area from the west at 6,100 feet, identified the target (two smudge pots appearing as a single-point light source) and circled the target once to set up for a 360-degree final attack heading for practice 30-degree dive deliveries.

The lead pilot overshot his run-in heading and rolled in from a lower altitude and closer to the target than the planned attack profile. The pilot called in "live" but three seconds later impacted the ground heading about 330 degrees, 60 degrees nose down and 30 degrees left wing down. He suffered fatal injuries. The Hornet was destroyed.

Grampaw Pettibone says:

Another controlled flight into terrain! The immediate cause of this tragic loss of life and aircraft was the pilot's loss of situational awareness and his misjudgment of the distance to the target during the run. But there are contributing factors that raise flags of concern. In the squadron, this aviator was noted to have difficulty with task loading in flight, and his flight lead responsibilities were reduced to afford him the opportunity to regain proficiency. Other pilots also noted that he had difficulties such as personality changes, typing skill degradation and memory lapses. None of these were correlated by the command nor admitted by the pilot to the CO or flight surgeon. No Human Factors Council sessions were held during the pilot's eight months in the squadron.

The intensity level of the missions conducted during this exercise caused a degree of alarm in other pilots, in addition to the pilot in question. The need for aggressiveness might not have been balanced by a degree of caution. The pilot had flown only three day air-to-ground sorties in the seven months prior to the mishap.

We're all human beings and, in this case, action by a Human Factors Council might have been a sound preventive measure and might have broken the key link in the mishap chain. We are also our brother's keeper. Gramps knows that it's a sensitive issue, but if a shipmate is having trouble, get him or her to seek help or alert leadership.