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Deaths during training exercises
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tat3225 08-Apr-13, 11:53 |
 Deaths during training exercisesAll of those who died were Marines and a Navy SEAL. The Marines (I think there were 7) who died in the first accident were part of the marine light attack helicopter squadron. Apparently two helicopters randomly collided in mid-air and crashed. In the other accident, a mortar team from (I think) the II marine expeditionary unit lost 7 or 8 when mortar equipment malfunctioned. Most recently, a team 6 Navy SEAL was killed in a training accident. Does it seem odd to anyone else that such qualified people using excellent equipment would suffer such catastrophic accidents in such a short period of time? Maybe i'm just bored but this seems unusual to me. |
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tat ... |
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tat Two helicopters flying in formation and hitting each other is not entirely unreasonable, especially if they are maneuvering, flying in low visibility, or at night. One second of distraction is all it takes. The mortar team may have experienced an equipment malfunction, but more likely it was one of the Marines who dropped a live round. Seals do all sorts of dangerous stuff. It's amazing we don't hear of an accident every day. I hate to say this but not all Marines are the brightest. (I get away with saying that because I are one of them not too brightest). I've seen them do some pretty dumb things. Some lived, some didn't. I lived through mine. Pilots do some pretty dumb things too. Most of the time we live, sometimes we don't. Kids do a LOT of dumb things. It's amazing they ever grow up... to do the dumb things they do as pilots and Marines. The idea is to try and learn from the mistakes so that we never make the same mistake twice. We just make new ones. Most of the time we live and learn. Sometimes we don't. Most of those are human error. Sometimes it's other causes. I think it unlikely these accidents were part of some conspiracy, but I do like conspiracy theories. |
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Tat For a conspiracy, you have to look at what the men involved had in common. |
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tat3225 08-Apr-13, 22:06 |
thanks for the replies Earlier I found it odd that these three things would happen within such a short period of time. I thought that perhaps "training accident" was a cover for something else as I know that navy seals who are killed during certain operations are said to have been killed during a training exercise or some other excuse. Given everything going on in the world right now, this caught my attention because of who was involved and the repetative "training accident" excuse. But now that I know more about these accidents I'm no longer questioning them in that way. Instead I'm pissed that they are happening in the first place. It's not the fault of the Marines. It's our (the defense industry) fault for not providing new and innovative ideas for what is clearly an inadequete arsenal of weapons and technology. There is no excuse for two helicopters to collide during a training exercise. Pretty much all of the attack helicopters used by the military are based on aging/old technology. We have new helicopters but no one has really overhauled them in the same way that, for example, the F22 raptor makes the previous class of fighter jets look like rusty dinosaurs. It's maneuverability is such that not everyone is physically capable of flying it. Clearly we should have done this with most of our helicopters like yesterday. There is just no excuse for losing $40 million dollars worth of helicopters and 7 marines in one accident. We should be striving for no deaths and no loss of equipment. That needs to be our goal. However lofty it may be. I am not familiar with mortar at all. What is the role of a mortar team and what do they accomplish? Honestly it seems insane to me that we are still expecting our military to use technology that can so easily kill our own simply by dropping something. What if it's raining or dark? There has to be a way to redesign existing weapons to address this problem or give a mortar team something entirely new to accomplish the same thing. If we can figure out how to design a missile that can penetrate 200ft of rock before detonating, I'm confident that we can figure this out. Anyway....I have too much time to kill obsessing over things this week because something I was geared up for was pushed back. But aside from that I have been bothered by the use of marines and seals in Afghanistan and Iraq (and Pakistan) in raids on al-qaeda homes and dwellings. Any building containing terrorists should be leveled in a drone or cruise missile strike. They are worth nothing more than that and this is what missiles are for. In 2011, thirty seals were killed in Afghanistan (several months after the abbotobad raid) when their transport helicopter was shot down by insurgents during a raid on an al-qaeda house. This is like sending 30 navy seals and a $30 million dollar helicopter to retrieve a steaming pile of dog sh**. There is also no excuse for this helicopter to have been anywhere near insurgents with anything capable of shooting it down. Where were the attack helicopters? Where was the intelligence on this ahead of time? Honestly how the hell do you lose 30 seals to insurgents without offering them up on a silver platter? What kind of (pardon my offensiveness) special olympics decision making was behind something like that?.........I am currently unhappy with how our military is sometimes irresponsibly used at the expense of our own, along with our failure to address outdated technology which has proved to be fatal. |
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tat3225 09-Apr-13, 07:08 |
For anyone interested Now, I'm going to guess that if one pilot can orient himself based on the visibility of other lighted rotor blades, anyone else can see the light from the ground. So where the hell is the solution to this or are we seriously just expecting pilots to telepathically know their surroundings? Supposedly there is an infrared solution but apparently it's a POS and is sometimes non-functional due to broken or missing parts. Is this a joke? One of the pilots was 37 and had thousands and thousands of hours flying at dusk and at night. Obviously this is not his fault and there is no way that there isn't a way to solve this visibility problem. But no ones doing anything about it. Less than 6 months before this collision, two other marines were killed in a helicopter crash after they collided with a red tailed hawk. Like an actual bird with feathers that weighs 11 pounds or less. Now, sucking a feathered friend into an engine intake is bad news for any aircraft. But that's not what happened. |
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It could be like the shark attack stuff - just getting reported more. I'm not sure we'll ever publically know real statistics on this, as in are training accidents getting more and more frequent or not. My guess is that if they are getting more frequent that's not the kind of information the military would like out there for public consumption because it's kind of embarrassing. Though, it does make one wonder if we've pushed out men and equipment too far. Essentially 11 years of non-stop conflict, with the rhetoric about not only Iran and North Korea always being kept on the burner, but rumors about civil unrest and possible military uses here - I don't know how much chronic stress you can keep these guys under. While, I'm not trying to compare my job to combat by any stretch (no one tries to kill me at work), I do have a serious type of job, people will die if I'm not paying attention (people die anyway even when I am paying attention) and I was basically "on" for 12 months straight - call was about every other night and every other weekend. At the end of last year I was FRIED. So what does that say about some of these guys and equipment that just keepings getting tossed around. Feel bad about those seal team 6 guys too. Seem to have had a bad couple years following taking out Obama. |
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tat3225 09-Apr-13, 08:29 |
LOL. I think you meant Osama but I can't say it isn't amusing to think about a chinook hovering over the White House at 1AM and seals walking through the presidents quarters barking Obama!". LOL I'm just kidding, I don't actually dislike Obama THAT much. As far as pushing people too far, I wouldn't know. But I do know that my mindset is one that is centered on using technology to reduce casualties either by totally eliminating the need for actual people to be put in harms way (by using things like missiles or drones), to designing equipment to meet the needs of the people using it instead of solely for the purpose of military need. So the thrust vectoring on the f22 I mentioned above allows for maneuverability that is more seamless and reduces blind spots and so on. Or, even at the most fundamental level, designing body armor that can greatly reduce or eliminate casualties. A friend of mine works in materials science and does this. Existing body armor isn't exactly lightweight and I have no doubt that its awful to wear in 115 degree heat but it works. There is combat footage literally showing people randomly get hit and knocked down, and then get back up a few seconds later with the same "WTF just happened" look on their face. But they're alive when previously this would not have been the case. While human error is to be expected, a failure to account for it to the best of our ability using technology is unacceptable. But yeah there is no excuse for the death of so many seals simply because their helicopter was shot down. This shouldn't ever happen and is such a tragic waste. I think an afghan translator/interpreter was with them too. It's not like there are tons of people who have the ability to understand fluent spoken English AND Pashto, Dari and probably several of the regional afghan languages........ |
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tat My point was our equipment and man power wearing thin could be the main culprit. You can only be "on" for so long. |
