US Air Force coverup? Yep!

FLASH! In 1983 all four aircraft flown by the precision US Air Force Thunderbirds flew into the ground during a training exercise. The crash killed all four pilots and shocked the nation. The Air Force made an exhaustive study and ignoring the most obvious cause, officially blamed the crashes for mechanical failure even though from the start the obvious cause was pilot error.


A final report issue...d by the Air Force attributed the crashes to a small, almost minute piece of debris found in one of the lead aircraft's systems. I learned this to day from a person who served on one of two boards that investigated those crashes. He said that in most cases the Air Force wraps up investigations of such crashes in a month. This one took two months of 12 hour days---because the board concentrated on trying to find a mechanical failure to explain the crashes--even though from the start the obvious cause was pilot error.The lead pilot flew too low to recover and flew into the ground. Other members of the Team, following their leader did the same thing.

A second investigation followed. It was led by a brigadier general directly responsible to a four-star general who had responsibility for the Thunderbirds. This second panel determined the cause mechanical failure. This panel reached that conclusion on very thin evidence while ignorning the most obvious and probable cause, pilot error.

Why cover-up such a finding? To protect the reputations and careers of the four-star general and other senior Air Force officers who commanded the Thunderbirds. Mechanical failure gave these senior officers an out! The real tragedy, like so much of what happens in government, is that once again what the government reported cannot be trusted.