"A veteran C-5 Galaxy pilot said all 17 people survived the April 3. 2006 plane crash at Dover Air Force Base, Del., mainly because the pilot did his job."
Well, sorta. Yeah, he kept the wings level, (que Paul Harvey voice) but now, the rest of the story...
They had an engine failure on climbout (1 of 4) that they secured, and began to return to land. A 4 engine aircraft with an engine failure is typically flown on approach using the two symmetric engines, leaving the third operating engine in idle, to decrease assymmetric yaw. In this incident, the throttles were all retarded to idle for the descent per normal, but when the pilot advanced the throttles for approach, he used the wrong pair, leaving the two symmetric operating engines in idle, and advancing the throttle on the asymmetric engine and the shut-down engine. At the high weight, one operating engine was insufficient to maintain the approach path. The mishap aircraft subsequent impacted the field short of the runway.
It was a fuck-up by the guy flying and the rest of the crew didn't catch it. I've been in the flying big airplanes business a long time. Was doing it for the AF when this happened, and we had a safety briefing on the incident. I'm not trying to throw shade at the crew; it was a dynamic situation. Yes, the pilot did a good job setting the plane down in a way that allowed everyone to survive, but, it shouldn't have happened to begin with. The Col quoted was putting lipstick on a pig...
