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Jackrabbit
upnorth:
A former 443 Squadron pilot recalls the time:
"The pilot who was lost in that crash was relatively new to the squadron, and was still adjusting to our unit's way of doing things. We were also getting him used to life in Germany during our off hours.
He came to us fresh from the "Wolf Den", as we called the Prairie Rattler training unit at Cold Lake, but he was a solid and confident pilot who had made the flight up to Pferdsfeld a couple of times before without issue.
It was something of a relief when the girl came forward and reported that something fell off the plane not long after take off. The investigation really hadn't been going anywhere until then and none of us wanted to think it could be pilot error. The trip the Pferdsfeld was as simple and routine as you could get.
From what I recall, the inspectors found that microfractures had formed around a couple of fastener holes that were adjacent to each other on the front edge of the access door to the bay that held the hydraulics and starter panels. They concluded that the microfractures gave way as the aircraft was ascending and that allowed air to rapidly enter the bay and rip the door off from the pressure. The ensuing disruption to airflow in the area likely resulted in a loss of control of the aircraft.
It was a conclusion that seemed to satisfy the RCAF brass. An order was put out that restricted take off speeds until our fleets of Praire Rattlers and Jackrabbits could be inspected for similar issues.
We were dissapointed, but not surprised, that it took a while to find a witness. Not all local people were happy to have foreign military people around and some wouldn't help us even if they could. As it turned out, the girl's parents were among those who strongly objected to any kind of foreign military presence on German soil and that was part of their rationale in forbiding her to report it.
The local authorities and child welfare office had visited her home and interviewed her parents. They had also interviewed neighbours and staff from the girl's school.
She was ultimately placed with a foster family in Zweibrucken. I don't know how things went for her after that, but I hope she had a better life going forward."
A former child welfare officer:
"As the girl had made her report from her school, we sent officers there to interview the headmistress and the girl's teachers.
The consensus at the school was that her parents were cold and inflexible in demeanour and unpleasant to deal with. School staff tried to avoid dealing with the parents as much as possible. None of them had anything bad to say about the girl herself. She was rather introverted, but not a troublemaker at all and she kept excellent grades.
Interviewing the neighbours underlined the severe nature of her parents. It seems they actively kept everyone at arm's length. Shopkeepers described the mother as a very abrupt and formidable person who spoke only what was needed to do business transactions. Any attempt at small talk with her was met with a look of pure disgust.
Our visit to the girl's family home was not a comfortable one. It was orderly to an extreme degree; we Germans are known for being orderly and precise, but this home was a step above. This home was clean and orderly to the point of being sterile.
The home felt as cold and severe as the couple who owned it. There was no evidence in the open areas of the house that any children lived there. The parents were two of a kind. Both were cold and abrupt and gave minimal answers to our questions. The father had a visible facial tick that got more pronounced as the interview went on.
They didn't speak of their daughter lovingly, they described her as 'satisfactory' and 'acceptable'. Her school marks were excellent, any parent should have been beaming with pride from that alone. When we inspected the girl's bedroom, we saw a very minimalist place. It was as clean as the rest of the house, but contained only the most basic of furnishings that could still be considered fit for use.
A quick look at the parents' finances showed that they were capable of doing much better for their daughter than what we saw.
I made arrangements to visit the parents again in a week with some recommendations for improvements.
The phone rang while I was finishing my report. It was the police. They informed me that the parents had gone to a lawyer a couple of days after my interview and given up all of their parental responsibilites, effectively surrendering their daughter to the state. The parents left the area not long after."
The lawyer recalls:
"That day still stands out very clearly to me. The girl's parents came into my office with no appointment, no pleasantries and were all business. The father said nothing, but the mother said that if the state saw so much value in such a 'mediocre' child, then they could have her.
They demanded I draft up the forms for them to surrender their daughter. I didn't argue, I just wanted them out of my office quickly. I put the forms together and showed them where to sign. They paid in cash and I filed the papers with the local courts later that same day.
The girl was safe, her parents left the area shortly after, and the case was considered closed by the police."
upnorth:
All Eyes on Embraer
Aermacchi's investigation of the of the problems with South American MB-326 fleets showed that the problem was unique to Embraer built aircraft.
Company executives were satisfied that all other production facilities were maintaining excellent standards, including the FMA lines in Argentina that were responsible for some structures on the Embraer made aircraft.
The aircraft lost were two from the Argentine air force, two from the Chilean air force, and one from the Brazilian navy. There were witnesses to both the Argentine crashes and the Brazilian crash. Both Chilean crashes were in sparsely poulated areas and no witnesses had come forward.
The witness accounts of the Argentine and Brazilian crashes had a key similarity: the disintegration started behind the wings.
One of the Argentine witness accounts came from a crewman on a fishing boat:
"There were a pair of air force jets flying around overhead, it was pretty common for them to do excercises off the coast like that.
I took a short rest and watched them for a bit. While I was watching, one of them broke in half. They were far enough apart that I knew it wasn't a collision and the aircraft was turning away from my boat, so I could clearly see the back half of the aircraft break away. I didn't see any parachutes.
The back half went straight into the water, while the front part cartwheeled when it hit the surface."
A group of schoolchildren and their teacher gave similar reports regarding the other Argentine loss. That aircraft was transiting over La Pampa province when it suddenly broke apart in similar fashion.
The Brazilian navy aircraft had been practicing for an airshow performance when it broke in half descending from a loop.
A former Embraer executive:
"Needless to say, it was a stressful time at our company.
Aermacchi people were all over our factory, asking all kinds of questions and putting everything under the microscope. We were still a new company that they took a chance on, now they had reason to lose faith in us. We cooperated in every way we could with them, they weren't the only ones after us for answers.
The Argentine air force aircraft that went into the ocean was only partially recoverable. We got the aft fuselage and a few bits of the mid section and wings, but most of the forward fuselage disintegrated entirely and went into some very deep water.
The aircraft from La Pampa was only a bit more telling. Again, we got an aft fuselage section somewhat intact, but the rest of the aircraft set off a grass fire over a wide area and it took a while for firefighters to put it out so what little was left of that part of the aircraft could be recovered.
Given the nature of the Brazilian aircraft crash, there was almost nothing left to investigate. Everything went straight into the ground in a fireball.
As for the Chilean losses, both aircraft went down in difficult to access places. Chilean authorities couldn't tell us much about those crashes.
In our own investigation, we took a trip to Guatemala to see their fleet of aircraft. This was at the invitation of a Canadair contingent that was looking for clues into a pair of RCAF losses. The Guatemalan air force was a unique case as they were the first customer of the aircraft in the sales region that Embraer took over from Canadair. As such, they had a mixed fleet of aircraft from both us and Canada.
It was a hunch that didn't really pay off as all the aircraft in the Guatemalan fleet were problem free. There was one minor landing mishap, but that was down to pilot error and the aircraft was repaired and returned to service.
Aermacchi were eventually satisfied with what they saw at Embraer, but that simply meant we still had to look further.
Another similarity between the Argentine and Brazilian crashes was that the aircraft construction numbers showed that they were from adjacent batches. We contacted the Chilean air force for confirmation of the aircraft they lost, those aircraft were also built in the same time frame.
With that information, we were able to narrow things down quite a bit.
Our redirected investigation lead us to one of a couple of local fastener manufacturers that we used as suppliers. This supplier made the fasteners that held the forward and rear fuselage halves together. It looked as if we had received a bad batch from them.
The police and trade authorities moved on the supplier very quickly after we voiced our most recent suspicions.
In the end, our suspicions turned out to be true. The company had produced some sub-standard batches of fasteners a few months before we built the aircraft lots in question, and we ended up with one of those batches. We were not the only company affected by the supplier's lack of quality control. The most damning thing was that they had sent those fasteners out knowing full well they were not up to standards.
It turned into class action lawsuit that saw criminal charges brought against several key people at the supplier and the supplier sued out of business.
We were excused of any wrong doing, but we learned to be a lot more careful about our suppliers and put in a very strict vetting process to keep that sort of thing from happening again."
A former Aermacchi executive:
"They say it's always the small things that will get you, this case proved it.
We were happy to take the pressure off of Embraer and let them get back to business unhindered.
Once the cause was found, the groundings were lifted from all aircraft that didn't come from suspect production batches. Those that did, were ordered to be inspected and have fresh fasteners installed.
It was a drama that we were happy to see the end of."
upnorth:
I spent the past few days working of this profile:
Canadair Prairie Rattler
RCAF 443 Squadron
RCAF Station Zweibrucken, West Germany
1966
This particular aircraft and its pilot were lost in the crash north-east of Contwig in July of 1966.
GTX_Admin:
:smiley:
apophenia:
--- Quote from: upnorth on August 17, 2025, 12:24:13 AM ---I spent the past few days working of this profile ...
--- End quote ---
Very nice! But also crying out for shark mouth markings placed ahead of those gun bulges ;D
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