Jackrabbit

[upnorth]

Abbotsford Airport, British Columbia, Canada - August 14, 1966

The 1966 edition of the Abbotsford International Airshow was underway. The weather was warm and clear, and a good sized crowd was filling the airport to take in the spectacle.

A highlight of the show was three MB-326s painted in an eye-catching gold, blue and red livery. They were were the beginnings of the Golden Centenaires, a team that began forming in March of 1966 at CFB Portage la Prairie in Manitoba with the intent of growing to a nine aircraft team that would tour Canadian airshows during Canada's Centenial year in 1967. They had received clearance to appear at selected shows in 1966 as a smaller team.

The nucleus of the Golden Centenaires was the last iteration of the Jackrabbits team.

In the opening flypast, the team flew a six aircraft formation with a pair of Prairie Rattlers from Cold Lake and a Jackrabbit trainer version from Moose Jaw.

The Golden Centenaires went up at about the mid-point of the show to do their routine and were met by enthusiastic applause from the crowd as they taxied back to their parking spots afterward.

Later in the afternoon, the Jackrabbit and Prairie Rattlers went up for their display. The plan was that they would do a couple of formation passes together and then the Prairie Rattlers would return for a role demo display after the Jackrabbit did a solo routine.

As the group lined up to do their second pass, the Jackrabbit collided with one of the Prairie Rattlers. Both aircraft and their pilots plunged into the ground in a fireball.

The pilot of the surviving Prairie Rattler recalls:

"We had finished the first pass and were forming up to do a second from the opposite direction. The Jackrabbit was leading the formation.

We were about to enter the show area when I saw the Jackrabbit shudder and suddenly lurch over and collide with the other Prairie Rattler. I hit the throttle and flew my plane up and away from the crowd and quickly landed.

Eyewitness accounts from the ground as well as news footage supported my own account of the incident in the investigation.

The only positive thing was that the aircraft crashed on open ground, away from any people or other equipment.

I only  knew the guy in the Jackrabbit from our airshow demo, but I knew the guy in the other Prairie Rattler very well; he was an instructor pilot in training in from Germany. He was a real nice fellow and showed a ton of potential as an instructor.

Later in the evening, I spent a bit of time talking to the Golden Centenaires. We all had more on our minds than just this day's crash; in early July, one of our Zweibrucken based Prairie Rattlers crashed. The investigation for that was still underway, the aircraft went down in open farmland and the pilot didn't survive. It seemed there were no witnesses to that crash.

Additionally, all the MB-326 fleets in countries using the Embraer built aircraft had been grounded since June. Between March and May, there had been five incidences of MB-326 aircraft from South American air forces mysteriously breaking up in flight.

We hoped that this crash and the one in Zweibrucken wouldn't give cause to ground our fleet as well."

[upnorth]

RCAF Zweibrucken, Rhineland-Palatinate, West Germany - August 16, 1966

The wreckage of the Prairie Rattler that had crashed the previous month was laid out on a hangar floor. The crash investigators redoubled their efforts after hearing the news of the crash in Abbotsford on August 14.

The aircraft had gone down in open farmland between Contwig and Battweiler, north-east of the base, just after take-off.

An investigator recalls:

"It was a particularly difficult investigation, and not just because the pilot was lost.

The aircraft took off in the late afternoon, bound for the Luftwaffe base at Pferdsfeld. The weather was clear and, being summer, there was still plenty of light. We couldn't believe no witnesses were coming forth! It was farm country and there was still light to work by, the fields should have had plenty of people out working in them.

The flight itself was a routine one that our aircraft made once or twice a week to do training with the Prairie Rattler wing there, Jagdbombergeschwader 42.

Our investigation was under tighter scrutiny than usual. Not only did we have local authorities and people from 1 Air Division HQ present, we also had people from Aermacchi and Canadair present and looking for answers.

Aermacchi was taking the grounding of the Embraer built aircraft very seriously and were trying to determine what the problem was and how far spread it might be in the global fleet. Needless to say, three Canadian built aircraft crashing in less than two months got their attention.

A former Canadair executive:

"The Aermacchi guys were leaving no stone unturned looking for answers to the South American problem. Not that you could blame them, the aircraft was getting a lot of attention for good qualities so bad press was not welcomed at all.

Every construction facility for the aircraft had Aermacchi people investigating every aspect of their operations. With the Abbotsford crash and this one, we at Canadair were feeling the heat increase on us.

We weren't buying that there were no witnesses to the crash here. Myself and another from the Canadair team had grown up on farms on the Canadian prairies, we knew the way farm people think and we knew they'd be out in the fields using every bit of daylight available to them.

Someone had to have seen something. The RCAF, Aermacchi, and ourselves put as much pressure as we could on local authorities to go back out and try to find witnesses."

A former Aermacchi executive:

"It was an infuriating and utterly unacceptable situation. We had struck gold with the MB-326 family and we had to protect it!

At the time, we were negotiating a large order of the aircraft from Egypt. They also wanted the option for license production. We were quite busy at Venegono and welcomed another point of production to take some pressure off.

We were in Germany not just to visit the investigation of the RCAF crash, but also to inspect the still new MB-326 line at MBB near Munich. With the exception of a few Canadair built machines, the Luftwaffe would have a locally built fleet. MBB would also be responsible for the Austrian air force fleet.

We were happy with what we saw at MBB. German precision, just as you'd expect."

In with the Storm

Johannes Steinhoff was due to take office as the commander of the Luftwaffe in early September of 1966.

"I did not imagine taking command on a low note like that.

The Luftwaffe's experience with the  new aircraft to that point had been quite good.

There were a few rough landings and other training related mishaps, but we hadn't lost any pilots in it until the Abbotsford crash.

I didn't like that nobody was coming forth as witness to the Zweibrucken crash. I agreed with others who said that someone had to have been out working the fields at that time of day.

I took some solace in the fact that the MBB production line had been satisfactory to the Aermacchi people."

[upnorth]

We Have the "How", but Not the "Why"

Unlike the Zweibrucken crash, the cause of the Abbotsford accident was determined without too much trouble.

The rear section of the Jackrabbit had broken away and survived relatively intact. Examination of the engine showed that there was some damage that was consistant with ingesting a foreign object.

A former investigator explains"

"Dismantling the engine revealed a mangled piece of sheet metal that clearly did not belong there, but it looked very similar to the metal used in the aircraft's intake trunking.

Very little of the forward fuselage had survived the crash, so we focused on comparing the sheet metal fragment to the intake trunking of intact aircraft. Metalurgical analysis confirmed it was a section of intake trunking.

As we found the sheet metal fairly deep in the engine, we suspected that it was not the result of the crash, but a contributing factor to it.

We felt confident in saying that a section of intake trunking had detatched and caused extensive damage to the engine, resulting in a loss of control of the aircraft and subsequent collision.

Why it had happened was still something for us to determine."

Fearful Witness

In early September, a witness to the Zweibrucken crash came forth.

A 14 year old girl from Oberaurbach, a short distance north of Contwig, claimed she had seen the crash as she was riding her bicycle along a minor road that connected Contwig and Oberaurbach.

The former police officer who took her report recalls:

"I remember the day very clearly.

I had been sent to the girl's school based on a call from the headmistress there that one of their students claimed to have seen the crash. I was sceptical and thought it might be a kid thinking they were making a clever prank. My scepticism vanished the moment I saw the girl.

She had clearly been crying, she also looked pale and exhausted. Not at all what you would expect of a kid at the start of the school year.

She had wanted to report the crash as soon as she got back home from visiting a friend in Contwig, but her parents had forbidden her from doing so. As they were very strict disciplinarians with their daughter, she obeyed them unquestioningly.

When the school year started, the headmistress could tell there was something wrong and decided to ask the girl a few questions. The girl broke down in tears and told her headmistress, who then called us.

The poor girl was a mess of guilt and fear. Guilt that she hadn't reported it earlier and fear of what her parents would do now that she had disobeyed them.

She was clearly comfortable in the company of her headmistress, so I took her report of the crash at the school rather than taking them to the police station to do it.

She showed me on a map what road she'd been riding on and approximately where she was along it when the crash happened.

According to her, she stopped when she heard the engine noise of the plane change. She knew the sound of the Prairie Rattler well, so the sudden change in sound caught her attention.

Just after the engine sound changed, she said she saw something fall from the plane. According to her, it looked like it came off the belly of the plane, just a bit behind the wings.

On the map, she pointed to a small area of trees where she thought the falling part landed.

The sheer level of fear the girl had of what her parents might do now that she had reported the crash was very unsettling to me. I decided I had to take the girl to the station for her own protection until we could send officers and someone from the regional child welfare office to talk to her parents and get an idea of her living situation.

Once I was back at the station and made the arrangements to have the girl's home checked, I called the base at Zweibrucken to say I had a witness account for them."

Based on the girl's report, investigators from Zweibrucken went to where she said the part from the aircraft fell. Against their expectations, they were able to recover it.

A former member of the crash investigation team:

"What the girl had seen fall off the aircraft was the access door to the hydraulic and starter panels.

Losing that door would certainly have made the aircraft harder to control due to  disruption of airflow in that area. Given that the aircraft would have still been climbing, it would have been a very critical phase of flight and a very bad time to have something come loose from the plane.

Unfortunately, very little of the hydraulics and starter panel survived the crash. We still couldn't say concretely what the cause of the crash was, but we had something new to work with and keep the investigation going."

[apophenia]

Great stuff 'north! This is turning into a real nail-biter 

[upnorth]

Great stuff 'north! This is turning into a real nail-biter 

Thanks, I'm glad you're still following and enjoying.

[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]

 

[apophenia]

I spent the past few days working of this profile ...

Very nice! But also crying out for shark mouth markings placed ahead of those gun bulges 

[upnorth]

Very nice! But also crying out for shark mouth markings placed ahead of those gun bulges 

Very tempting idea, I'll have to think about that.

[elmayerle]

I managed to scoure three ses of Pavla MB326K cannon fits.  I intned to model at least one Prairie Rattler.

[upnorth]

I managed to scoure three ses of Pavla MB326K cannon fits.  I intned to model at least one Prairie Rattler.

I look forward to seeing your take on it.

[upnorth]

RCAF Station Cold Lake, Alberta, Canada - November 15, 1966

The thunder of two pairs of Prairie Rattlers taking off at full power cracked through the cold prairie air and echoed across the station. It was music to the ears of everyone there.

A former Prairie Rattler pilot recalls the day:

"It was glorious to hear that sound again after months without it! The restrictions imposed on the Prairie Rattler fleet following the Zweibrucken crash completely forbade full power take offs until all aircraft fleetwide could be inspected. As the RCAF fleet was growing, it took a while for the inspections to be done and restrictions to be lifted.

The instructors and students at the Wolf Den were extremely happy to be practicing full power take offs again. All but two of the training unit's aircraft passed inspection.

As it turned out, the problem was down to some questionable workmanship and quality control at Canadair. Thankfully, it was limited to aircraft from just one batch and those aircraft all went to the RCAF. Canadair made sure the responible parties were shown the door and we could let other users of the aircraft know that this one was an RCAF specific matter.

The whereabouts of all the aircraft from the batch in question were determined and they all had their relevant access doors replaced.

It was particularly good news as 419 Squadron was to stand up as the resident Prairie Rattler squadron at Cold Lake early in the new year.

A couple of squadrons had been reformed at RCAF Chatham, in New Brunswick, and were working up to be transfered to Baden-Soellingen in West Germany to form a Prairie Rattler wing there."

[upnorth]

RCAF Station Marville, France - January, 1967

In 1966, France withdrew its forces from NATO and declared that any NATO forces on French soil would need to leave or come under French command. While the RCAF station at Grostenquin had already closed in 1964, RCAF personnel at Marville spent December of 1966 and early 1967 shutting down their activities in France. By March of 1967, the Marville units had relocated to the former French air base at Lahr, West Germany.

Canada did not only inherit the air base at Lahr, it also inherited the French zones of occupation in West Germany. Naturally, this led to a lot of shuffling around of both air and land assets as Canada had to restructure and enlarge its military presence to meet their new and greater responsibility in West Germany.

The Canadian Zone Established

By mid-summer of 1967, RCAF and Canadian Army units in West Germany were well settled into new routines.

RCAF Station Lahr had the CF-104 Starfighter squadrons, 439 and 441, and personnel that moved from Marville. Additionally, Lahr was made headquarters of the RCAF in West Germany.

RCAF Station Baden-Soellingen was home to two CF-104 Starfighter Squadrons: 421 and 430.

RCAF Station Zweibrucken was home to two Prairie Rattler squadrons: the already established 443 was joined by the newly re-established 428 squadron in June of 1967.

RCAF station Berlin-Tegel was home to a pair of DeHavilland DHC-3 Otters used for observation of Canada's section of West Berlin.

[apophenia]

Interesting! In OTL, the 1 Wing units from Marville were split between Baden and Zweibrücken ... just as 2 Wing from 'Gross-tin-can' had been. So does 3 Wing stay at Zweibrücken after the Summer of 1969? Or do they get displaced by the Yanks as in OTL?

BTW, like your Otter flight at Tegel    So, in this scenario, does the French military withdraw from Berlin as well?

[upnorth]

Interesting! In OTL, the 1 Wing units from Marville were split between Baden and Zweibrücken ... just as 2 Wing from 'Gross-tin-can' had been. So does 3 Wing stay at Zweibrücken after the Summer of 1969? Or do they get displaced by the Yanks as in OTL?

BTW, like your Otter flight at Tegel    So, in this scenario, does the French military withdraw from Berlin as well?

Yes, the French pull out of Berlin as well. I was initially thinking of giving the French part of Berlin to the Canadian army and them using their Cessna L-19 Bird Dog aircraft, but I decided I liked the Otter more for the presence that its size and sound would give.


I plan to keep Zweibrucken in Canadian hands. The cooperation and cross training between the Prairie Rattler wing there and their Luftwaffe counterpart at Pferdsfeld was very beneficial to both services as well as to land forces.

Right now, I'm running on the idea that that there will not be unification in the Canadian military and that there will not be any of the defense cuts that saw Canadian bases in West Germany shut down. In the real time line, some Canadian army bases were shut down and their units moved to Lahr and Baden-Soellingen. I'm looking to keep some of the army bases and for the army to maintain an aviation element of its own.

[upnorth]

RCAF Station Cold Lake, Alberta, Canada - March 1, 1967

It was an eventful week at Cold Lake. On Moday, February 27, 419 Squadron officially reactivated and the ceremony took a good part of the day.

On Wednesday, March 1, 403 Squadron unveiled Wolf 100 to non-squadron personnel for the first time. Based on the red wolf head in the squadron crest, the aircraft's front end was painted in red with a snarling wolf head. The tail fin was black with the official Canadian Centennial emblem in red.

The aircraft was rolled out of the hangar to a waiting group of military and civilian journalists and photographers and then went aloft with a Jackrabbit for an in flight photo session.

A former pilot of the aircraft recalls:
"It was great to finally see the aircraft painted up and in the air, a lot of us were having doubts about Wolf 100 becoming reality for a while. The restrictions that had been placed on Prairie Rattler flying during the Zweibrucken investigation in 1966 created some probelms and delays in our training for the 1967 airshow season and planning of the display routines.

We planned our display routine and special scheme of the aircraft with a good degree of secrecy. Everyone knew about the Golden Centennaires, but very few people outside of 403 Squadron knew about Wolf 100, we were going to be one of the surprises for the 1967 airshow season.

There was some very unfounded concerns by the few outside the squadron who knew about it that the Golden Centennaires might not take well to another RCAF team that could take attention from them. As the commanding officer of the Centennaires was one of the people who knew about us, he quickly dispelled such concerns and said he was happy to see us and that because the teams used different versions of the aircraft we would complement each other rather than compete with each other.

The display routine used two aircraft and was a demonstration of the tactical role the Prairie Rattler carried out. The other aircraft didn't have the wolf head painted on the front, but did have its tail fin painted black with the Centennial emblem on it.

We had three aircraft in total, two for the routine and one for the static display. We would rotate them so that some people at some shows could get up close to one of the special painted ones on the ground.

Like the Golden Centennaires, we only lasted for the 1967 season, but it was vewry memorable season and our aircraft never let us down once.


Canadair Prairie Rattler "Wolf 100"
RCAF 403 Squadron
RCAF Station Cold Lake, Alberta
1967