Juvat wrote:

Marc Reeve posted:

What's to say? It was determined that the leader's (Maj. Norm Lowry)
aircraft sustained a mechanical malfunction that caused it to crash
(failure to pull up after completing a loop),...
I seem to recall that there might have been a loose bolt in Major
Lowry's stick that had caused the stick to jam at just the wrong time.

I believe the Board put the blame on a "bob-weight" that effected the
feel of the stick forces...no jamming that I recall. I was an
additional duty safety guy in my squadron, and briefed it. The T-38
FAIPs in the sqdn were skeptical (to put it mildly) of the "official"
explanation.

ISTR that the Accident Board also found that the Formation was lower
than briefed/expected at the apex of the "over the top" maneuver being
flown, and the findings speculated they could have pulled out if...


You've got that right. I was at Holloman in Fighter Lead-In at the
time. As the only operator of T-38s in TAC, the 479th wing was tasked
for the "pilot member" and the "Flying Safety Officer member" of the
accident board.

The initial accident report came back as "pilot error" in that Major
Lowry allowed the formation to continue the maneuver after being at a
lower than required altitude at the top of the loop, thereby letting
the aircraft proceed to a point from which safe recovery was not
possible.

When briefed to General Creech, his comment was "Thunderbirds don't
make pilot errors." He directed that they come back with something
else. The second attempt introduced the "bob-weight" explanation. The
catch was that with 160 AT-38s on the flight line at Holloman, no one
had ever encountered the bob-weight before.

I flew F-4s with Norm Lowry in the 401st TFW at Torrejon. He was a
first rate fighter pilot and it is unfortunate that he was lost in
such a manner.



Ed Rasimus
Fighter Pilot (ret)
***"When Thunder Rolled:
*** An F-105 Pilot Over N. Vietnam"
*** from Smithsonian Books
ISBN: 1588341038