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Old July 14th 03, 10:42 PM
Big John
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Tim

I've not seen any AF Contract School accidents investigated by NTSB.
If there was a GA aircraft involved with contract school aircraft,
NTBS would be part of the investigation.

Same goes for flying at the Air Force Academy. The Slingsby T-3A,
Firefly, aircraft suffered a high accident rate at the Academy (high
altitude field). Several cadets and instructors killed. All
investigated by Air Force. Birds were grounded and evaluated by a
detachment from Edwards and got a clean bill of health but due to
publicity, the training program was given to a Contract School flying
DA20-C1 Falcons.

23+ feet long
35+ wing span
125 HP

Big wing seems to have helped with accident rate and they, to date,
have performed excellently at Academy fields altitude.

Can't find syllabus on Internet but would guess they also took some of
the higher risk maneuvers out of program? It's only a screening
program (they get Private license) for entering Heavy Iron training
after graduation.

Big John
USAF (Ret)


On 14 Jul 2003 11:46:13 -0700, (Tim Witt)
wrote:

(lance smith) wrote in message . com...
Are USAF accidents included in NTSB accident reports/statistics? I'm
not talking about skunkworks or other secret stuff, but what about
cadet trainers?

Purely military accidents are not investigated by the NTSB--the
military investigates their own accidents. Accidents involving both a
military aircraft and a civilian aircraft will be investigated by both
the NTSB and the service involved. The military does not fly under
the auspices of Federal Aviation Regulations however their regulations
are similar and in some ways complement the FARS. Similarly,
government agencies that operate aircraft such as States or Federal
Agencies do not necessarily fall under the restrictions and
regulations of the FARS you and I have to comply with. They sometimes
will investigate their own accidents for internal consumption but
oftentimes they'll "let" the NTSB investigate as they may not have the
resources to do it (unlike the military.) Whether or not a particular
accident gets NTSB scrutiny depends in large part as to under what
authority the flight is conducted. The Air Force has contracted out
much of its "Cadet training" and these operations might be under Part
141 or Part 65 of the FARs which would mean the NTSB would get
involved.