A West Virginia Air Guard C-130H Was Responsible For Massive Chaff Cloud Over Midwest

more at
http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone...d-over-Midwest

A search for more information about a massive cloud of chaff that recently
appeared over southern Illinois before drifting into Indiana and Kentucky has
led The War Zone to speak with Air National Guard public affairs officers across
four states, as well as the National Guard Bureau headquarters in Washington,
D.C. We can now confirm that a C-130H Hercules from the West Virginia Air
National Guard was behind the mysterious incident.

On Dec. 10, 2018, the C-130H from West Virginia's 130th Airlift Wing was
returning to its home station at McLaughlin Air National Guard Base in
Charleston after taking part in a training exercise at an unspecified location
on the "West Coast," according to Captain Holli Nelson of the West Virginia Air
National Guard. The plane needed to dump the excess chaff in its countermeasures
dispensers before landing as a safety precaution.

We don't know what drill the Hercules had participated in, but it may have been
coming back from a recent Joint Forcible Entry Exercise (JFEX). This is a
regularly scheduled large force employment exercise that brings dozens of
airlifters and other aircraft together over the sprawling Nevada Test and
Training Range (NTTR) in support of the U.S. Air Force Weapons School at Nellis
Air Force Base.

Regardless, as it passed over the Red Hills Military Operations Area (MOA), the
crew requested and received permission from air traffic controllers at
Indianapolis Center to drop the chaff. MOAs are specially designated pieces of
airspace across the United States that U.S. military units can activate in order
to conduct training and other activities.

At the time of writing, the West Virginia Air National Guard had not yet been
able to confirm exactly how many chaff cartridges the C-130H employed in total.
C-130 types carry multiple countermeasures dispensers, depending on their exact
configuration, each of which can hold dozens of individual cartridges. On an
actual operation, the aircraft can carry a mix of flares and chaff in order to
best defend against infrared-homing and radar-seeking missiles depending on the
expected threats.

The large-scale release could help explain why the resulting plume was so dense
and long and maybe why it persisted for more than 10 hours. Specific weather
conditions would have also been necessary to keep the material airborne as it
floated into Indiana and Kentucky.

We also don't know exactly why the plane needed to jettison the chaff. There may
not have been a de-arm crew available for when the C-130 was scheduled to arrive
at McLaughlin or there might have been an indication of a technical fault in the
countermeasures system. In addition, releasing it at 10,000 feet, well below the
C-130's cruising altitude also seems odd. Maybe the crew descended to a lower
altitude for the operation in hopes the chaff would make it to the ground
faster.




*