For one, the crash remains a mystery. While the Air Force did identify several likely causes in its new three-month study, those scenarios were so uncertain that it won't be until June--when more King-56 wreckage is recovered from the ocean floor--that those theories are further tested. For another, family members of the 10 dead crew members don't believe the leading theory advanced by the Air Force. That scenario assumes the plane was feeding fuel to all four engines from a single auxiliary tank and had its main tank fuel pumps off. When that auxiliary tank ran dry, the crew didn't see the fuel warning lights. Then, the other tanks didn't automatically start feeding the engines the way the Air Force has long believed they would. Instead, the empty auxiliary tank pumped air into the engines, which caused them to flame out. "It assumes too many things," says Bob Wellnitz, father of the plane's navigator. "That the main tanks were off, although that's not standard procedure; that the flight engineer didn't tell the pilots what's going on with the fuel; that no one noticed the fuel caution lights; that no one talked about it on the cockpit recording. Lumped together it seems like a reach." The National Transportation Safety Board--the federal agency that investigates civilian crashes--was also unimpressed, giving the new report a backhanded compliment. Dragged into the study by Oregon Sens. Wyden and Gordon Smith, NTSB aviation safety director Bernard Loeb called the Air Force's new report "substantive and detailed" in a Jan. 15 letter to the Air Force's top general. But Loeb also noted that the Air Force was just now learning "a great deal" about safety problems with a plane it's been flying for 40 years--thanks to pressure from the King-56 families. Loeb said the NTSB wanted to see more tests on the plane's flawed fuel system and was pleased the Air Force decided to recover more of the King-56 wreckage (only 10 percent of the plane was initially recovered). "In briefing us, the NTSB was very blunt in saying they wouldn't have walked away from the wreckage in the first place," adds Wyden spokesman David Seldin. Air Force officials insisted last April there was no reason to recover more wreckage--but now crash investigators says the wreckage may hold the key to the cause. The new Air Force study acknowledges other flaws in its original King-56 crash probe. For instance, the initial investigation ruled out the possibility that the engines did not receive fuel from a gravity feed. In fact, the Air Force discovered, the gravity feed doesn't work the way it thought. All told, it was an unusual display of contrition by the military. But, critics say, the Air Force will do almost anything to avoid sweeping reforms of its secretive investigation process. "The widows and your senators have begun to pull back the curtain on a very ugly situation," says Alan Diehl, the Air Force's former top safety official, who cataloged 30 botched crash investigations for Congress. "The Air Force has more skeletons in its closet than Jeffrey Dahmer. It's trying to control the damage by appeasing the families and senators." "The broad question is whether the Air Force should investigate itself," adds John Keyes, whose son, a lieutenant colonel, died in the King-56 crash. "I think the system is out of control." John Nance, a former Air Force pilot and current ABC News aviation analyst, agrees. "I think the Air Force painted itself into a corner in revealing how ineffective its investigation was," Nance says. But Nance warns that it will be a long, hard fight to reform the Air Force's investigation process--and the Air Force is banking on winning a war of attrition with the widows and senators. "I'm sure the Air Force has carefully thought out this scenario in terms of delaying as much as possible the conclusion so as to give the controversy some time to blow away," Nance says. Seldin vows that his boss is in the battle for the long haul. "Senator Wyden certainly intends to stay with it," he says. Smith spokesman John Easton says the same: "There is no letting up from this end on the C-130 tragedy.... It's very possible that this will result in actual legislation on the Senate floor." |
