C30J, Jalalabad Afghanistan, 2015

C30J, Jalalabad Afghanistan, 2015

Summary

On 2 October 2015, a USAF C130J-30 Hercules crew attempted to depart Jalalabad without being aware that a hard shell NVG case which had been positioned in front of one of the control columns to keep the elevator in an up position during engines-running offloading of tall cargo at the rear was still in place. The resultant inability to control excessive pitch up was attributed to a pitch trim malfunction and crew response assumed this. A stall from which recovery was not made followed and the aircraft impacted terrain and exploded within the aerodrome perimeter 28 seconds after getting airborne.

Description

On 2 October 2015, a USAF C130J-30 Hercules (Tail Number 08-3174) being operated on a multi leg scheduled contingency airlift mission pre-assessed as 'low risk' and departing Jalalabad for Bagram adopted an increasingly steep climb angle after becoming airborne at night in VMC. After reaching approximately 700 feet agl, it stalled and descended rapidly, impacting terrain within the aerodrome at a high rate of descent after just 28 seconds airborne. The aircraft was completely destroyed and all 11 occupants were killed as were 3 Afghan military personnel in an aerodrome guard tower which was hit by the aircraft.

Investigation

An Investigation was carried out by a USAF Accident Investigation Board (AIB) established for the purpose. The DFDR and CVR were recovered and their data was used to inform the Investigation.

It was noted that the accident aircraft had been operated within the USAF Air Mobility Command (AMC) by the 39th Airlift Squadron which, whilst operating in Afghanistan was assigned to the 455th Air Expeditionary Wing (AEW) and operated from Bagram as part of the 774th Expeditionary Air Squadron (EAS).

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