Navy Had Warnings on Jet Maintenance

The jet that crashed at the Point Mugu Air Show last weekend was in a maintenance program that two former Navy aircraft specialists warned officials last summer was plagued with problems and jeopardized the squadron of aging fighter planes.

Darrell Ellington, a mechanic on the QF-4 Phantoms, and Ken Okesson, a quality assurance specialist, said they quit their jobs last year because of persistent management and maintenance problems associated with the Point Mugu Naval Air Station’s QF-4 jet program. They said they made their concerns known to officials at the Ventura County base in resignation letters and exit interviews.

So concerned was he about problems at the base, Ellington said this week, that when Navy Cmdr. Michael Norman, the pilot killed in last Saturday’s air show crash, asked him why he was quitting, the mechanic responded bluntly.

“I told him they were going to crash an airplane and kill someone,” said Ellington, who now lives in Oregon and continues to serve in the Air National Guard. “Or at least they were going to get someone hurt.”

Ellington and Okesson’s letters and verbal warnings echoed the concerns of a Navy inspector who two years earlier issued a highly critical report of Point Mugu’s civilian-operated QF-4 maintenance program and warned of potential safety hazards. The report was part of a routine annual inspection.

Navy spokeswoman Mary Ann Freeman said Friday that employee resignation letters expressing concerns about safety or workplace issues “are always taken seriously. However, in this case there were no specific allegations cited upon which to act.”

Confidential exit interviews were conducted with Ellington and Okesson, Freeman said. And Capt. Mike Rabens was briefed on their letters when he took over as commander of the Naval Test Wing Pacific last summer, she said.

Moreover, all concerns outlined in the inspector’s 1999 report were addressed at the time and a follow-up investigation indicated that improvements were made, said Doris G. Lance, also a Navy spokeswoman. Squadrons are required to correct problems within 30 days or to submit plans that may require more time.

The QF-4 jet that crashed at the air show was just delivered to Point Mugu in February from the Naval Aviation Depot in Cherry Point, N.C., Lance said. The cause of the jet’s crash has not been determined.

“The Navy is currently conducting a full investigation of the QF-4 mishap at Point Mugu,” Lance said. “In the past 20 years, this is the only QF-4 flight mishap the Weapons Test Squadron has ever experienced, with over 118,000 accident-free flight hours logged.”

U.S. Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley), who has worked closely with base officials on a number of projects and issues, said he was unaware of employees’ concerns involving the QF-4 program.

“It’s disturbing that these things are coming forward because we have a very good dialogue with the guys on the flight line,” said Gallegly, who was at the air show and witnessed the crash. “You can be assured we will be very aggressive in trying to get some answers to these allegations.”

Norman, 39, of Camarillo and Marine Corps Capt. Andrew Muhs, 31, who lived on the naval air base, were killed when their two-seat Vietnam-era jet wobbled out of control and slammed into a marshy field west of the runway during Point Mugu’s 39th annual air show. Norman was the pilot and Muhs the navigator.

Nearly 25,000 spectators witnessed the fiery crash, which occurred as the jet banked to the right after completing a maneuver about 500 feet above the runway. Another QF-4 and two F-14 Tomcats were also in the diamond formation. No one on the ground was injured.

Witnesses said they saw white smoke and flames shooting from one of the jet’s engines moments before it plunged 500 feet to the ground and burst into flames.

Sources close to the crash investigation have said that nothing has been ruled out as a possible cause, including mechanical malfunction, faulty maintenance or even the possibility that birds were sucked into one or both of the jet’s engines.

More Than 15 Years’ Experience With Jet

Ellington and Okesson were assigned to the Ventura County base’s Naval Weapons Test Squadron, which includes a fleet of more than 20 QF-4 fighter jets used in a missile test program.

Ellington spent more than a decade working on the jet, which is part of an early generation of military attack aircraft. Okesson worked the last five years as a quality assurance specialist for the QF-4.

Before that, Okesson spent nearly two decades working on the jet while in the Navy and as a civilian contractor. At that time, the jet was known as an F-4. The Q designation refers to aircraft that have been modified to serve as a target for military training purposes.

Ellington resigned in July, Okesson in August.

In interviews this week, each said that the working environment inside the QF-4 hangar had grown increasingly tense in recent years as supervisors, faced with federally mandated staff reductions, grew more demanding as the work force shrank.

Younger and less experienced flight crews were assigned to work on the vintage jets, adding to concerns among veteran mechanics, they said.

“People were being pressured into cutting corners,” Okesson said. “I think it’s wrong to have the F-4s doing half the things they are doing.... The morale goes downhill when management tries to force you to do things that are dangerous. People can’t keep their minds on their jobs.”

A month before he left his post, Okesson said, he argued with supervisors who wanted a QF-4 in the air despite warnings that the jet wasn’t ready to fly. When Okesson refused to sign off on the flight, the supervisors relented. Only after a second round of safety checks were completed would Okesson sign paperwork stating the jet was airworthy, he said.

In his resignation letter, Okesson described supervision at the hangar as “threat management.”

“Personally, I hope the situation doesn’t get so bad that someone gets hurt,” Okesson wrote in his Aug. 2 letter. “But, from where I sit, I think it may get worse before it gets better and I don’t want to be around to see it.”

Okesson and Ellington’s complaints came two years after a Navy inspector found numerous problems with the QF-4 program. The inspector’s report was released two weeks after an accident on San Nicholas Island involving a $1.3-million QF-4 jet that nearly killed a civilian mechanic.

That accident occurred the day before the start of the 1999 Point Mugu Air Show when the aircraft rolled off the runway and tumbled down a steep embankment. The plane was destroyed.

An investigation of the accident showed that a base employee failed to follow ground procedures and “corrective actions were implemented to prevent a similar incident from occurring,” Freeman said.

But the Navy inspector’s evaluation of the QF-4’s quality assurance program cited major problems with auditing procedures, maintenance record-keeping and overall management.

“Trying to get a straight answer from the military and civilians alike on who does what and who is responsible for specific personnel or tasks is impossible because no one really knows their own chain of command,” Lt. Cmdr. Gary Green wrote in a May 7, 1999, report obtained by The Times.

He went on to say that maintenance is “beginning to demonstrate tendencies of straying from the straight and narrow paths required

“If these practices are not corrected now,” Green wrote, “they will have a devastating impact on the safety of air crew and aircraft worthiness in the future.”

Green was emphatic about poor record-keeping in the QF-4s maintenance division at the time. “The neglect of this area over the past months has resulted in a combination of discrepancies that if not corrected could lead to possible loss of life, equipment and weapon systems.”

Personnel Cutbacks Create Upheaval

Meanwhile, an October 1999 memo from Navy Capt. Alex B. Hnarakis acknowledged that ongoing staff reductions and the transfer of some of the QF-4 squadron’s most skilled workers “have caused great upheaval among our personnel,” noting that behavior of some workers “bordered on insubordination.”

“Despite this detrimental environment, QF-4s have continued to provide outstanding support of critical Navy programs,” Hnarakis stated in his memo. “However, this support has not been achieved without conflict or strife.”

Finding jet mechanics familiar with the QF-4 has grown increasingly difficult because of job cuts, officials said. The plane was first rolled off the McDonnell Douglas production line in 1959.

Others familiar with the Point Mugu base’s training program, however, said new mechanics can easily learn the plane’s systems through a 90-day course and a rigorous oral examination by a review board.

But flight line workers in the QF-4 hangar said more needs to be done to improve working conditions at the base.

Many connected with the jet program were saddened by the crash April 20 but not necessarily surprised, said one civilian employee who spoke on condition of anonymity.

“A lot of people are hurt and angry and now they want out because it finally happened,” said the worker. “We said it was going to happen and it did in front of God and everyone.”