spog posted:

I recall from 'Mayday Air Disaster Death Crash Investigation' that S.Korea had a serious problem and multiple crashes because of this cultural deferment to the senior staff, even when they were doing something mind-blowingly stupid.

The FAA banned them from operating in the US unless they sorted their act out: which they did by hiring a bunch of foreign consultants to retrain the flight crew to work as a team.

EDIT:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Air_Cargo_Flight_8509


Fuckwit captain literally flew the plane into the ground while his junior crew let him, because he was much more senior.

Say Nothing posted:

shame on an IGA posted:

Deference to incompetence kills no matter where it happens.

http://sbfpd.org/uploads/3/0/9/6/3096011/darker_shades_of_blue.pdf

quote:

At one point, Lt Col Holland reportedly called the radar navigator "a pussy" when he would not violate regulations and open the bomb doors for a photograph with live weapons on board.

shame on an IGA posted:

Deference to incompetence kills no matter where it happens.

http://sbfpd.org/uploads/3/0/9/6/3096011/darker_shades_of_blue.pdf

PhotoKirk posted:

http://www.click2houston.com/news/boy-climbs-down-side-of-carnival-cruise-ship-out-of-galveston

This could have ended vary badly. Rumor is that the dad was the one filming.

H2SO4 posted:

It blows my mind that they have no idea who this is, because they apparently have cameras *everywhere* on cruise ships. At least that's what I was told by a buddy that used to work on them.

Say Nothing posted:

suuma posted:

Why the gently caress is this guy walking around a toll station

zedprime posted:

Oooh ooh is this the part where we recommend how to fix it? What if they had subterranean tunnels going along for access to every booth without needing to step onto the road.

shame on an IGA posted:

Deference to incompetence kills no matter where it happens.

http://sbfpd.org/uploads/3/0/9/6/3096011/darker_shades_of_blue.pdf

Bip Roberts posted:

My favorite story like this is the general who bullied a bunch of Area 51 employees into letting him fly the USs only MiG 23, ignored their advice about how it was super squirrelly at high speeds and crashed it into the Nevada desert at Mach 2.5. His death then had to be covered up because of the secrecy of the program.

KoRMaK posted:

please please please cite a source on this - I want to be able to share it

Hispanic! At The Disco posted:

That's not even the first time travel accident this week.



(Shamelessly stolen from the Strange Headlines thread.)

Bip Roberts posted:

My favorite story like this is the general who bullied a bunch of Area 51 employees into letting him fly the USs only MiG 23, ignored their advice about how it was super squirrelly at high speeds and crashed it into the Nevada desert at Mach 2.5. His death then had to be covered up because of the secrecy of the program.

quote:

At such speeds, with the wings fully swept back to 72°, the MiG had very limited pitch authority and was inclined to yaw and roll. Bond lost control,[nb 3] made a distress call ("I gotta get out of here") and was then killed in the ejection, when the slipstream broke his neck and shredded the canopy of his parachute. The aircraft crashed in the desert, diving in at a 60° angle[14] and impacting on what is now known as Jackass Flats

KoRMaK posted:

please please please cite a source on this - I want to be able to share it

quote:

When a mock attack at the guard gate at Area 51 occurred, in 1982, test flights of the F‑117 - which only ever happened at night - were already in full swing. For some weeks, a debate raged as to how an act of idiocy by a small group of Wackenhut Security guards nearly outed a billion-dollar aircraft as well as two top secret military test facilities that had remained secret for thirty years.

Jesus Christ posted:

At such speeds, with the wings fully swept back to 72°, the MiG had very limited pitch authority and was inclined to yaw and roll. Bond lost control,[nb 3] made a distress call ("I gotta get out of here") and was then killed in the ejection, when the slipstream broke his neck and shredded the canopy of his parachute. The aircraft crashed in the desert, diving in at a 60° angle[14] and impacting on what is now known as Jackass Flats

Synthbuttrange posted:

The general and the airplane crashed into Area 25 at Jackass Flats, where the land was still highly contaminated from the secret NERVA [nuclear rocket] tests that had gone on there.

Hahah holy gently caress

Synthbuttrange posted:

The general and the airplane crashed into Area 25 at Jackass Flats, where the land was still highly contaminated from the secret NERVA [nuclear rocket] tests that had gone on there.

Hahah holy gently caress

quote:

All sorts of efforts were being made, during the late 50's, to increase propellant densities, and I was responsible (not purposely, but from being taken seriously when I didn't expect to be) for one of the strangest. Phil Pomerantz, of BuWeps, wanted me to try dimethyl mercury, Hg(CH₃)₂, as a fuel. I suggested that it might be somewhat toxic and a bit dangerous to synthesize and handle, but he assured me that it was (a) very easy to put together, and (b) as harmless as mother's milk. I was dubious, but told him that I'd see what I could do.

I looked the stuff up, and discovered that, indeed, the synthesis was easy, but that it was extremely toxic, and a long way from harmless. As I had suffered from mercury poisoning on two previous occasions and didn't care to take a chance on doing it again, I thought that it would be an excellent idea to have somebody else make the compound for me. So I phoned Rochester, and asked my contact man at Eastman Kodak if they would make a hundred pounds of dimethyl mercury and ship it to NARTS.

I heard a horrified gasp, and then a tightly controlled voice (I could hear the grinding of teeth beneath the words) informed me that if they were silly enough to synthesize that much dimethyl mercury, they would, in the process fog every square inch of photographic film in Rochester, and that, thank you just the same, Eastman was not interested. The receiver came down with a crash, and I sat back to consider the matter. An agonizing reappraisal seemed to be indicated.

Phil wanted density. Well, dimethyl mercury was dense, all right— d = 3.07 —but it would be burned with RFNA, and at a reasonable mixture ratio the total propellant density would be about 2.1 or 2.2. (The density of the acid-UDMH system is about 1.2.) That didn't seem too impressive, and I decided to apply the reducto ad absurdum method. Why not use the densest known substance which is liquid at room temperature — mercury itself? Just squirt it into the chamber of a motor burning, say, acid-UDMH. It would evaporate into a mon- atomic gas (with a low C_p, which would help performance), and would go out the nozzle with the combustion products. That technique should give Phil all the density he wanted! Charmed by the delightful nuttiness of the idea, I reached for the calculator.
[…]
The result was spectacular. With 𝜑 = 0.1, and 27.5 percent of the tank volume filled with mercury instead of propellant, the bulk density was 4.9 and the boost velocity was about 31 percent above that of the neat propellant; at 𝜑 = 0.2 there was a 20 percent increase with 21 volume percent of mercury. At 𝜑 = 1.0, on the other hand, the best you could get was a 2 percent increase in boost velocity with 5 volume percent of mercury. Obviously, a missile with a low 𝜑, such as an air-to-air job, was where this system belonged—if anywhere.

I solemnly and formally wrote the whole thing up, complete with graphs, labeled it —dead pan —the "Ultra High Density Propellant Concept," and sent it off to the Bureau. I expected to see it bounce back in a week, with a "Who do you think you're kidding?" letter attached. It didn't.

Phil bought it.

He directed us, forthwith, to verify the calculations experimentally, and NARTS, horrified, was stuck with the job of firing a mercury- spewing motor in the middle of Morris County, New Jersey.

Firing the motor wouldn't be any problem; the problem lay in the fact that all of the mercury vapor in the atmosphere would not be good for the health of the (presumably) innocent inhabitants of the county —nor for our own. So a scrubber had to be built, a long pipe- like affair down which the motor would be fired, and fitted with water sprays, filters, and assorted devices to condense and collect the mer- cury in the exhaust before it could get out into the atmosphere. We had it built and were about ready to go, when the Navy decided to shut down —"disestablish" —NARTS, and ordered us to ship the whole mercury setup to NOTS. With a sigh of relief, we complied, and handed them the wet baby. Saved by the bell!

At NOTS, Dean Couch and D. G. Nyberg took over the job, and by March 1960 had completed their experiments. They used a 250- pound thrust RFNA-UDMH motor, and injected mercury through a tap in the chamber wall. And the thing did work. They used up to 31 volume percent of mercury in their runs, and found that at 20 percent they got a 40 percent increase in density impulse. (I had calculated 43.) As they were firing in the middle of the desert, they didn't bother with the scrubber. And they didn't poison a single rattlesnake. Technically, the system was a complete success. Practically—that was something else again.

Bip Roberts posted:

Heres a slightly longer article.

http://jalopnik.com/5807385/how-a-generals-fatal-joyride-in-a-secret-enemy-jet-almost-revealed-area-51

Platystemon posted:

Raskolnikov38 posted:

lmao he died in Jackass Flats

Mak0rz posted:

For those not familiar with dimethylmercury here's some classic OSHA thread reading material: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karen_Wetterhahn

quote:

Pollution was so heavy at the mouth of the wastewater canal, a figure of 2 kg of mercury per ton of sediment was measured: a level that would be economically viable to mine. Indeed, Chisso did later set up a subsidiary to reclaim and sell the mercury recovered from the sludge.

quote:

The Iraqi Army soon ordered disposal of the grain and eventually declared the death penalty for anyone found selling it. Farmers dumped their supplies wherever possible, and it soon got into the water supply (particularly the River Tigris), causing further problems. The government issued a news blackout and released little information about the outbreak.

Mak0rz posted:

For those not familiar with dimethylmercury here's some classic OSHA thread reading material: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karen_Wetterhahn

quote:

Wetterhahn would recall that she had spilled one or two drops of dimethylmercury from the tip of a pipette onto her latex gloved hand.
...
One of her former students said that "Her husband saw tears rolling down her face. I asked if she was in pain. The doctors said it didn't appear that her brain could even register pain."

quote:

In 1972, a 28-year-old chemist in Czechoslovakia had suffered the same symptoms as Wetterhahn after synthesizing 6 kg of the compound.