An accident investigation board convened by Air Mobility Command to review last fall’s crash of an Air Force Flight Standards Agency C-21 at Decatur Airport in Illinois. The board found that the pilot, who was in aircraft commander upgrade training and was flying a simulated single engine approach, could not recover when the aircraft became unstable when he reduced power for landing. Air Force instruction says to use both engines in such a situation, but the pilot failed to do so. Neither he nor the instructor pilot was able to prevent the aircraft’s right wingtip tank from striking the runway and slide of the aircraft across a field. The board concluded that the pilot “was unable to take corrective action,” and the IP “failed to take the appropriate action to correct the situation.”
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth this week released strategies meant to focus the Pentagon’s “alphabet soup” of innovation organizations and proliferate artificial intelligence—moves that experts say could provide the structure needed to make the military’s efforts to integrate and field new technology more effective.
