Post-Maintenance Check Flub
An H-60 was inducted into B-phase maintenance the evening prior to a four-day port visit. Early the next morning, the detatchment’s lead petty officer (LPO) started the day’s planned work on the aircraft, eager to finish to secure folks for liberty.
Since the LPO was the detatchment’s lead aviation machinist mate, he elected to remove and replace the engine load demand spindle roll pins. He’d done the procedure many times, so he elected not to use the technical manual.
After conducting the maintenance, the LPO also acted as the phase quality assurance representative (QAR), which is a direct violation of OPNAVINST 4790.2 (Naval Aviation Maintenance Program). The LPO knew this and went a step further but had another maintainer sign the paperwork as “worker” while he signed it as “QAR.” For his part, the other maintainer assumed he was signing the form for corrosion work he’d actually performed.
The detachment chief petty officer made the mistake of trusting the LPO, and he released the aircraft as safe for flight without final review of the phase packet.
Because the squadron’s vibration analysis test set (VATS) was acting up, the detachment officer in charge decided to include the LPO, the squadron’s VATS expert, on the check flight, even though the LPO did not possess the requisite quals or survival training needed for inclusion on such a flight.
During the autorotation check portion of the flight, both spindle roll pins came off, which, in turn, caused the engines to shut down. A crew member diagnosed the dual engine failure and guided the helicopter to a level flight water entry at a higher-than-desired rate of descent. The crash resulted in back injuries to all four crew members. The helicopter aircraft commander also broke both of his ankles. The copilot suffered contusions and lacerations to his face when he tried to get out of the aircraft before the rush of water into the cockpit had subsided. Eventually the aircrew was rescued by the ship’s motor whaleboat team. The helicopter was lost.
