New Tragedy for the Greek Air Force

[akritas]

The body of the 35-year-old pilot Ath. Batsaras of an F-16 that had disappeared from radars during a night flight Wednesday was collected by a Turkish frigate. The jet fighter had fallen near the island of Alonissos, in Psathoura area in central Aegean. A Super Puma collected the pilot’s body, which was transferred to the General Airforce Hospital, where an autopsy will take place. Although the causes of the crash have not been made clear, the pilot might have lost his orientation.

The jet fighter was made on 29 August 2003 and had been in the air for 442 hours. A specialists committee of the Greek Air Force will examine the case.

Meanwhile, the President of the Hellenic Republic Karolos Papoulias issued a condolences message for the pilot’s family, expressing his sympathy for his loss.

source
in.gr and ert.gr

[admin]

? What happened did they shoot him down?

[akritas]

Originally Posted by admin

? What happened did they shoot him down?

Let me post some things as about the flight accident.

Flight accidents are caused by uncontrolled hazards. The controls are either inadequate, known and not enforced, or not known. Accident causes can be further classified into three basic factors. Factors contributing to an accident consist of environmental conditions, material failures, human errors or any combination of these factors.

Environmental factors are those environmental elements or conditions such as noise, illumination, space and weather conditions (e..g. precipitation, temperature, humidity, pressure, wind, and lightning, and so forth) having an adverse effect on the performance of the individual or equipment so that an accident results or could result. Environmental cause factors can be divided into those which could not have been avoided and those for which precautions could have been implemented to reduce or eliminate its adverse effect on personnel and/or equipment. An environmental deficiency should not be assessed as a causal factor if it was known and could have been avoided before the accident.

A material failure or malfunction is defined as a tangible or intangible element that did not operate as intended or designed and caused, allowed, or contributed to a material failure or malfunction. The inadequacies may come from incorrect design or improper materials.

Improper maintenance or incorrect installation would not fall into this category but would instead be considered human error. Once identified, corrective actions can be taken to prevent the probability of similar material failures and malfunctions in the future.

Human cause factors are interactions of man, machine, and environment. In short, a mistake at some level was made. As much as 85% of all accidents involve human error.

In our case maybe we have a combination of Human cause, Environmental and material failure or malfunction facors. If the Turkish shot down the F-16 we dont have nothing to support it, without of course to reject this hypothesis

For me the most severe issue is the inexpedience of the Greek SAR (three helicopters SAR) to find the pilot.

[Macedonian]

I doubt it was shot down. If so, they know and are keeping their mouths shut to prevent an incident, but I highly doubt we were shot down. Accidents happen. It is a tragedy. My condolences.