...after 2 weeks


https://www.airforcetimes.com/news/...emo-team-pilot-relieved-after-two-weeks/

Just speculation, but usually this means something she did in her personal life caused this relief of command?

I kind of find this a little ridiculous, two weeks? Also, she's only a Captain, so it's not at the Squadron level which is usually Lt. Col. or above. But two weeks, how come it was only two weeks. I've seen SQ CC's removed that took months to get them removed for making a toxic work environment. I think there's more to this story.

Must have been a helluva party.

Or she wore blackface in 3rd grade.

Maybe wore something black in the sack.

Once you go blackface...

She likely fugged someone she wasn't supposed to.

“Loss of confidence to lead and command” .....usually means she screwed up either in practice or a performance, putting lives at risk. Pretty much the same reasons given when a Blue Angels commander was relieved a few years ago. The only difference was he removed himself. That precision flying can be pretty tough obviously....when your teammates lose confidence in you, that’s it, you’re gone from what I’ve been told.

I wonder what their team does that’s any different from the Thunderbirds?

Hottie right there.

Coot and scoot.

I suspect her career is over.

"The Viper team is a single-ship demonstration team that performs precision aerial maneuvers to show the F-16′s capabilities at air shows and other events such as the Super Bowl, as well as flying in Air Force Heritage Flight formations."

I'll never forget the demo flight F-16 test pilot Neil Anderson did for us at RAF Mildenhall back in July of '76. To say it was impressive is a understatement.

I think the Viper pilots demonstrate the plane's capabilities one pilot at a time whereas the Thunderbirds fly in formation and do all that formation type schit.

But at the end of the day they're all just a bunch of pilots that wish they were a Blue Angel.

They all wish they could hover.

She sure is purty.

Blue Angles would 🤢 🤮 ...

In the end, nobody cares except for how she cooks, cleans & screws.

or did Not fug someone she should have

I often wonder if some people actually get out and talk to other humans. I suspect if you ever talked to a woman who actually flew you might find that they fly for the same reasons men fly. The fact that she actually flies F-16s tells me she is more capable than 95% of the keyboard warriors on here. I'll give her the benefit of the doubt until I hear more.

Hahaha.

I don't diminish what she has accomplished I just don't believe clams belong in aircraft.

Or the work force.

Or voting booths.

Or card games.



Dave

The two possibilities are that she messed something up badly, or that the rest of the Viper team is just as misogynistic as some of you seem to be.

If the voice of a misogynist was still heard she'd have never been there to begin with.

Likely some personal issue like DUI, fraternization, false travel voucher, etc. I doubt that a bad check ride or leadership issues sank her in two weeks.

Color me with that broad (pardon the pun) brush then, even though I've been married to the same woman for thirty eight years. The Misogynistic issues stem from pussy whipped men, in an effort to be stylish or get some from their wives, opened and pressured women to do and become things they have no business doing. If they were indeed capable, why did it take the stroke of a pen to make them "equal" when the test of time clearly showed they have no place in the martial professions? Flying the plane is not the issue (although I can tell you without reservation standards were lowered EVERYWHERE, or else they would not have made it), there are some that are indeed good sticks. The issue pure and simple is the emasculation of the male and the warrior ethic in order to accommodate them to play in the real world. And yes one can make the case for the voting booth even. If you doubt this, look at the percentage of women that vote democrat. Hell, had they not voted, the last democrat president would have been Truman.

Agree’d

Lots of you folks trying your best to come up with excuses for this dame!

How about......."she wasn't nearly as good as she thinks she is....and couldn't fly worth a s hit!"

So you’re saying I’m a pussy whipped man for giving the benefit of the doubt to a fellow aviator in a case we have zero relevant facts?Id love to see you say that to my face key board warrior.

Last I checked we live in a Constitutional Republic with individual rights and freedoms. Neither you, me, nor her, wrote the specifics of that, but as of today she is free to pursue her desire to be a fighter pilot. Take your argument to someone who might actually change who is free rather than on an individual who chose to follow an ambition within those freedoms and laws as currently written. Venting on a woman, in a case you no nothing about, is truly pathetic...

I don’t agree with how women were given preferential treatment early on. I don’t think women are, on average, as good as men in some roles. But as long as the necessary standard is held, and they meet it, go for it. I flew with plenty of men who had no business flying a fighter, seen many [bleep] up it in a big way, gender is not a defining attribute. Certainly any woman could fly an S-3.

Eight years, one thousand hours flying time and they suddenly discover she's unable to lead? BS. Reading between the lines on their facebook page, they're trying to prevent some sort of public relations disaster. She did something deemed non PC, she's going to pay dearly for it.

Don't really know why this is news worthy. I imagine plenty wash out and you never hear about it. Only reason is because it is a woman. A pretty one at that.

I've known women who fit that description...and a lot of them get promoted because they latch onto a "sponsor"....somebody higher in the political food chain.

Mostly because she was only placed in charge a couple of weeks ago as the first female commander.

She had to have fuuucked up big time.

[img]https://external-preview.redd.it/Aq...44f0cb8f3975142b8a02e561d2003e277d6a44f9[/img]

Screwed something she was not suppose to.

Four minute biography on youtube-- before she got removed from command


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zloIsBBjM0A&t=16s

Shes a wood bottomed mold board plow?

Jim,where can I get one of them plows? Darn she is nice!

Did she get the command for PC reasons and couldn't handle it?

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say, I imagine some one sent her boss some NSFW pictures of this young woman, most likely pictures she sent to an ex.

Handles real good too!

Maybe todays military promotes women above their training and experience levels.

Two things are clear after looking at that article.

1- She is a better pilot than I am.
2- I'd put it in her butt. And she'd love it.


Everything else is speculation.

Somebody thought she didnt do something right.

Where did I call you names or say anything about giving her the benefit of the doubt? You've missed the point; by a country mile. It's not the flying skills I question, but the entire "whole man" concept that made up a warrior that simple cannot be supported with the inclusion of females into the combat arms. It's unnatural. As a former Wing COS, I can tell you without reservations, that from day one, standards had to be lowered, all across the board. I don't know if you are Navy, but in Pensacola to cite one example, one of the first things that went was the obstacle course. What does that have to do with flying? nothing....

edited again to add: Kara Hultgren ring a bell? how about the complete eradication of any kind of stressful disciplinary tools to change behavior? I could go on and on. I wrote a thesis on it whilst at RAND. I can give you reams on how women destroyed the warrior culture.

FIXT

I'd love to see her "flaps down" maneuver.

Your pacemaker battery would overheat...

Yeah, I remember Kara Hultgren. First female to land it on a carrier. But that last landing didn't turn out so well.
Lt. Kara wasn't as good as she was cracked up to be.

I hate to see her or any of our service personnel fail. She is a F16 pilot and good enough to be on a demonstration team ( even if marginally good enough) so ending her career is a real loss of talent and throwing away millions of dollars of training. I’m hoping it’s not a complete career ending incident and just a detour around a small issue. I’m going to speculate that it is a personal indiscretion that the Air Force didn’t want as a public representative.

I had never heard of that incident until I began reading up on the situation linked in the OP.

From the sound of it, Hultgren was kept flying after committing several errors that would have caused a male pilot to be grounded.

The final error she made cost her her life.

My opinion,..many young, strong, intelligent, fast thinking men can't make the grade to pilot a fighter plane. I doubt if hardly *any* women can.

Political correctness put Hultgren in a situation that killed her.

Probably wearing a MAGA hat at an air show...

Ha, and you dont believe in UFOs
Well, maybe it was a welcome home ceremony.

Lol!

I'd risk it!

Yep.

Willing participants it seems though.

I hate to see the military turned into nothing more than a career option instead of a home for stone-cold killers.

It's barbaric that a society would attempt to fit it's women into such a role.

I think you are right.
It is just like the Virginia governor. He was just cruising along, just another lib politician. And then, he raised his head up on the national stage with his remarks in support of late term abortion/infanticide.
His med school buddies knew all about that blackface photo from 3 decades ago, but they kept their mouths shut, until his abortion remarks. And then one of them ratted him out.

Same thing with this aviator. She was just another female pilot, but when she was elevated to command of the Vipers, somebody dug up some naughty photos and told her commander about it, he had the choice of dumping the female aviator, or the pics would be posted to facebook.

I used to take Japanese karate, and our sensei had an old Japanese saying he used to tell us, "The upright nail will get hammered." Not "might get hammered," but "will get hammered."

I’m of the opinion that the Air Force probably promoted her to CO for PC and publicity purposes before she was ready to take advantage of the movie coming out. If the pentagon paper pushers had done their due diligence this probably could have been avoided. I’m betting whatever the issue there were warning signs and they were ignored. Setting both her and the Air Force up for failure.

I tend to think that it only took 2 weeks for them to discover that she wasn't up to the task.

I’ve known quite a few women who were as ruthless killers at heart as any man you’re likely to meet. I don’t believe in lowering standards for women but if they can make the grade then let them have at it.

I'd guess that about the same percentage of women are capable of serving in a combat role as are capable of playing in the NFL.

I ain't saying they are fit for all roles, but they can excel in some

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

Me too, but that doesn't mean we should encourage or celebrate that sort of behavior.

Plus it looks desperate, like the Soviet Union in WWII running out of men.

It might be something as simple as inability to transition from a squadron officer to being the leader of a small team of enlisted top performers.
Those small crews almost live together during the demo season.

Combat roles like infantry I’d agree with you. The skills needed to pilot a fighter there’s a few and there’s plenty of skill positions they’re equally competent for.

Russians ain't never been nothing but cannon fodder.

Bullshit. 90% of them can't properly drive a car.

Pretty certain her upbringing isn't what most Americans would consider to be ideal.

Apples and oranges as it were.

LMAO.

Do you sincerely believe that?

So has Brazzers picked her up yet?

Typical woman driving scenario I witnessed a couple of years ago.

Very icy roads,...traffic moving slow. A woman in a rear wheel drive SUV was in front of me on a limited access expressway.

She tried to accelerate and the rear wheels started spinning on the ice and the rear end started coming around on her. All she would have had to do is let up on the gas and steer into it to straighten it back up. But she just froze up at the wheel.

When the SUV was completely sideways in the road it got enough traction to shoot her into the steel guardrail alongside the road. *BONK!*,...She wasn't going fast enough to injure herself but it wadded up the front of the SUV pretty good.

She definitely didn't belong in a F-15.

Yes. I appreciate traditional roles for women and think society works better with women in traditional roles but I can also acknowledge women’s individual talents and their right to pursue their personal choice even if I personally think they’re misguided.

What Facebook page are you referring to? Nevermind - found it - US Air Force Viper team.

You might could maybe someday find a woman that can beat all the men on the PGA tour.

That doesn't mean we should let bleeders play on the men's PGA tour.

Give me a fugking break.

I hate to burst your bubble, but it is cheaper for me to insure a female semi driver than a male semi driver. That's not because they have MORE accidents......

Have you seen the F16 cockpit? Women fit in it better :-)

I was on the Shaw AFB page. The full letter from the commander is available there.

Im gonna go with a DUI or a domestic violence issue. You know, why we all are speculatin' and what not.

We (the Navy) killed that girl. Every LSO at Miramar went on the record she had no business landing a Tomcat on a carrier. EVERY ONE. Then when the mishap happened (I was in the Pentagon at the time in N3/N5) we changed the narrative to read engine malfunction, which we all knew was horseshit.

That is true about them having less accidents, but what should be asked is "how many accidents do they CAUSE?"

They have a cockpit men fit in better. Where the hell you think they got the name "cockpit". It was for men to fit in.

She would look good in a pilot skirt. They a short enough that when a woman bends over you can see the cockpit.

Good combat men arent ruthless killers at heart. They are mentally focused and adept killers.

Women who are ruthless killers at heart will kill any one over any thing. You dont want loose canon nut jobs in the military.

I hate to burst your bubble.

But nobody believes an insurance salesman.

Especially if it's a clam.

The guy that fired her is being scrutinized too:

http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zon...-team-made-this-crass-video-15-years-ago

The TF30 engines in the Tomcat were very prone to compressor stalling from bad airflow. She had a habit of ruddering it around when she was overshooting in the turn. The LSO's debriefed her many times to stop doing that but she didn't listen. In the accident she was overshooting so she wrapped it up and stepped on the rudder which disrupted the airflow causing a compressor stall and subsequent flameout, departure and the rest is history. I seem to remember a mention in the accident report of a sticking guide vane which might have helped the compressor stall, but the end result is she caused it by blanking the engine.

Everybody seems to leave out the WSO she killed that day too.

Kara Hultgren set the precedent even in her death.

Actually, her RIO lived. He pulled the handle in command eject and went out sideways but by that point the plane continued its roll and hit the water before her seat departed.

True story. In HS driver education class one day it was me and 3 young ladies, driving around the parking lot through the cones they'd set up. The instructor was watching from his van, with radios in each car for him to give us instructions.

All of a sudden, he calls out my name and asks me to stop by his van the next trip around, so I'm wondering what I screwed up on. So he says "stay away from these girls, give 'em plenty of room. I've been doing this for 20 years and I don't know what it is but they just can't drive worth sh**!! About 10 minutes later one of 'em jumped the curb and parked it in the bushes.

Sweet Lawby Jeebus is that video hilarious!

There's a bunch of them out there. They were all the rage before the nudsack likken senior zeros put the kibosh on them.

I watched that video. Her seat ejected .4 seconds later than his. It looks like her seat ejected before hitting the water, but it shot her directly into the water.

Was she a Commanding Officer, or a Team Leader?

There's quite a big distinction between being relieved of duties as a Commanding Officer, and relieved as a 'team leader'.

The headline says relieved of command, but the text reads relieved of duties as Demo Team leader.

Yep. PRM knows whatever the sequence was in the Tomcat but in command eject (were the RIO ejects both) the rear seat goes first after the canopy leaves then the front seat.

In the Prowler the left rear, right rear, left front and then the pilot with .4 seconds between each to avoid hitting each other and toasting your neighbor with seat rocket blast. To save time we went through the canopy.

Whatever this woman did I suspect it has nothing to do with flying,.

Probably media embellishment. She graduated from the USAF Academy in 2011. Even the Air Force isn't stupid enough to put a 30-year old O-3 in command of anything.

Average of only 125 hrs per year, and that's covering multiple aircraft types.

lower flight hours are cited as a potential reason for numerous air mishaps that have taken place.
USMC pilots average 14 -16 hr/month, USAF 9- 10 hr/month.



"I removed Capt. Kotnik from her position as the commander of the Viper Demo team yesterday,
because I lost confidence in her ability to lead the team.

I know that loss of confidence is a common response from the Air Force, whenever someone is removed
from a command position, and I think it’s important to understand why we take this approach.

We have thousands of Airmen across our Air Force serving our country, and not one of them is perfect.
As good people, like Capt. Kotnik make mistakes, I want them to have the opportunity to learn from them
without being under public scrutiny, and to continue to be a part of this great service. They’ll be better for
the experience, and in turn, we’ll be better as an Air Force.

In these types of situations, I never forget that we’re dealing with real human beings, that I care deeply about,
and that we are charged to take care of. This will be a difficult time for Capt. Kotnik, but she’s surrounded by
wingmen that will help her every step of the way.

It was exciting to have the first female demo team pilot here at Shaw, but I’m also just as excited about the
many other females that are serving with great distinction across our Air Force. I’m proud to serve with them,
and I’m inspired by them. Even as I speak, another female pilot from the 20th Fighter Wing is flying combat
missions in the Middle East.

Maj. Waters, last season’s Viper Demo pilot has resumed command, so the team is in great hands, and
the show will go on. We’re looking forward to another amazing season with this team."

- Col. Derek O’Malley
Commander, 20th Fighter Wing

I'm thinking she was OIC (Officer in Charge) of the demo team. She would have to answer to the squadron commander who answered to the wing commander that fired her.

I agree she didn't have a high amount of flying time for an O-3 with eight years TIS. Without seeing her career path it's hard to judge her experience level.

My mistake, I didn't remember that he lived, I thought he'd died too.

I was a couple of years after her getting my wings. I'm a Marine so didn't fly with her but when I got to Meridian as an instructor there were several guys in my squadron who knew her and had flown with her or waved her at the ship.

At the time it was almost impossible for a woman or minority to not succeed, they were given a pass on performance that would have gotten a non-minority male booted long before. Hultgreen's accident changed that a bit, but not by much. The Navy didn't like the bad publicity that came when it was obvious relaxing of standards to get a woman into a fighter contributed to her death.

Terri Wolthers was another that got killed when she shouldn't have been flying jets. She was awarded helos out of primary flight training but threw out a sexual harassment complaint against one of instructors at Whiting, suddenly a jet slot appeared for her to keep her quiet. She got killed in a T-2 accident at Meridian as a student.

Damn!

Thanks to both of you guys for posting that.

This.



I held three commands in my career and can say with authority it’s not for everyone.

I doubt it has anything to do with gender.

I'm an Air Force brat so I look at jets on You Tube.

On my feed today, our girl Kotnick.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zloIsBBjM0A

That's kind of what I was thinking. Didn't sound like she was in a Command billet.

Thanks for posting DS. Hope her career withstands this demotion. With this family pedigree I doubt this was about her flying skills,but some PC thing.

HAHAHAH you guys are too much! But id lay 8 to 5 one of you is correct!

If i was going to be shot down...id want it to be by her LOL

The RIO survived and your post is 100% correct. All the flag officers poring over this mishap and re-writing the narrative knew is as well. And, what really sticks in my craw, is the Navy spent millions to recover her remains and subsequent transport and burial. Prior to this there were scores of other aviators who died in similar ways but we never bothered to recover...

I was in VAQ-35 in my 2nd tour when Hulk was in VAQ-33 flying EA-6A's in the FTRG mission so flew a lot in formation with her, briefs and debriefs and such. The unwillingness to listen to paddles (or anyone else with experience) and change was no surprise to anyone.

When females hit the VAQ community, of the first four two got pregnant out of wedlock and missed their deployments (one by her dept head) and the other two did one cruise and never flew again. Their ability in the airplane is no different than anyone else. Some good, some bad, most average. The integration into the tac air life and boat life.... I see more minus than plus but then I've been retired for 10 years now and the folks serving today are wired very different than we were.

Wondering if she’ll keep flying since her firing was apparently a “command” issue rather than flying skills. Hate to see her grounded because she obviously has the skills to fly.

?

The motorsports community has welcomed women with open arms. In fact, it has given them opportunities they wouldn't have had as men. I wonder why none have risen above the level not quite mediocre.

Pardon an aside here. When I was in Kodiak there was a retired Navy Fighter pilot who would visit the island several times a year. He was in his 70's but had more enthusiasm for life and energy than most teens do. I befriended him. Captain Hank Smith. There's a term, I have forgotten what it is, for when a carrier jet gets lobbed off the front and splashes rather than launches. In the early days of aircraft carriers, that was a death sentence. The carriers make good forward speed during the launches to give the jets more relative wind. When the planes splash into the water, the carrier runs over them. Captain Hank Smith was the first pilot to have survived that.

I figured out very early in my career that I wasn't command material.

"Cold Cat Shot" (cat=catapult). practically impossible nowadays....thank GOD

I could post reams of data as to why putting women in ANY of the martial professions is all about politics at the risk of combat effectiveness resulting in loss of life, but here's the bottom line: The human race has been involved in conflict for at least 500,000 years (sorry bible aficionados) and if women would have been worth a f u c k, we'd have used them in fighting wars from the get go. There are tons of publications out there, but the best one was a book titled "Weak Link, The Femenization of the American Military". Came out circa 1992 and the Pentagon had it removed from their book store down in the now closed Pentagon basement mall. Jim Webb's article in Proceedings, "Why Women Can't Fight" is another good one. Also, lots of data on the Israelis and the Russians (the two countries who used them in modern times out of desperation, learned the lesson and quickly dropped the notion).

One lasr thought, ever wonder why there are NO female Israeli Fighter Pilots? think about that....

Jorge,

I'm gonna find those two books.

Thanks.


Travis

I decided at birth I was command material.

Problem is, nobody ever gave me a command.

One is a book "Weak Link" the other is an article published in Naval Institute Proceedings. There is another great article in there, written in the mid-90s and I think it's titled "on board the USS Mike Boorda" He was the Chief Of Naval Operations (CNO) who shot himself.

Awesome.

Thanks again.

Here you go. Surprised it's still available;

link

I suspect that everything we think we know today about female Russian combat pilots in WWII originated from a single source - the Soviet Army's propaganda wing.

Most of it horse schidt.

Since you brought it up. When this whole post-Tailhook femenazi witch hunt sent the Pentagon into a panic, President Bush commissioned a study be made about the removal of Title Ten restrictions on females. The final vote of the panel was 7-1 one against, but obviously congress ignored it. Among the examples covered were the Russian use of women during WWII and the Arab-Israeli war of 1948 that as some of you know, started the DAY Israel was granted independence. In both case studies it was shown those integrated units in direct combat with the enemy, suffered upwards of 66% greater casualties with the common denominator was men, trying to recover wounded females from the field. Both countries told us not to do it and to this day, neither country has yet to field them in direct combat units and especially in the IAF.....

Good Lord...take a look at the description of Wolther’s crash site...gruesome.

https://m.facebook.com/LyinDoc124/posts/2314409051918310

Not so gruesome if you are a military aviator. Rather common experience for most I would suspect. After one or two, one becomes numb to the blood and guts and deaths. Flying military aircraft is a very unforgiving activity and does not suffer fools lightly.

Sounds like her instructor killed her. At the very least she was failed by many before she even climbed in the jet that day.

Jorge, I bought that book back in 2015 after you recommended it. Required reading for anyone interested in becoming informed on the topic.

As a former Naval Aviation Safety officer, I would drill down a bit deeper than the student or instructor. Ultimately their commanding officer and even up to the Training Wing Commander are responsible for those two deaths.

What is the actual mortality rate for pilots training in the military? We occasionally here about the random incident, but I doubt we hear about them all?

MadMooner, you may find this an interesting read . . .

https://www.militarytimes.com/news/...cidents-133-troops-killed-in-five-years/

As part of the higher education bubble, universities have been churning out graduates in disciplines that have no practical or economic benefit and are good for only one industry; the Diversity (Grievance) Industry.

A quick look at the DoD Office for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (ODEI) website will give you a peek into the little shop of intellectual horrors of the cultural Marxists who control nearly every personnel policy decision in the military. And of course, each of the services has their own mirror image.

Who knows what the true cost in both dollars and human intellectual capital this self-licking ice cream cone is costing us.

My dad has some stories. He was in the Air Force in the middle 50s at a base that flew F-100s. He was a meteorologist but the F-100 still nearly killed him twice. I read the other day that they lost 116 F-100s in 1958 alone. Lots of gory crashes that happened right in front of him. There were also several KB-50 crashes.

Wolthers didn’t cause that accident, there were a lot of things that went into it including some systemic maintenance issues with the T-2’s that got glossed over in the report.

She shouldn’t have been in there in the first place though. She was on her way to cutting a swath through Naval Aviation during her short time there. She was a cute girl and used that to maximum effect lets just say. If she had lived I have no doubt she’d have caused another tailhook style incident.

Here's that article by Jim Webb Jorge mentioned:

https://www.washingtonian.com/1979/11/01/jim-webb-women-cant-fight/

I never served in the military so have no personal insight into the issue but it would seem obvious increasing the gay/transgender pop. in the military would have similar consequences, yes?

Captain Obvious here but in WWII we had one of the numerous training fields in my county. They trained American and British pilots prior to sending them overseas. Mostly it was P-51's that were used. You can still see five or six airstrips crisscrossing each other with no problem from Google Earth, now planted to corn, peanuts, etc. To put it bluntly, there were hundreds of deaths here from pilots failing @ takeoff or landing. I hunt a few farms off these air strips and it's kind of chilling to wonder how many pilots may have perished where I'm hunting now. Farmers bottom plowing have pulled up small parts of aircraft (all the big parts were gathered up back then). One person even found a wedding ring that was traced back via initials and such to a British pilot.

Yes, she was a very attractive gal. I was down the hall in VT-7 at the time and I think everyone in the hanger knew who she was. If I remember correctly her instructor didn’t feel comfortable doing aerobatics, etc. in the T-2 because he was a “big wing” kinda guy. When things started going wrong, he was out of his league so to speak.

With the speeds that are involved in aircraft crashes, gruesome details about the crewmen’s remains are a fact of life. We had a similar mishap in my Tomcat squadron with a crew that was practicing at Dare County bombing range to be an “Airshow Demo Crew”. In one of the maneuvers which was supposed to be a slice turn from 45 degrees away from show center, they only got 30 degrees off and therefore didn’t have enough lateral separation to complete the maneuver. Their ejection was too late and they had just barely cleared the aircraft when they and the aircraft hit the trees at about 450 knots. Soft, pink human bodies don’t fare too well at 450 knots impact.

Every mishap investigation I’ve seen has been similar.. you can get through it but you’ll never get used to it...

They have loose canon jobs in the military , but they keep a tight chain on them until needed...