On March 23, the US Marine Corps announced the results of an accident that killed six people when a FA18 fighter attack aircraft and KC130 aerial refueling aircraft contacted and crashed during refueling training off Kochi Prefecture last December. The FA18 pilot belonging to the US Iwakuni Base (Yamaguchi Prefecture) concluded that the loss of situational awareness was the cause of the accident.
According to the US Marine Corps, two FA18s conducted air refueling drills over 15,000 feet (4600 meters) at around 1:30 am on December 6, last year. When the second FA18 leaves the refueling machine, it should fly under the body of the refueling machine, but the pilot lost the situation awareness. It has crashed.
According to US military officials, the pilot who caused the accident participated in the training without proper guidance, even though the flight experience did not meet the standards. In addition, there were problems in the management system of the unit, such as the fact that there were no air refueling drills scheduled on that day, and there was no sufficient briefing on training. “We must learn from this failure and not repeat it,” said Cradley, commander of the 3rd Marine Expeditionary Force of the US Marine Corps. (Koji Sonoda = New York, Takeshi Sato)