Pilot showing off led to F-14 crash

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — An F-14 pilot was apparently showing off for his parents when his fighter jet crashed on takeoff Jan. 29, killing him, his crewmate from Maine and three other people, the Navy said Friday.

Lt. Cmdr. John Stacy Bates, 33, became disoriented after a rapid, steep takeoff from Nashville’s airport into a cloudy sky, said Rear Adm. Bernard Smith, who presented the results of a 2 1/2-month review.

Bates and radar intercept officer Graham Alden Higgins, 28, of Dover-Foxcroft, Maine, died in the crash, as did Elmer and Ada Newsom, whose home was struck by the fighter, and Ewing Wair, who was visiting the Newsoms.

Bates’ “judgment was influenced by his parents’ presence at the field and his desire to demonstrate other than a routine departure,” the report said.

It also said that two other airmen had asked not to fly with him because of problems in the past.

Priscilla Higgins, Graham Higgins’ mother, said, “The whole incident is so devastating and painful that the new revelations just make it all the more difficult to accept.

“I think that it’s unfortunate to put the entire squadron under the cloud because there are just superior people flying,” she said, “but I think the report does raise the question as to whether Stacy should have been recommended for continued service as an aviator. I don’t think it in any way pointed to Graham. I don’t think he (Graham) stood a chance. At least, that was our interpretation as it was explained to us.”

Bates was flying with the nose of the plane at more than 50 degrees, a steeper pitch than a high-performance takeoff allows, Smith said.

The pilot probably did not realize his fighter was headed downward until it emerged from the clouds, which were at 2,300 feet. That was not enough time to recover, Smith said.

The crash was one of three within a month involved fighters from Bates’ home base in Miramar, Calif.

The series of disasters prompted Defense Secretary William Perry to order all models of the jet retrofitted with a control system that keeps pilots from pushing the aircraft too fast or too hard.

In Washington, Adm. Jeremy Boorda, the chief of naval operations, said he has directed Adm. Jay Johnson, vice chief of naval operations and a naval aviator with F-14 experience, to review all the Navy’s Field Naval Aviator Evaluation Boards. Those are panels of Navy officials who review accidents or mishaps involving aviators; the Navy typically conducts about 40 a year.

Boorda said he ordered the review to ensure that pilots who shouldn’t be flying aren’t flying.

“Most people — and if they haven’t figured it out by now they’ll figure it out now — understand that a 50-degree climb into an overcast condition can produce this problem which can lead to a disaster,” Boorda said.

“Obviously, there was a lapse of judgment there, and it was uncharacteristic for this pilot to do something like that. I think we will learn the lessons from this and we will learn them very well.”