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Aircrew nabs ACC Safety Award

By Senior Airman Rae Perry, 4th Fighter Wing Public Affairs / Published August 18, 2011

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SEYMOUR JOHNSON AIR FORCE BASE, N.C. -- An aircrew from the 335th Fighter Squadron was awarded the Air Combat Command Safety Award of Distinction Aug. 9, for actions during a temporary deployment to Hill Air Force Base, Utah.

The aircrew, consisting of Capt. Kendall Chudy and 1st Lt. Travis Slack, were participating in a large force exercise May 10, when their F-15E Strike Eagle experienced an unknown malfunction that did not have a corrective-procedure checklist. A light in the gear handle was on, the landing gear circuit breaker was popped and the landing gear arning horn was sounding, which was abnormal for their airspeed and altitude.

"It was odd, we had indications that the landing gear was up for several minutes," explained Slack, the weapons system officer during the flight. "Now we have a light that usually means it did or didn't retract or extend in response to a landing gear handle movement, but we didn't move the handle."

After confirmation from their wingmen, the aircrew began running the landing gear unsafe checklist.

After resetting the circuit breaker, the light went out and horn stopped but seconds later the indications returned. Their wingmen confirmed that all the landing gear doors were open with the gear still tucked inside. The crew then extended the gear while the wingmen noted that the left gear was slow to extend but locked in the correct position.

Hill AFB was operating under Category III operations, which meant crews had to take-off with less fuel to get off the ground and, since the aircraft manned by Chudy and Slack had its landing gear down, they needed to trick the system to access an additional 4,000 pounds of fuel stored in tanks under the wings. The first three attempts to transfer the fuel did not work because the landing gear circuit breaker was popped and had not reset. Chudy then co-orientated with the Hill AFB flight supervisor and declared an in-flight emergency.

While returning to Hill AFB the aircrew received a master caution and anti-skid light on the multi-purpose display. After running the appropriate checklist, the problem was still not fixed.

Due to an abnormal gear indication and the anti-skid light, Chudy and Slack chose to proceed with the landing gear unsafe checklist so they could land the aircraft safely.

"I have not taken a cable before," Slack said. "I was thinking it would be like on a carrier, but Chudy put the aircraft down perfectly and we were rolling down the runway for what felt like two minutes, before we saw the approach-end cable. You definitely know that your hook caught the cable, it surges you forward, but not violently like I thought it would."

After successfully completing the emergency landing, maintenance crews discovered eight wires inside the hung door caught fire, causing the alarms for the unsafe gear.

Chudy and Slack's quick reactions, disciplined trouble shooting, and checklist use resulted in the safe return of a $54 million U.S. Air Force combat asset to Hill AFB, and showed the excellent aerial abilities and disciplined airmanship of the 335th Fighter Squadron, as well as the 4th Fighter Wing.
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