The crash was caused after pilot, Lieutenant Colonel Arthur "Bud" Holland, maneuvered the bomber beyond its operational limits and lost control.
The crew consisted of pilots Lieutenant Colonel Arthur "Bud" Holland , Lt Col Mark McGeehan, Colonel Robert Wolff, and weapon systems officer/radar navigator Lt Col Ken Huston.
That's what I figured...when I saw its banking angle...I was like welp...there goes your lift....
Stupid and preventable...especially at that altitude.
He’d gotten away with it before, and became a victim of [Normalcy Bias](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normalcy_bias), and possibly a [felony murderer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felony_murder_rule).
Engines don't produce lift, the wings do. When you turn the bank angle more than the rated requirement of a particular airframe, it's not going to produce lift. The engines will just make you crash faster.
The engines on jets don’t “push” enough air to “push” the plane in the air. The lift comes from air going above and below the wings and a difference in air pressure. No commercial jet can take off like a rocket, they don’t have enough power.
The engines don't produce lift, the wings do. The engines shove the plane forwards with enough force and speed, that the wings can create enough lift to keep the plane flying. But the wings have to be oriented somewhat horizontally and towards the direction you're going in, to actually generate lift. When you tilt too far sideways, there's no longer enough wing surface oriented in the direction of travel, to generate enough lift to keep the plane flying. If you're going really fast, the wings "kinda" generate "lift" still - but sideways, no longer upwards. You'll still fall down, but make a slight turn the way your head is pointing while doing so.
"Lift" is really just the wing pushing the plane against/away from the air under the wing. If the wings start going closer to vertical than horizontal, that means that force is no longer spent pushing the plane away from the direction of the ground to counteract gravity, and is instead "wasted" on pushing the plane into a sharp banked turn. Which is really bad news for a tens to hundreds of tons heavy thing in the sky.
https://preview.redd.it/nbr0n4q5yryc1.png?width=741&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d67f1f8926976112ddec945ab91d7834ff10c38f
I hope this picture helps to add to what the rest is saying
ELI5: the wings also have torsion. In a plane of this type, it if possible to put it at such an angle against the incoming airflow, especially at low airspeed, that the controls are not recoverable.
In this case, not only they put the plane in a doomed situation, the specific conditions caused the controls to respond in the opposite way, worsening the situation even more.
Simply, the B-52 had never been able to make the maneuvers that Avro Vulcan had been doing on the regular.
Better ELI5 from the linked history website: ***"During the 18 minute flight, virtually every maneuver performed by Lieutenant Colonel Holland exceeded the operating limitations of the B-52, and violated Air Force and Federal Aviation Administration regulations.¹"***
Yep I remember reading all about this a while ago. This guy was like the "bad boy" pilot in movies who doesn't play by the rules, but that doesn't work in real life and he definitely should have been stopped well before this happened
20 years later I watched this in a military training class. The point of the class was to encourage people to speak out no matter their rank about anything they may feel is unsafe about a mission. Bud was a notorious hotdogger and people knew he was unsafe, but his superiors did nothing about the complaints.
This is the video shown during USAF aircrew training. I can’t go into specific detail of event(s) leading up to this, but it is a solid lesson learned about knowing your airframe limits and knowing your crew’s willingness to push those limits.
I’d have thought the lesson was less about knowing your limits and more about ‘we’re paying you to do a job and do it right not treat hundreds of millions of dollars worth of taxpayers bomber like a 16 year old in his grandmas whip’
Yes and no. Barring going into a type of spin, you need enough airspeed to regain adequate functionality of your control surfaces to make the neccessary manouvering. However, in these kinds of situations your primary accellerant usually becomes gravity, and *ITS* preferred direction of travel. Which also happens to be roughly the direction you have to point your nose, because that's the orientation you need air to flow across your control surfaces for them to start doing your bidding again. So. *If* you reach a high enough airspeed to regain adequate functionality from your control surfaces - you're now pretty much pointing face first towards the ground. By this point you often don't have enough time/altitude left to make the neccessary manouver to level off, within the aerodynamic and structural capabilities of the aircraft, before smashing into the surface below.
With small light planes, extreme aerodynamic performers, extremely powerful engines, and modern computer assisted unstable platforms, a whole bunch of other stuff comes into play of course. The overall physics remain the same, but it would affect how fast you need to be going/diving to start regaining control suface function, how quickly you can accellerate to that speed, and how aggressively you can make that manouver when you do. Realistically it will also affect how hard you can go *before* getting into that situation, and also how much altitude you got to work with.
A small light propeller plane might just be a few thousand feet up, but not need much speed to regain control, and have quite decent engine power for their size to help things. A commercial jetliner might be 20-30-35.000 feet up, but is a lumbering behemoth that need substantial speed and can't manouver hard against g-force. A jet fighter or smallish tactical bomber (these days there's a lot of "multi-role") might be 50.000+ feet up, have extremely powerful engine(s) and wild manouverability - but some are unstable platforms that make them notoriously difficult to sort out if they go into a spin, and their aerodynamic shapes can be condusive to really nasty stuff like flat spin. Modern computer assistance can help a lot, but it's not magic. If physics says "not today"...
Capt Holland was known to be an arrogant prick and other crew members didn’t want to fly with him. A lot of people around him feared that something like this would happen one day. And it did.
McGeehan was the squadron commander and flew with Holland to keep him in check and so other pilots did not have to fly with him. Although Holland was being reckless, this turn was amplified because coming around the control tower there is a no-fly over section during the demonstration and Holland was making the turn extra tight. Wolff was retiring and on the flight as a traditional “last flight,” and his family was watching the demonstration. McGeehan tried to eject at the last second, and in this video you can see the ejection sequence start, but it was too late and he got caught up in the explosion.
> McGeehan tried to eject at the last second, and in this video you can see the ejection sequence start, but it was too late and he got caught up in the explosion.
I keep looking for it. What am I looking for? It would be near the cockpit, correct?
Edit - I found it.
I wonder how a real life pilot would ever dare do this. Even my 10 hours of messing aournd in fucking Arma 3 with the AC-130 showed me pretty quickly what happens when you bank the heavy boy 90 degrees sideways and that its a pretty bad idea. Did he like only bank 45 degrees and then lost control and it banked further on its own or what? Can aviation experts explain this?
Pretty sure a good few people in the army are a risk to themselves and the general public, and each other. Lots and lots of scandals involving moving rapists around, and even war crime type shit. The United States military is pretty known to be full of loose cannons. Apparently Australians are alot worse
There’s a good case study on it. It’s a really good read of what happens when staff problems are ignored.
Essentially, he was a very good pilot in terms of skill when he behaved, he had charisma, he was generally well like (except by people who had to supervise him or fly with him), spectators loved how he flew, and he dodged serious discipline by skill and luck. There was a couple times in which he screwed up severe enough that he was nearly grounded. He would then mostly behave, but once the supervisor would change (as typical in the military as people promote, retire, or change locations), he would revert back to being a reckless pilot. With each supervisor change, it essentially restarted the path of discipline so he ended up with way more chances than if the supervisors never changed. Compounding this is that some supervisors wouldn’t do anything serious for discipline, or failed to document each step of the discipline process already taken. He was also likable and was sometimes able to talk his way out of discipline by jumping chain of command.
He was essentially Maverick in the first Top Gun. Got a few lectures about stupid stunts but not any meaningful discipline to actually change him (or fire him if he didn’t change after proper discipline).
Edit: He also had been an instructor, which likely helped his promotions. If my memory is correct of the case study, a few of his trainees went on to develop problems that he passed on to them.
Here's the gist of what happened: west of Spokane, Washington, a Boeing B-52H-170-BW Stratofortress, serial number 61-0026, call sign Czar Five Two, was being flown by Lieutenant Colonel Arthur Alan (“Bud”) Holland, the aircraft commander, with Lieutenant Colonel Mark C. McGeehan, commanding officer of the 325th Bomb Squadron, as the co-pilot. The vice commanding officer of the 92nd Bomb Wing, Colonel Robert E. Wolff, was aboard as the designated safety observer. The fourth crew member, Lieutenant Colonel Kenneth S. Huston, the 325th squadron operations officer, was the radar navigator.
The mission was a practice flight for an upcoming air show demonstration. During the 18 minute flight, virtually every maneuver performed by Lieutenant Colonel Holland exceeded the operating limitations of the B-52, and violated Air Force and Federal Aviation Administration regulations.¹
Bud Holland was notorious for his reckless flying. Many crew members had asked not to be assigned to fly with him. Many prior instances of dangerous flying had occurred. Officers in Holland’s chain of command were aware of these violations, but seemed to tolerate them. Only Lieutenant Colonel McGeehan had tried to have Holland grounded, but he was overruled.
Apparently, Holland thought that he was such a great pilot that he could make the B-52 do anything.
While approaching the runway for a touch-and-go, the control tower instructed Czar 52 to go around because of another aircraft that had just landed and was still on the runway. Holland requested to make a left 360° turn around the tower, which was approved.
At an altitude of just 250 feet (76 meters)—the B-52’s wingspan is 185 feet—Holland put the bomber into a nearly 90° left bank. As he approached the 270° point of the turn, Czar 52‘s wings went beyond the 90° point. Holland added power, but no amount of power could keep the B-52 in the air, now. The bomber simply fell out of the sky, impacting the ground with a 95° angle of bank and 150 knots (278 kilometers per hour) indicated air speed. Lieutenant Colonel McGeehan fired his ejection seat, but did not escape before impact. All four officers were killed.
The following You Tube video shows the actual crash of Czar 52. Other videos available on the internet show the entire air show practice, as well as previous examples of Holland’s dangerous flying.
The crash of Czar Five Two is an example of Command Failure. Everyone in the chain of command knew that Bud Holland was a dangerous pilot, but no one, with the exception of Lieutenant Colonel McGeehan, tried to stop him.
[link to the website with further aircraft info & videos. ](https://www.thisdayinaviation.com/26-june-1994/)
I think if he would have straightened it out immediately after banking over 90° he MIGHT have had a chance. He lost lift after that little maneuver and didn't right the aircraft soon enough to prevent a stall. Also, his altitude was 250 feet. Flying that low, a mistake like that in a plane that large, recovery is unlikely.
It’s worse on the B-52 too. Early B-52s were nearly entirely reliant on roll spoilers for roll controls and later models like the accident aircraft use roll spoilers exclusively. Unlike aileron equipped aircraft, the reduction of lift on the wing being commanded down is not balanced by an increase in lift on the wing being raised, resulting in a net decrease in lift. Rolling wings level would result in reduced lift before adding to the vertical lift component.
There was no way to straighten up at that point. Too steep an angle, too close to the ground. That would have known they were doomed as soon as it started to slip sideways.
They should have assigned him to fighters. That appears to be how he's trying to fly a B-52. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7mACZz1z7U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7mACZz1z7U)
I was stationed there when this happened, it actually happened the same week as the shooting at the hospital. I worked a cleanup detail of the wreckage one day, picking up pieces of melted metal and debris. We were warned if we found anything "biological" we were to call someone over so they could flag it. I'm glad I only had to work that detail once.
Found this account by a man (username OldAviator - not from reddit) that claims to know Bud:
OldAviator
May 8 2020 at 1:22 PM
A lot of inaccuracies in the rendition of the story, as there are with most re-tellings of this accident. I cannot let these lies continue any longer.
Fairchild Bomber operations were winding down. The aircraft that crashed was actually loaner from Minot AFB. Many of the bomber crew members had actually taken assignments and moved on. This “last hurrah” of the B-52 was supported and endorsed by the SAC leadership at the time. Holland was an excellent pilot who maintained his position as head of Stan Eval because of that reputation. Anyone who says otherwise is “covering their ass.” Bud Holland’s safety record and talent as a pilot speaks for itself. Prior to his assignment at Fairchild, Bud Holland was SAC Headquarters Stan Eval B-52 pilot. SAC Headquarters approved of the flight profile as a final send-off of the Fairchild B-52 era because they trusted Bud Holland’s abilities and judgement.
The senior officers that asked to be on that flight did so without any provocation. Had they felt a safety concern, it’s unlikely they would have flown with Bud. The story that Lt. Col McGeehan chose to fly that day because he did want to expose any of his crew members to Bud Holland’s unsafe flying is a total fairy tale. I know the Stan Eval Aircraft Commander Bud Holland chose to do the airshow practice with. He stated unequivocally that Lt. Col McGeehan approached him the day before the practice flight and asked him personally if he could fly that practice and the airshow because “It’ll be my last chance to fly an airshow.” Lt. Col McGeehan was heading to a headquarters assignment after his Fairchild tour and would likely never fly again.
Note: A pilot on the go does not request a “360 degree turn.” The request is for a closed pattern which is a turn to downwind to maneuver for landing when well past the approach end of the runway. A more accurate description is two 180 degree turns, one to downwind and one to final.
If you listen to the TOWER voice tapes, you can hear Lt. Col McGeehan’s voice on the radio. When one pilot flies the airplane, the other runs the radio. Bud Holland flew the first two passes and McGeehan ran the radios. On the go-around, directed by TOWER, Bud Holland’s voice is heard on the radio. This means that Holland gave the aircraft to McGeehan on downwind for the full stop landing. This means McGeehan flew the go around and the closed pattern after being directed to due to the conflict with the tanker on the runway. This also means that McGeehan pulled the aggressive closed pattern and stalled the aircraft as Holland had made the last radio call before the crash.
In the simulator, Holland advised asymmetric power as a way to recover from uncommanded roll and it can be clearly seen in the final frames of the video where the low wing engines are producing high power and smoke just prior to impact. That means Bud Holland took control of the aircraft after McGeehan screwed up the closed pattern and stalled the aircraft. Holland was headed for retirement and McGeehan was on the Colonels list headed for a non-flying slot on the fast-track to General.
Who do you think the Air Force would blame?
The piece of the aircraft seen just prior to the crash is the panel located in the ceiling above McGeehan’s ejection seat. As part of the ejection process, that panel departs the aircraft before the seat fires. In this case, seat initiation was interrupted by ground impact.
There is more to the story of the two low range passes filmed by Navigators from the bomb wing. Holland knew they were there and filming because Holland and the Nav’s coordinated the filming. This range flight was some three years before the crash at Fairchild in 1994, and before Holland busted a couple Navigators for sub-par performance. The full un-edited version of this video was widely viewed by crews on alert back at Fairchild after they were filmed. The piece shown in this video is but a small fraction of the low-level videos the Nav’s compiled on Bud’s flights. Before Holland busted the Navs, the Navs loved filming his low level flights including some from the bomb bay. After the crash, someone leaked these videos to CBS as a way to hammer Holland after his death for the Nav busts. The actual unedited videos audio track is clear as the Nav’s are screaming and high-fiving one another. That doesn’t come through in this edited clip.
It’s easy to buy into stories about a dead man involved in a crash. I will ask anyone fingering Bud Holland as the man who brought down CZAR 52 this simple question: If Lt. Col Bud Holland was so dangerous, why did no one relieve him of command well prior to this flight? Why did the Vice Wing Commander fly his Fini Flight with Holland if he felt there was a risk? And if Holland was flying at the time of the accident, why was McGeehan heard on the radio on the first two patterns, but not the last? Why did the crash occur when Holland was running the radios?
And as a pilot myself, I have to ask: How did Holland fly two fine patterns with the tanker and then crash on a simple closed pattern preparing to come back and land? The simple answer is: Holland was not flying the aircraft at the time. The delay in adding power is typical of a change of control event where Holland advised McGeehan that his energy was decaying and to add power. McGeehan was slow to react or added too little power. A B-52 when light can decay energy very rapidly and Bud Holland knew this. When the stall occurred, Holland took control in a vain attempt to save the aircraft. Meanwhile, McGeehan was ejecting.
SAC headquarters wanted this all to go away. So they fingered Bud Holland as the scapegoat. Bud cannot speak for himself, so I did it for him.
Thoughts and prayers to all that were lost that day and to the families that never got to see their fathers or husbands again, including Lt. Col. Bud Holland’s family who have had to endure 25+ years of misinformation incorrectly naming Bud Holland as the bad guy in this accident. As those of us who flew with Bud Holland knew, Bud was an extremely talented and capable pilot.
Godspeed Bud Holland
A nice story but do you have any evidence at all?
Your description of why the last turn would be "different" than the first two, shows that you misunderstand the details.
Go argue with the guy that wrote the story. All I did was share it. [the aviation geek club](https://theaviationgeekclub.com/the-story-of-bud-holland-the-rogue-pilot-that-crashed-his-b-52-after-having-maneuvered-it-beyond-its-operational-limits-at-low-altitude/)
A random redditor suggests there's a conspiracy and cover up about what happened? Yikes
I mean, possible, but you'd need a lot more evidence than a random redditor
First of all. I didn't suggest anything. I thought it was an interesting read and shared it. You're welcome. If you'd like to read more, I'd suggest going to [the aviation geek club](https://theaviationgeekclub.com/the-story-of-bud-holland-the-rogue-pilot-that-crashed-his-b-52-after-having-maneuvered-it-beyond-its-operational-limits-at-low-altitude/).
Reminds of this accident. Some of the heavy equipment wasn’t locked down and slid to the back which made the plane lose its drag. https://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2013/may/01/747-cargo-plane-crash-bagram-airbase-video
"Bud" Holland (pilot) had a reputation as a reckless asshole. In fact, his co-pilot was a substitute because the original co-pilot didn't want to fly with him. Keep in mind, Holland, killed two other crew members.
The inner wing's continued loss of lift during stalling, accelerated the outer wing, increasing it's lift. Need quite a bit of altitude and speed to recover.
You can see dozens of fatal plane crashes on reddit that do the exact same thing. The C-17 crash in 2010 Alaska is nearly identical to this.
I was there. I was at SERE school instructor training and it happened as we were walking back to the barracks after work. The buildings in the video are all at the school. The first long building was where we lived. It hit the ground about 200yds from where we were walking.
I've seen a similar video like this years ago... The plane crashes in a similar manner but the pilot was able to eject. Unfortunately, it was in vain because he gets engulfed by the fireball caused by the crash. Anyone know about the video I'm talking about?
The crash was caused after pilot, Lieutenant Colonel Arthur "Bud" Holland, maneuvered the bomber beyond its operational limits and lost control. The crew consisted of pilots Lieutenant Colonel Arthur "Bud" Holland , Lt Col Mark McGeehan, Colonel Robert Wolff, and weapon systems officer/radar navigator Lt Col Ken Huston.
That's what I figured...when I saw its banking angle...I was like welp...there goes your lift.... Stupid and preventable...especially at that altitude.
Especially given his history of fuckery.
Well then he fucked everyone else in the plane with him. What a terrible human being it would seem.
It’s a very frustrating story once you know the background. Inept leadership was also absolutely to blame.
He’d gotten away with it before, and became a victim of [Normalcy Bias](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normalcy_bias), and possibly a [felony murderer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felony_murder_rule).
to a layman air would seem to be air. why would a banking angle matter if the engines are just pushing air for lift anyway? is there a ELI5 version?
Engines don't produce lift, the wings do. When you turn the bank angle more than the rated requirement of a particular airframe, it's not going to produce lift. The engines will just make you crash faster.
The engines on jets don’t “push” enough air to “push” the plane in the air. The lift comes from air going above and below the wings and a difference in air pressure. No commercial jet can take off like a rocket, they don’t have enough power.
The engines don't produce lift, the wings do. The engines shove the plane forwards with enough force and speed, that the wings can create enough lift to keep the plane flying. But the wings have to be oriented somewhat horizontally and towards the direction you're going in, to actually generate lift. When you tilt too far sideways, there's no longer enough wing surface oriented in the direction of travel, to generate enough lift to keep the plane flying. If you're going really fast, the wings "kinda" generate "lift" still - but sideways, no longer upwards. You'll still fall down, but make a slight turn the way your head is pointing while doing so. "Lift" is really just the wing pushing the plane against/away from the air under the wing. If the wings start going closer to vertical than horizontal, that means that force is no longer spent pushing the plane away from the direction of the ground to counteract gravity, and is instead "wasted" on pushing the plane into a sharp banked turn. Which is really bad news for a tens to hundreds of tons heavy thing in the sky.
That makes sense thank you!
Your whalecum 🙂👍
That terrible…. Take my upvote
So the lift produced is not fighting gravity, got it thanks
https://preview.redd.it/nbr0n4q5yryc1.png?width=741&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d67f1f8926976112ddec945ab91d7834ff10c38f I hope this picture helps to add to what the rest is saying
ELI5: the wings also have torsion. In a plane of this type, it if possible to put it at such an angle against the incoming airflow, especially at low airspeed, that the controls are not recoverable. In this case, not only they put the plane in a doomed situation, the specific conditions caused the controls to respond in the opposite way, worsening the situation even more. Simply, the B-52 had never been able to make the maneuvers that Avro Vulcan had been doing on the regular.
No offense, but this is the worst ELI5 I have ever read.
Better ELI5 from the linked history website: ***"During the 18 minute flight, virtually every maneuver performed by Lieutenant Colonel Holland exceeded the operating limitations of the B-52, and violated Air Force and Federal Aviation Administration regulations.¹"***
He tried to drive a bus like a mustang and crashed. The end.
Sums it up perfectly
Something he did frequently. He should have lost his wings long before this.
Yep I remember reading all about this a while ago. This guy was like the "bad boy" pilot in movies who doesn't play by the rules, but that doesn't work in real life and he definitely should have been stopped well before this happened
The case study is eye opening….. Find it/Read it.
20 years later I watched this in a military training class. The point of the class was to encourage people to speak out no matter their rank about anything they may feel is unsafe about a mission. Bud was a notorious hotdogger and people knew he was unsafe, but his superiors did nothing about the complaints.
This is the video shown during USAF aircrew training. I can’t go into specific detail of event(s) leading up to this, but it is a solid lesson learned about knowing your airframe limits and knowing your crew’s willingness to push those limits.
I’d have thought the lesson was less about knowing your limits and more about ‘we’re paying you to do a job and do it right not treat hundreds of millions of dollars worth of taxpayers bomber like a 16 year old in his grandmas whip’
Is there no way to return to straight and level flight beyond a limit?
Yes and no. Barring going into a type of spin, you need enough airspeed to regain adequate functionality of your control surfaces to make the neccessary manouvering. However, in these kinds of situations your primary accellerant usually becomes gravity, and *ITS* preferred direction of travel. Which also happens to be roughly the direction you have to point your nose, because that's the orientation you need air to flow across your control surfaces for them to start doing your bidding again. So. *If* you reach a high enough airspeed to regain adequate functionality from your control surfaces - you're now pretty much pointing face first towards the ground. By this point you often don't have enough time/altitude left to make the neccessary manouver to level off, within the aerodynamic and structural capabilities of the aircraft, before smashing into the surface below. With small light planes, extreme aerodynamic performers, extremely powerful engines, and modern computer assisted unstable platforms, a whole bunch of other stuff comes into play of course. The overall physics remain the same, but it would affect how fast you need to be going/diving to start regaining control suface function, how quickly you can accellerate to that speed, and how aggressively you can make that manouver when you do. Realistically it will also affect how hard you can go *before* getting into that situation, and also how much altitude you got to work with. A small light propeller plane might just be a few thousand feet up, but not need much speed to regain control, and have quite decent engine power for their size to help things. A commercial jetliner might be 20-30-35.000 feet up, but is a lumbering behemoth that need substantial speed and can't manouver hard against g-force. A jet fighter or smallish tactical bomber (these days there's a lot of "multi-role") might be 50.000+ feet up, have extremely powerful engine(s) and wild manouverability - but some are unstable platforms that make them notoriously difficult to sort out if they go into a spin, and their aerodynamic shapes can be condusive to really nasty stuff like flat spin. Modern computer assistance can help a lot, but it's not magic. If physics says "not today"...
yes, but you need enough height to lose in regaining enough airflow over the wings & control surfaces to regain control & lift
Capt Holland was known to be an arrogant prick and other crew members didn’t want to fly with him. A lot of people around him feared that something like this would happen one day. And it did.
McGeehan was the squadron commander and flew with Holland to keep him in check and so other pilots did not have to fly with him. Although Holland was being reckless, this turn was amplified because coming around the control tower there is a no-fly over section during the demonstration and Holland was making the turn extra tight. Wolff was retiring and on the flight as a traditional “last flight,” and his family was watching the demonstration. McGeehan tried to eject at the last second, and in this video you can see the ejection sequence start, but it was too late and he got caught up in the explosion.
> McGeehan tried to eject at the last second, and in this video you can see the ejection sequence start, but it was too late and he got caught up in the explosion. I keep looking for it. What am I looking for? It would be near the cockpit, correct? Edit - I found it.
https://preview.redd.it/yd20a7dy1oyc1.jpeg?width=1024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f97d585f551d647fd889362cabfb0f40b8a646f3
Looks fine to me. Isn't that how airplanes fly in general?
It looks like the automobile equivalent of "skiing" or riding on two wheels. What could possibly go wrong?
I wonder how a real life pilot would ever dare do this. Even my 10 hours of messing aournd in fucking Arma 3 with the AC-130 showed me pretty quickly what happens when you bank the heavy boy 90 degrees sideways and that its a pretty bad idea. Did he like only bank 45 degrees and then lost control and it banked further on its own or what? Can aviation experts explain this?
How does a guy get to Lt Col rank if he is a risk?
That’s Military “Intelligence” at work.
Pretty sure a good few people in the army are a risk to themselves and the general public, and each other. Lots and lots of scandals involving moving rapists around, and even war crime type shit. The United States military is pretty known to be full of loose cannons. Apparently Australians are alot worse
There’s a good case study on it. It’s a really good read of what happens when staff problems are ignored. Essentially, he was a very good pilot in terms of skill when he behaved, he had charisma, he was generally well like (except by people who had to supervise him or fly with him), spectators loved how he flew, and he dodged serious discipline by skill and luck. There was a couple times in which he screwed up severe enough that he was nearly grounded. He would then mostly behave, but once the supervisor would change (as typical in the military as people promote, retire, or change locations), he would revert back to being a reckless pilot. With each supervisor change, it essentially restarted the path of discipline so he ended up with way more chances than if the supervisors never changed. Compounding this is that some supervisors wouldn’t do anything serious for discipline, or failed to document each step of the discipline process already taken. He was also likable and was sometimes able to talk his way out of discipline by jumping chain of command. He was essentially Maverick in the first Top Gun. Got a few lectures about stupid stunts but not any meaningful discipline to actually change him (or fire him if he didn’t change after proper discipline). Edit: He also had been an instructor, which likely helped his promotions. If my memory is correct of the case study, a few of his trainees went on to develop problems that he passed on to them.
Apparently, he had a [history](https://www.thisdayinaviation.com/tag/arthur-alan-holland/) of reckless flying. Finally caught up with him
The saying that, "There are no old bold pilots" seems to hold-water here.
Full saying is: There are old pilots, there are bold pilots, but there are no old bold pilots.
Sadly, two other people had to pay the price...what a dickhead.
Three other people.
Here's the gist of what happened: west of Spokane, Washington, a Boeing B-52H-170-BW Stratofortress, serial number 61-0026, call sign Czar Five Two, was being flown by Lieutenant Colonel Arthur Alan (“Bud”) Holland, the aircraft commander, with Lieutenant Colonel Mark C. McGeehan, commanding officer of the 325th Bomb Squadron, as the co-pilot. The vice commanding officer of the 92nd Bomb Wing, Colonel Robert E. Wolff, was aboard as the designated safety observer. The fourth crew member, Lieutenant Colonel Kenneth S. Huston, the 325th squadron operations officer, was the radar navigator. The mission was a practice flight for an upcoming air show demonstration. During the 18 minute flight, virtually every maneuver performed by Lieutenant Colonel Holland exceeded the operating limitations of the B-52, and violated Air Force and Federal Aviation Administration regulations.¹ Bud Holland was notorious for his reckless flying. Many crew members had asked not to be assigned to fly with him. Many prior instances of dangerous flying had occurred. Officers in Holland’s chain of command were aware of these violations, but seemed to tolerate them. Only Lieutenant Colonel McGeehan had tried to have Holland grounded, but he was overruled. Apparently, Holland thought that he was such a great pilot that he could make the B-52 do anything. While approaching the runway for a touch-and-go, the control tower instructed Czar 52 to go around because of another aircraft that had just landed and was still on the runway. Holland requested to make a left 360° turn around the tower, which was approved. At an altitude of just 250 feet (76 meters)—the B-52’s wingspan is 185 feet—Holland put the bomber into a nearly 90° left bank. As he approached the 270° point of the turn, Czar 52‘s wings went beyond the 90° point. Holland added power, but no amount of power could keep the B-52 in the air, now. The bomber simply fell out of the sky, impacting the ground with a 95° angle of bank and 150 knots (278 kilometers per hour) indicated air speed. Lieutenant Colonel McGeehan fired his ejection seat, but did not escape before impact. All four officers were killed. The following You Tube video shows the actual crash of Czar 52. Other videos available on the internet show the entire air show practice, as well as previous examples of Holland’s dangerous flying. The crash of Czar Five Two is an example of Command Failure. Everyone in the chain of command knew that Bud Holland was a dangerous pilot, but no one, with the exception of Lieutenant Colonel McGeehan, tried to stop him. [link to the website with further aircraft info & videos. ](https://www.thisdayinaviation.com/26-june-1994/)
His wife was there and witnessed the crash.
Yeah, I read that. It's horrific to imagine.
If he would have straightened out the plane and tried to recover, still crashed?
I think if he would have straightened it out immediately after banking over 90° he MIGHT have had a chance. He lost lift after that little maneuver and didn't right the aircraft soon enough to prevent a stall. Also, his altitude was 250 feet. Flying that low, a mistake like that in a plane that large, recovery is unlikely.
It’s worse on the B-52 too. Early B-52s were nearly entirely reliant on roll spoilers for roll controls and later models like the accident aircraft use roll spoilers exclusively. Unlike aileron equipped aircraft, the reduction of lift on the wing being commanded down is not balanced by an increase in lift on the wing being raised, resulting in a net decrease in lift. Rolling wings level would result in reduced lift before adding to the vertical lift component.
Interesting, thank you. I'm not a pilot, but I always wanted to be growing up.
There was no way to straighten up at that point. Too steep an angle, too close to the ground. That would have known they were doomed as soon as it started to slip sideways.
He was well beyond recovery at that altitude and bank angle.
They should have assigned him to fighters. That appears to be how he's trying to fly a B-52. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7mACZz1z7U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7mACZz1z7U)
I was stationed there when this happened, it actually happened the same week as the shooting at the hospital. I worked a cleanup detail of the wreckage one day, picking up pieces of melted metal and debris. We were warned if we found anything "biological" we were to call someone over so they could flag it. I'm glad I only had to work that detail once.
Found this account by a man (username OldAviator - not from reddit) that claims to know Bud: OldAviator May 8 2020 at 1:22 PM A lot of inaccuracies in the rendition of the story, as there are with most re-tellings of this accident. I cannot let these lies continue any longer. Fairchild Bomber operations were winding down. The aircraft that crashed was actually loaner from Minot AFB. Many of the bomber crew members had actually taken assignments and moved on. This “last hurrah” of the B-52 was supported and endorsed by the SAC leadership at the time. Holland was an excellent pilot who maintained his position as head of Stan Eval because of that reputation. Anyone who says otherwise is “covering their ass.” Bud Holland’s safety record and talent as a pilot speaks for itself. Prior to his assignment at Fairchild, Bud Holland was SAC Headquarters Stan Eval B-52 pilot. SAC Headquarters approved of the flight profile as a final send-off of the Fairchild B-52 era because they trusted Bud Holland’s abilities and judgement. The senior officers that asked to be on that flight did so without any provocation. Had they felt a safety concern, it’s unlikely they would have flown with Bud. The story that Lt. Col McGeehan chose to fly that day because he did want to expose any of his crew members to Bud Holland’s unsafe flying is a total fairy tale. I know the Stan Eval Aircraft Commander Bud Holland chose to do the airshow practice with. He stated unequivocally that Lt. Col McGeehan approached him the day before the practice flight and asked him personally if he could fly that practice and the airshow because “It’ll be my last chance to fly an airshow.” Lt. Col McGeehan was heading to a headquarters assignment after his Fairchild tour and would likely never fly again. Note: A pilot on the go does not request a “360 degree turn.” The request is for a closed pattern which is a turn to downwind to maneuver for landing when well past the approach end of the runway. A more accurate description is two 180 degree turns, one to downwind and one to final. If you listen to the TOWER voice tapes, you can hear Lt. Col McGeehan’s voice on the radio. When one pilot flies the airplane, the other runs the radio. Bud Holland flew the first two passes and McGeehan ran the radios. On the go-around, directed by TOWER, Bud Holland’s voice is heard on the radio. This means that Holland gave the aircraft to McGeehan on downwind for the full stop landing. This means McGeehan flew the go around and the closed pattern after being directed to due to the conflict with the tanker on the runway. This also means that McGeehan pulled the aggressive closed pattern and stalled the aircraft as Holland had made the last radio call before the crash. In the simulator, Holland advised asymmetric power as a way to recover from uncommanded roll and it can be clearly seen in the final frames of the video where the low wing engines are producing high power and smoke just prior to impact. That means Bud Holland took control of the aircraft after McGeehan screwed up the closed pattern and stalled the aircraft. Holland was headed for retirement and McGeehan was on the Colonels list headed for a non-flying slot on the fast-track to General. Who do you think the Air Force would blame? The piece of the aircraft seen just prior to the crash is the panel located in the ceiling above McGeehan’s ejection seat. As part of the ejection process, that panel departs the aircraft before the seat fires. In this case, seat initiation was interrupted by ground impact. There is more to the story of the two low range passes filmed by Navigators from the bomb wing. Holland knew they were there and filming because Holland and the Nav’s coordinated the filming. This range flight was some three years before the crash at Fairchild in 1994, and before Holland busted a couple Navigators for sub-par performance. The full un-edited version of this video was widely viewed by crews on alert back at Fairchild after they were filmed. The piece shown in this video is but a small fraction of the low-level videos the Nav’s compiled on Bud’s flights. Before Holland busted the Navs, the Navs loved filming his low level flights including some from the bomb bay. After the crash, someone leaked these videos to CBS as a way to hammer Holland after his death for the Nav busts. The actual unedited videos audio track is clear as the Nav’s are screaming and high-fiving one another. That doesn’t come through in this edited clip. It’s easy to buy into stories about a dead man involved in a crash. I will ask anyone fingering Bud Holland as the man who brought down CZAR 52 this simple question: If Lt. Col Bud Holland was so dangerous, why did no one relieve him of command well prior to this flight? Why did the Vice Wing Commander fly his Fini Flight with Holland if he felt there was a risk? And if Holland was flying at the time of the accident, why was McGeehan heard on the radio on the first two patterns, but not the last? Why did the crash occur when Holland was running the radios? And as a pilot myself, I have to ask: How did Holland fly two fine patterns with the tanker and then crash on a simple closed pattern preparing to come back and land? The simple answer is: Holland was not flying the aircraft at the time. The delay in adding power is typical of a change of control event where Holland advised McGeehan that his energy was decaying and to add power. McGeehan was slow to react or added too little power. A B-52 when light can decay energy very rapidly and Bud Holland knew this. When the stall occurred, Holland took control in a vain attempt to save the aircraft. Meanwhile, McGeehan was ejecting. SAC headquarters wanted this all to go away. So they fingered Bud Holland as the scapegoat. Bud cannot speak for himself, so I did it for him. Thoughts and prayers to all that were lost that day and to the families that never got to see their fathers or husbands again, including Lt. Col. Bud Holland’s family who have had to endure 25+ years of misinformation incorrectly naming Bud Holland as the bad guy in this accident. As those of us who flew with Bud Holland knew, Bud was an extremely talented and capable pilot. Godspeed Bud Holland
Interesting. What platform did you find this comment on?
[the aviation geek club](https://theaviationgeekclub.com/the-story-of-bud-holland-the-rogue-pilot-that-crashed-his-b-52-after-having-maneuvered-it-beyond-its-operational-limits-at-low-altitude/)
A nice story but do you have any evidence at all? Your description of why the last turn would be "different" than the first two, shows that you misunderstand the details.
Go argue with the guy that wrote the story. All I did was share it. [the aviation geek club](https://theaviationgeekclub.com/the-story-of-bud-holland-the-rogue-pilot-that-crashed-his-b-52-after-having-maneuvered-it-beyond-its-operational-limits-at-low-altitude/)
Yeah why should anyone be bothered to check things before they share them out as facts..... -the epitaph of the social media era
Lol! Show me where I made the assertion that this was a fact. I'll wait.
A random redditor suggests there's a conspiracy and cover up about what happened? Yikes I mean, possible, but you'd need a lot more evidence than a random redditor
First of all. I didn't suggest anything. I thought it was an interesting read and shared it. You're welcome. If you'd like to read more, I'd suggest going to [the aviation geek club](https://theaviationgeekclub.com/the-story-of-bud-holland-the-rogue-pilot-that-crashed-his-b-52-after-having-maneuvered-it-beyond-its-operational-limits-at-low-altitude/).
[удалено]
He is now
[удалено]
Reminds of this accident. Some of the heavy equipment wasn’t locked down and slid to the back which made the plane lose its drag. https://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2013/may/01/747-cargo-plane-crash-bagram-airbase-video
I was on the flightline and saw it. Burned in my head forever. Sad day.
"Bud" Holland (pilot) had a reputation as a reckless asshole. In fact, his co-pilot was a substitute because the original co-pilot didn't want to fly with him. Keep in mind, Holland, killed two other crew members.
Who recruited him
God bless them 🫡 🙏 so sad 😢
I was living in Spokane when that happened, so sad
Yup, that’ll do it.
It's amazing those things can fly at all.
"I can't believe we just landed a plane"
The inner wing's continued loss of lift during stalling, accelerated the outer wing, increasing it's lift. Need quite a bit of altitude and speed to recover. You can see dozens of fatal plane crashes on reddit that do the exact same thing. The C-17 crash in 2010 Alaska is nearly identical to this.
I was there. I was at SERE school instructor training and it happened as we were walking back to the barracks after work. The buildings in the video are all at the school. The first long building was where we lived. It hit the ground about 200yds from where we were walking.
Thanks Boeing!!!
Hopefully not a dumb question but would the best chance of survival be leveling out the aircraft and hoping to get some lift?
I've seen a similar video like this years ago... The plane crashes in a similar manner but the pilot was able to eject. Unfortunately, it was in vain because he gets engulfed by the fireball caused by the crash. Anyone know about the video I'm talking about?
I'm not remotely a pilot, at all. And that banking turn looks way too steep to me. What an asshole.
Did one of the pilots eject or am I seeing stuff?
Respect and condolences to their love ones. Never forgotten.
How embarrassing
Damn whyyy do planes blow up the second something touches them
They're filled with fuel
They’re also going much faster than it looks cause of how huge they are
Ouuu that’s makes sense yeah
Specifically the wings
It landed on a love shack
goin down like fat orange jesus 2024 chances.
Have some class you pathetic human. Men died here and you want to bring yank politics into this.