Word: cobras
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...allowing the helicopter to take off even though the Pentagon had ordered it grounded because of five urgent safety problems. Two of the five requested fixes were designed to prevent a loss of engine power, which investigators for the families believe caused the crash. The report concluded that the Cobra should never have taken off until these and other repairs had been made. Bell has shed little light on the tragedy. After conferring with Bell lawyers, eight of the nine employees questioned about their work on the helicopter changed their statements to shift responsibility away from their company. (Bell, citing...
Like a motorist picking up his car from the repair shop, the two Marine pilots expected their Bell AH-1 Cobra to be running smoothly when they went to retrieve it. After all, the two-man gunship had been in the Fort Worth, Texas, factory nearly a year for a $1.8 million overhaul. But Major Michael Browne and 1st Lieut. Robert Straw found enough problems with the chopper to delay their departure a day. Then, 20 minutes after they took off in the late afternoon of May 23, 1997, they were killed when their aircraft plunged into a field...
Browne and Straw, with 2,500 hrs. of flawless flying between them, spent the final seconds of their life steering their Cobra away from a school as its twin engines sputtered, slowing its rotor blades nearly to a halt. Upon impact, the aircraft exploded into a 1,500[degree]F fireball, fed by 300 gal. of jet fuel. The conflagration destroyed the helicopter, making it impossible to determine the cause of the crash...
...brass and the Marine Band. But the program has had powerful critics from the start. The Bush Administration tried to kill it, saying its $79 million-a-copy price tag was too steep. The Army has refused to buy the Osprey, citing its cost. Pentagon officials acknowledge that the Cobra's crash--and Bell's role in it--could complicate the Marines' efforts to keep buying V-22s because of doubts it might raise about Bell. "If the Marines come down hard on Bell, the whole program could be called into question," says Lawrence Korb, who oversaw Pentagon logistics...
...test pilot, won the Distinguished Flying Cross for piloting a C-130 cargo plane through bad weather and enemy fire to resupply a beleaguered U.S. outpost in Vietnam. Both of Robert's grandfathers won that decoration in World War II. James Browne, whose son Michael, 33, perished in the Cobra's backseat, also believes the Marines' dependence on Bell has thwarted justice. "I am very disappointed in how the Marines have treated my family...