HELP: Military air crashes that changed aviation

[researcher85]

Hi there, Thought I posted this earlier but I seem to have failed!

I'm researching military air crashes at the moment, particularly American and starting from World War II. I'm interested in finding crashes that have, by way of subsequent investigation and research, changed aviation in some way - for example with changes to safety procedures or production/engineering and so on.

One example is the work done by Alphonse Chapinis who proposed changes to cockpit design (locations and designs of switches) after a series of B-17 runway crashes.

I'm looking for other examples of that sort of thing, and just wondered if anything might spring to mind on these boards? Any tips would be very gratefully received. It doesn't have to be all safety-related, but it does need to be a military crash.

One of the tricky things is that so many planes were unrecoverable! But any advice or ideas on this would be fantastic.

Thanks very much for your time

James

[Enemy Ace]

I would suggest the early F-100A program, and the problems with Aileron reversal (IIRC) that were traced back to incorrectly installed fasteners.... though the instructions were correct the worker who had many years of experience, who installed the bolts thought the instructions were wrong and did things the way he thought they should be...
This lead to our modern Quality control system in maintenance and carried over directly at the time into the space program and the "zero defects" system.

[SaxMan]

Mid-air collision between USAF T-33 and Capital Airlines Viscount Flight 300, May 20th, 1958 in Brunswick, MD. This collision and a collision the previous month between a USAF F-100 and United DC-7 gave the impetus for the Federal Aviation Act of 1958, which created the Federal Aviation Administration and thus created the forerunner for modern air traffic control.

[Tiger Tim]

One of the farthest reaching effects of a crash was from the loss of the prototype B-17. They tried to take off with the controls locked or some such and the investigation found the plane was too complex to be operated only by common sense. A checklist was created and nowadays you'd be hard pressed to find any airplane delivered WITHOUT one, from the huge A380 down to the simplest LSA.

-Tim

[JFS61]

Although neither military nor American, the scientific research methodology utilized in determining the causes behind the early DeHavilland Comet accidents was groundbreaking for its time.

[p51]

Look into the crash of the airship, "Roma," which ended the US involvement in hydrogren airships...