Pax-based jet loses its canopy, forced to land

Pilot not injured as glass flies off at 23,000 feet

Wednesday, Nov. 25, 2009

For the second time in three months, a test aircraft based at the Patuxent River Naval Air Station has been forced to make an unscheduled landing.

The Navy has confirmed a media report that a T-2C Buckeye jet from its Air Test and Evaluation Squadron-20 (VX-20) landed at Leesburg Executive Airport in Virginia on the night of Wednesday, Nov. 18, after a piece of the plane's glass canopy fell off mid-flight at an altitude of more than 23,000 feet.

According to the Navy, the pilot was uninjured. Navy spokesman Billy Ray Brown said Monday that he could not confirm the size of the piece that fell off by press time.

"It was only a piece of the canopy," Brown said, stressing that the pilot landed as a precaution. "The landing itself was a precautionary measure."

The plane is part of the P-8A Poseidon Integrated Test Team. The P-8 is a new aircraft being developed to replace the Navy's aging fleet of P-3 Orion anti-submarine aircraft.

The Navy dispatched a C-130 cargo plane to the Leesburg airport Friday, transporting a maintenance crew to work on the damaged T-2C jet. Brown said that the C-130 has returned to Pax River, but the maintenance crew and the T-2C remain in Virginia.

Last week's incident follows close on the heels of a rough landing by a T-38C Talon jet Sept. 18.

Two Navy airmen ejected from that jet after bringing the aircraft in for a hard emergency touchdown at Pax River. The Navy said no one was injured in that incident.

"The two incidents are not related," Brown said.

He said the Navy will be reviewing last week's incident as part of its standard post-incident procedure. "Anytime an event occurs, we obviously want to get to the bottom of it."

The Navy's fleet of T-2s and T-38s is aging. Both aircraft were put into production in the early 1960s and ceased production in the early 1970s.

jfriess@somdnews.com