But at Elmendorf only one plane had been damaged in the past five years before the AWACS disaster. The senior air traffic controller, Master Sgt. John Edwin Leis, did not respond to calls to his home and the base about the report. Crew Names; 1. All 24 crewmen aboard perished. equipped and AWACS system. The report said that Elmendorf AFB crash, fire and rescue vehicles were alerted before the aircraft impacted the ground. Boeing E-3B Sentry 77-0354 was military Boeing 707-derivative, a.o. The Air Force says its planes hit birds about 3,000 times a year and that the strikes cause $50 million in damage. The 1995 crash was the first ever of any AWACS E-3 aircraft since it came into service in March 1977. Crew of Yukla27. The Air Force says its planes hit birds about 3,000 times a year and that the strikes cause $50 million in damage. “Base fire and rescue vehicles were alerted at 0746:44 when the tower controller activated the primary crash alarm system (PCAS),” the report said. Elmendorf’s commander, Lt. Gen. Lawrence Boese, said he would decide in several weeks what penalties to recommend for those responsible.

Gresch and an AWACS instructor staged four re-enactments in a simulator and concluded: ``The air crew did everything humanly possible to fly this aircraft out of an unflyable situation.″ The last few seconds of conversation captured by the cockpit voice recorder portray a crew struggling to keep the plane aloft and lighten it by dumping fuel to prepare for an emergency landing. The low altitude of the turn made it impossible for the crew to recover from the stall in time to avoid impacting the ground. “The wreckage was located and For instance, they could have told airfield workers to check the runways more frequently, use spotlights at night or install the sound cannons many commercial airports use to keep birds from nesting.

"Yukla", from the Tanaina Athabascan Native American dialect meaning Eagle, the callsign of all Alaskan AWACS aircraft. At 07:43 Yukla 27 was holding short of runway 05, waiting for takeoff, when a Lockheed Hercules departed. “The modified Boeing 707-320B jet, used as an Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) aircraft, crashed and exploded shortly after taking off from Elmendorf Air Force Base, on a routine training mission. The E-3B AWACS replica is mounted in a climbing left hand turn, Yukla 27's takeoff that day--their mission. Other factors included the insufficient efforts of the air base to deter the birds, and the failure of the air traffic control tower to report to both the Sentry and the airfield management that birds were present on the airfield.The sequence of events during impact was also determined. "The [aircraft] then flew approximately [0.72 kilometer (0.45 mile)] before making contact with the ground and crashing in a fireball. The Air Force also hired 17 people who will be assigned to bird watching duties during the migratory season. Birds also flew into that aircraft, causing the crew to abort the takeoff at too high a speed. It got about 270 feet off the ground before crashing.Connect with the definitive source for global and local news The crash, which killed all the crew members on board, was the first crash ever of an AWACS plane. ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) _ A flock of geese caused the crash of an AWACS radar plane that killed 24 last year, the Air Force said Thursday in a report that faulted inaction by airfield managers and a controller. The aircraft struck the ground nose first and slid to the top of a hill, where the Investigators reviewed the flight and wreckage path of the accident aircraft. ELMENDORF AIR FORCE BASE, Alaska — It has been 12 years since that fateful day when an Air Force AWACS, call sign Yukla 27 crashed shortly after takeoff. The Canada geese flew in front of the E-3 Airborne Warning and Control Systems jet just as it took off and knocked out its two left engines, putting the jet in a slow left turn from which it never recovered, the crash investigation found. The C-17 crashed just 100 yards from the site of the 1995 E-3 AWACS crash. The investigation concluded that the probable cause was the ingestion of Canada Geese into the number 1 and 2 engines.

Investigators found the remains of nearly three dozen on the runway after the Sept. 22 crash, and the threat of birds on the runways was common at Elmendorf Air Force Base. Just before the AWACS began its takeoff roll, the senior air traffic controller in the tower spotted the geese but didn’t tell the AWACS crew, said Col. Thomas Gresch, the crash’s lead investigator. "The aircraft was also involved in the 14 April 1994 The aircraft, serial number 77-0354 with callsign Yukla 27, hit birds on departure from Elmendorf Air Force Base in Alaska, United States.With the loss of thrust from both of the left engines the …