X-31: Breaking the Chain: Lessons Learned

NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center
NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center
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Published 2014-08-21
By any measure, the X-31 was a highly successful flight research program at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center, now the Armstrong Flight Research Center. It regularly flew several flights a day, accumulating over 550 flights during the course of the program, with a superlative safety record. And yet, on Jan. 19, 1995, on the very last scheduled flight of the X-31 ship No. 1, disaster struck.

Each mishap has it's own set of circumstances and it's own sequence of events. But those who study mishaps find similar issues: communications, complacency, unwarranted assumptions, human frailties….just like a chain. You make a chain -- a chain of events -- when you have any of these accidents. Any link of the chain, if broken, would prevent an accident.

The X-31 flight test team was the "A" team -- the best people, from every discipline -- from every organization. But they lost an airplane. If it can happen to the best team, it can happen to any team.

Created: 2005   Run time: 38 minutes 45 seconds

Produced by NASA Armstrong TV Services
All Comments (21)
  • @anibler
    6:47 The disbelief and dry sarcasm from the pilot about the pitot heat wiring issue is great. Ground: Yeah we think it may not be hooked up. Pilot: "It may not be hooked up." That's good. I like this.
  • @lakshandesilva4226
    That why I like USA they share the information so that others can learn .Thank you for sharing .
  • @drjzzz
    Mortifying failure, honest analysis, and spectacular response. Extraordinarily informative. Awesome.
  • @astrazenica7783
    All these x prototypes have been up there at the pinnacle of mankind's achievement. Americans should be very proud of their engineers, innovators.
  • @RoboTekno
    Loved this video. Thank you for posting. Very informative. Makes you think how important small procedures are, no matter how unimportant they may seem.
  • @pepperann5766
    What a awesome plane, such control, it looks like it's capable of flying itself. Thank you for bringing this to us.
  • @gyzfr6
    Excellent video NASA! Almost done reading Breaking the mishap chain. Great ebook, thanks for posting it ont the website.
  • @xray606
    That was great, thanks. I'd like to see more stuff like that.
  • @vicplichota
    Very informative and thought-provoking, thanks!
  • @controlledburst
    Excellent video. Study in post mishap sequences can be a greater value than the intended flight tests themselves. hankful no loss of life. Unfortunate loss to an historic aircraft.
  • @blakena4907
    That was a hell of a tumble all the way down. Squirrelly little aircraft.
  • @bigspiderman217
    These men and women are highly confident in their ability to perform the impossible. Because they do it all the time. Their cockyness is not bravado. It's Earned over decades of education, experience and as a group and individually they are among the brightest people on the planet. They seem more critical of themselves than anyone else.
  • @geoh7777
    "What can we learn?" First of all, this question has been asked so many times after a disaster like this that there is nothing to learn until team members will not tolerate "hot mic system didn't always work very well (8:34)," and other system deficiencies that prevent complete member attention to be present in the system. Why wasn't the pilot told at the beginning that this different pitot tube had no heat? Gross negligence? .
  • @WildBillCox13
    Glad to see our experimental aircraft push the boundaries of performance. The maneuvers were simply wonderful. This is the sort of steed that WW2 pilots envisioned when, as lads, they were thrilled by the high paced antics of Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers. A plane you can fling all over the sky . . . better than PAK Fa? Sweet!
  • @daithilacha1
    The Air France Airbus  A330 accident on that flight from Rio to Paris a few years back has eerie similarities to this accident, but with far more horrendous outcome.