A failure to properly follow procedures and a lack of supervision led to the death of an airman last year in Alaska. That’s according to a newly released Air Force investigation, which found that Staff Sgt. Charles Crumlett’s death while working on a F-22 Raptor was in part because of a lax attitude from his maintenance crew.
Crumlett died on March 15, 2024, while working as a weapons load crew chief at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Alaska. He was working on an F-22A Raptor fighter jet when a weapons bay closed on him, resulting in a fatal head injury. The Air Force’s Aircraft Accident Investigation Board released its findings on his death on Monday, breaking down the events leading up to the accident and what contributed to it.
Crumlett was working as part of a six-person team of maintainers. The group was servicing a F-22 at the base, specifically dealing with its retractable configurable rail launchers, which come out of bays in the fighter and are used to carry and fire different types of munitions.
Although Crumlett had worked as a weapons load crew chief for six years at the time of his death, handling planes such as F-15s and A-10 Warthogs, he had limited experience with F-22s. He had been assigned to the 90th Fighter Generation Squadron for only a month at the time of his death, and the investigation said that he had only conducted academic training for maintaining a F-22. Three members of the maintenance team were still in training.
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Additionally investigators found that the situation was made worse by the maintenance team trying to do several tasks simultaneously as well as a misunderstanding of the systems which resulted in the crew having a false sense of security. Rather than using a portable computer to control the bay, maintainers used a system inside the F-22’s cockpit, which did not have a view of the bay, against practices.
“There is no line-of-sight between the cockpit ladder and the right-side weapons bay, and the maintenance team chief retracted the [launcher] when all personnel were not clear,” investigators wrote.
Making matters worse, there was no clear understanding of who was in charge of certain tasks, leading to confusion as the team tried to complete them at the same time.
This all came together as maintainers closed the weapons bay for the rail launchers, while Crumlett was inside, resulting in a head injury. Emergency responders arrived and provided CPR and other aid while in transport to a hospital. Once there, Crumlett was declared dead.
Investigators also found additional issues with communication during the work. Noise from a nearby power station led to the team relying heavily on hand signals to talk, which led to additional confusion. The report notes that just before the bay closed, an airman gave a thumbs up signal, which was misinterpreted as an “all clear” message.
