X 31: Breaking the Chain: Lessons Learned

By any measure, the X31 wasa highly successful flight research program at NASA s Dryden Flight Research Center, now the Armstrong Flight Research Center. It regularly flewseveral flights a day, accumulating over 550flights during the course of the program, with asuperlative safety record. And yet, onJan. 19, 1995, on the very last scheduledflight of the X31 ship No. 1, disaster struck. Each mishap has it s ownset of circumstancesand it s ownsequence of events. But those who study mishaps find similarissues: communications, complacency, unwarranted assumptions, human like a chain. You make a chain a chain of events when youhave any of these accidents. Any link ofthe chain, if broken, would prevent an accident. The X31 flight test team was the A team the best people, from every discipline from every organization. But they lost an airplane. If it can happento the best team, it can happen to any team.