Marine Corps Times
December 24, 2001
Pg. 13

Wing Damage Forces Prowler Groundings, Flight Restrictions

By Christian Lowe, Times staff writer

Wear and tear from years of high operational tempo led officials to ground more than 60 percent of the Navy and Marine Corps EA-6B Prowler aircraft or restrict them to less rigorous flight profiles.

On Nov. 28, Navy officials grounded eight Prowlers, including one Marine jet, after cracks on center wing panels made the aircraft unsafe to fly. Each jet could be grounded for at least six months while repairs are made.

Another 51 Prowlers were under flight profile restrictions as of May 1, in hopes that wing fatigue on those planes could be slowed, Navy officials said. Twelve of those aircraft are in Marine electronic-warfare squadrons at Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point, N.C.

The Prowler is a "low-density, high-demand" asset, as the only electronic-warfare aircraft in the military inventory after the Air Force retired its EF-111 Raven aircraft in 1998.

The Navy and Marine Corps operate a fleet of 122 EA-6Bs, used almost daily to jam radar and other communications in the skies over Afghanistan and Iraq. The Corps has a total of 20 Prowlers in four squadrons at MCAS Cherry Point; the Navy operates the rest.

Prowlers have been an integral part of strike missions during operations including Desert Storm, Northern Watch and Allied Force. When U.S. jets fly over enemy territory, there usually are a few Prowlers in the sky blinding en-emy radar. This high demand puts a strain on the aircraft, some of which are nearly 30 years old.

"Based on a recently completed engineering analysis, [the Navy concluded] that the eight aircraft have an unacceptably high level of fatigue damage and consequently have too great a potential for in-flight catastrophic failure of the wing," Navy officials said in a prepared statement for Marine Corps Times.

An aluminum alloy used in the construction of some of the Prowlers is more susceptible to the cracking and fatigue, Navy officials said.

In addition to the eight that were grounded last month, 17 Prowlers have been shown to be "rapidly reaching their safe limits and may be grounded if the new wing center sections are not available in time," Navy officials said. They wouldn t stipulate how many of those 17 are Marine Corps aircraft, however. It is unclear whether those 17 are among the 51 now under flight restrictions.

The maneuvering restrictions placed on the 51 Prowlers are intended "to mitigate the risk of continuing to operate the aircraft," Navy officials said. "Subsequent testing and engineering analysis has conclusively shown that the maneuvering restrictions provided a less-than-adequate safety margin for the aircraft" that have been grounded.

Keeping the aging aircraft in good working order has been a chore for the Navy in recent years, government auditors said. Northrop Grumman built 170 EA-6Bs between 1971 and 1991. The Pentagon has been conducting a study to find a replacement for the Prowler, which is to be retired in 2015. Those findings have not been released, however.

In a 1991 service-life assessment, Navy officials predicted the problem and laid the groundwork to buy replacement wing panels for 102 aircraft by 2005. Thirty-three wing sections have been replaced so far, a Navy official said.

But in a separate analysis conducted earlier this year, the Navy calculated that the wings were reaching their limits sooner than projected.

Internal Navy budget documents reveal that the service lost a battle for an additional $35 million in the fiscal 2002 defense budget for Prowler wing replacements. The funding would have increased the replacement rate from 10 per year to 18 per year, the documents show.

Lawmakers failed to add the requested money, instead sticking with the administration s original request of $137.4 million.

All four Marine Prowler squadrons have felt the impact of the grounding and flight restrictions. A dozen Marine Corps Prowlers have been restricted to less aggressive flight maneuvers. Of these, three are from VMAQ-1, three are from VMAQ-2, two are from VMAQ-3 and four are from VMAQ-4. In addition, one VMAQ-1 Prowler has been grounded.

Though more than half of the Marine Prowlers are either grounded or face flight restrictions, the Corps is maintaining the squadrons usual flight schedules, said Cherry Point spokesman 1st Lt. John Caldwell.