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All the reserves that can be federalized (called up for active duty) are under the overall control of their service, in terms of doctrine and training, but the National Guard can also be called up by their state (or territorial) governors (unlike the “Reserves”). So a typical drill may be training on an Army task such as an “individual” task like wearing a protective (“gas”) mask, or a collective task, such as “live fire” with a howitzer battery firing a TOT mission. There’s going to be many checklists and on the more involved tasks, probably an outside (Army) evaluator too. A governor may want something else like, just for argument, everyone to dress up in tourism t-shirts and rake the highways, but, no, …that’s not what the Army or Air Force is paying for. State tasks like riot control used to be allotted one day/year, plus during my Basic, the Guard recruits left that day to learn to use night sticks (wasn’t on our Regular or the Reserve list of “things to do” … our drill sergeants kept us otherwise occupied). Also Guardmember day-to-day admin is controlled by their State HQ as promotion relies on “slots”. Logistics can be complicated but in the Army, individual gear is now issued to the troop regardless of component. The governor can call up the Guard, usually through state HQ, and make use of some resources if the state pays (though there are some “work-arounds”). Typically it’s the trucks … When Guard units are federalized, then their control switches to the Army or Air Force. Also, there’s the NGB (National Guard Bureau) in Washington DC that handles doctrine-level items for the Guards federal missions. States are allowed to have non-federalizable forces but they do not get much support in terms of doctrine and especially logistics (even rich states can’t really afford much state active duty). Veterans serving in state guards get reserve retirements points though.

In November of 2018, the Air Force released its full accident investigation report on this tragedy.(https://media.defense.gov/2018/Nov/09/2002061699/-1/-1/0/180502-AMC-MU%C3%91IZ%20AIR%20NATIONAL%20GUARD%20BASE,%20PUERTO%20RICO-WC-C130H-AIB-NARRATIVE%20REPORT.PDF)The anonymous response to this question cites only the first sentence of the board president’s “statement of opinion,” which starts on page 40 of the report. In my thirteen years as an Air Force safety officer, I rarely saw as comprehensive a statement of this type as was provided in this report. As is typically the case in most major aircraft accidents, there were multiple causes that led up to the crash., and they were very well spelled out.So first, let’s look at the full finding as provided in the “Opinion Summary.” “MP1” is “mishap pilot 1,” the pilot flying. The acronym “MC” stands for “mishap crew” — not just the pilot operating the controls. “MA” is the “mishap aircraft:”“I find, by a preponderance of the evidence, the cause of the mishap was MP1’s improper application of left rudder, which resulted in a subsequent skid below three-engine minimum controllable airspeed, a left-wing stall, and the MA’s departure from controlled flight. Additionally, I find, by a preponderance of the evidence, the MC’s failure to adequately prepare for emergency actions, the MC’s failure to reject the takeoff, the MC’s failure to properly execute appropriate after takeoff and engine shutdown checklists and procedures, and the Mishap Maintainers’ failure to properly diagnose and repair engine number one substantially contributed to the mishap.”Pages 42 through 45 of the report provide an excellent breakdown of why each of the four “substantially contributing” factors were so important in the overall accident sequence. First, an “emergency return” typically is briefed prior to multi-engine aircraft aircraft takeoffs; in the C-130, it’s vital to get some speed up so the rudder is not so easily kicked around. Having a plan, and consciously addressing the need to baby the aircraft a bit under such circumstances, both are necessary mental refreshers that always should be accomplished.Second, the pilot not flying and the flight engineer should have seen #1 not matching the other engines as takeoff power was applied — that’s when you call to reject the takeoff. Both the first and second of these fairly qualify as “crew” failures.Third, according to the investigation board, if the bad engine had been shut down immediately, it wouldn’t have been a distraction to the entire crew as it continued to behave abnormally. (I don’t entirely agree with this assessment; this crew strikes me as having been pretty much behind the aircraft from the start.) Beyond that, once they did shut it down, they were in a seriously hazardous regime that required careful handling but that was not forcefully called out or reacted to.Finally, the board went back in time to observe that the number one engine wasn’t repaired properly in the first place. That kind of “for want of a nail, a horseshoe was lost” first step often is lacking in accident reports, but it’s clear here. If corners hadn’t been cut — perhaps in part due to the impending retirement of the aircraft — the scenario leading up to the loss of control and crash never would have happened in the first place.I’m not lifting the burden from MP1 (RIP) — as the report notes in the last sentence on page 41, “If not for this left rudder input, the MA would not have departed controlled flight.” In fairness, the aircraft had been on the ground getting worked on in Savannah for almost a month, and none of the crew likely had seen any of the abnormal behavior of the number one engine indications before they fired it up for takeoff. (A different crew flew the aircraft into Savannah and reported the engine anomaly the month prior to the accident.)Still, if I went through the maintenance records before takeoff and saw all of the info about what had been done to the number one engine, I’d have been extremely leery of it. That would seem to have been a trigger for wariness instead of treating the flight as routine — they were more or less maintenance-checking it at the same time they were launching on the ferry flight.Thirty years ago, I performed a ferry flight of my own over a period of what turned out to be almost a week to go from Maryland to New Mexico in a heavy helicopter. Weather prevented our getting past Florida for several days, and honestly it made us want to just get the trip over with. However, you can’t ignore red flags you’ve been trained to look for, be they meteorological or mechanical. In short, the C-130 community is acutely aware of the risks of three-engine maneuvering, and the aircraft was still flyable. This was an avoidable and heart-breaking loss.

About Heather Penney and her brave assistance during 9/11 attacks.Heather Penney had graduated from Purdue University(USA), majoring in literature. She had planned on being a teacher. When government opened up combat aviation to women, Penney immediately signed up. She wanted to be a fighter pilot like her dad, John Penney, a retired Air Force colonel who had flown combat missions in Vietnam and was now a commercial pilot for United Airlines.After her training, she was assigned to the 121 st fighter squadron of the Air National Guard. September 11(2001) was supposed to be a typical day for Lieutenant Heather Penney at Columbia Air National Guard.On that morning she was attending a briefing at Andrews Air Force Base, planning the month’s training operations. At about 8:45 a.m., someone leaned into the room and said, “Hey, somebody just flew into the World Trade Center.” They thought it was a small general aviation airplane or some small aircraft that maybe had….messed up their instrument approach and they went back to their meeting.Within a few minutes, there was another knock on the door, “Hey, a second plane just hit the World Trade Center.” They rushed to a nearby television and saw the burning towers. It was clear, America was under attack.As confusion enveloped the briefing room, Penney’s commanding officer, Colonel Marc Sasseville, locked his eyes to hers and said, “Penney, you’re coming with me”. They quickly moved to the pre-flight area and donned their flight suits. There was no time to arm their F-16 fighter jets, so they would be flying this mission virtually unarmed, packing only their undaunted courage.There were no clear orders as to What to do ? What was the mission? Where were they to go? What were they looking for?Somewhere in the confusion as the pilots got into their flight suits and ran to their planes, the Pentagon was hit by 3rd hijacked American Airlines Flight 77. Reports circulated that a fourth plane, United Flight 93 out of New Jersey, was out there. Air command speculated it was also headed to D.C. for another strike on the Pentagon, or a strike on the White House or the Capitol building.Normally, preflight preparation for F-16 fighter jets takes a half-hour, allowing pilots to methodically work through a checklist. Being a new recruit, Penney’s only combat experience was in training. As they ran out to their planes, she started going through the checklist. Colonel Marc stopped her and said, “Penney, what are you doing? Get your butt up there and let’s go!”She quickly climbed into her cockpit. As she powered up the engines, she shouted to the ground crew to pull the chock blocks holding the wheels. Receiving the go-ahead from flight control, both jets’ afterburners belched out thousands of pounds of thrust as they took off and headed northwest, the last known location of the fourth plane. Word came to them that they had shoot-to-kill orders.Knowing that they had taken off with unarmed aircraft that could mean only one thing. They would be flying a kamikaze mission(making a deliberate suicidal crash on an enemy target) ramming into Flight 93, a Boeing 757 aircraft, nearly 7 times the weight of their F-16 fighter jets. Colonel Marc and Penney agreed upon the plan of attack. Marc would head for the 757’s cockpit and Penney would aim for the plane’s tail.As they sped out beyond Andrews Air Force Base, flying low at about 3,000 feet, they could see black, billowing smoke streaming from the Pentagon. Beyond the mission at hand, there wasn’t much else on First Lieutenant Heather Penney’s mind. She had accepted the fate of Flight 93’s passengers, believing whether she succeeded or not, they were going to die. She briefly toyed with the idea of ejecting from her plane just before impact, but quickly dismissed the idea, knowing she had only one shot and didn’t want to miss.An F-16 fighter jet, the same aircraft flown by Heather Penney, on September 11, 2001 flying over the burning Pentagon in Washington, D.C., painted by Gil Cohen. (Credit: VCG Wilson/Getty Images)It didn’t even cross her mind that there was a possibility the pilot of United Flight 93 was her father, who often flew out of East Coast cities. For the next 90 minutes, Penney and Marc made ever-increasing sweeps of D.C. airspace, looking for the fourth airliner. After about an hour into their mission, Penney and Marc heard that the Flight 93 had crashed in a field in Pennsylvania. Passengers on the flight had heroically prevented the hijackers from reaching their target.Now the mission changed from intercept to sanitizing the airspace. Not every aircraft aloft that morning was aware the FAA had ordered a national ban on takeoffs of all civilian aircraft regardless of destination. With the assistance of civilian air traffic controllers, Penney and Marc began to divert any aircraft away from the D.C. area and ordered them to land as soon as they could. They also identified first-responding aircraft assisting the rescue at the Pentagon.Penney and other pilots were instructed to guard the President of the United States as he flew home.At the time of the attacks, President George Bush was attending an elementary school event in Sarasota, Florida. When he was told a second plane had hit the World Trade Center and the country was under attack, he was escorted back to Air Force One and taken to the safest place at that moment, the open skies.Now, in the evening hours, it was time to bring the president home. Penney’s plane and the others patrolling the skies around Washington D.C had been equipped with live ammunition. They were also given “free-fire” authority, meaning pilots could make the decision to fire on any civilian aircraft deemed to be a threat, instead of waiting for authorization. Several hours after the initial attack, it was still unclear whether more attacks were pending.Since that day, she served two tours in Iraq, was promoted to Major, retired and currently works for Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Company.Heather Penney’s dedication to nation first, over every other consideration is truly heroic!!Story Credit : On 9/11, Heather Penney Tried to Bring Down Flight 93 in a Kamikaze Mission