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Air Force investigators were able to recover the front section of the Eagle’s radome, which showed an imperfection on the tip, called the nose cap. There was a gap between the radome body and the cap, with about 3/16th of an inch of sealant extruding from the section creating “an uneven aerodynamic surface,” an Air Force Accident Investigation Board report stated.

The F-15 System Program Office told investigators that an imperfection like this is consistent with wind tunnel tests that found it would cause a high enough yaw rate to create an aircraft spin.

via Air Force: Tiny imperfection on F-15’s nose caused October crash.

Attention to detail. Someone at some time likely replaced the sealant at the nose cap and did a poor job, or the sealant deteriorated over time and began to protrude, and no one noticed it.

The services used to spend a lot of time in basic training on things like making a bed with hospital corners  and shining shoes. The items on ones wall locker had to be precisely displayed according to a very exacting set of rules. These seemingly silly fetishes were no so much because the Army or the Air Force really, really likes tightly fitted blankets on a bed, but because they taught the simple concept of attention to detail. Very small things matter.  And once you learn to pay attention to small things like shining shoes and lining the toes of your shoes up on a line in the tile under your rack, you can learn other, more important details.

That’s not to say  I’ve never screwed up details. I’m quite good at making mistakes. And I certainly never enjoyed making my bunk or shining shoes. But I at least understood the reasons behind those tasks.