Hope everyone in San Diego is OK

[RJF]

F-18 Crashes Into Residential Neighborhood in San Diego

FOXNews.com - F-18 Crashes Into Residential Neighborhood in San Diego - Local News | News Articles | National News | US News (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,463725,00.html)

[ThatGuy]

Last I heard they suspected it came from a training squadron. They don't believe anyone on the ground was injured, and the pilot's 'chute opened and landed him in a Highschool baseball field.

Something must have went REALLY wrong for him to have ejected over a populated area like that.

I feel bad for the people that have lost a house and/or vehicles to this, and I hope it remains that no one was injured.

[dt-p88]

yeah thats crazy!.. hopefully noone was seriously injured

[C. Senor]

that's crazy. another example of how shit can hit the fan real quick. hopefully every one is ok.

[touge monster]

Damn thats crazy. Hope no one was home during the crash.

[firm tofu]

so far, they said 3 fatalities.

[punxva]

wow, i feel for all of the families that were affected by this, hopefully anyone on here who was close by is alright.

[origin_s135]

WOW. that really blows, i know people from SD. SCARYYYY, i'm calling them now.

[YoungGun]

Wow thats horrible.

I wonder how the pilot feels about this.

[JohnJohn86]

They fly so low all the time in that area, something is gonna happen sooner or later.
I work near Sorrento Valley and the windows would shake when they fly over us.

with all the fires and now this, I will never move to SD

[UfoZ8myCow]

Wow thats horrible.

I wonder how the pilot feels about this.

Sucks indeed. But like someone else said... With all the squadrons flying in and out of MCAS Miramar, something is bound to happen eventually.

No Navy or Marine pilot would eject over a residential area unless something was so horrendously wrong with the plane that it simply wouldnt go anywhere else.

Im curious to find out what exactly went wrong.

[Om1kron]

Officials: 2 dead, 2 missing after military jet crash - CNN.com (http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/12/08/military.jet.crash/index.html)

[Flipzide]

And this is why I have a slight paranoia in the back of my head while I drive on the 15 going past miramar....

Hopefully there aren't any more casualties and the pilot is physically and emotionally fine.

[Matej]

That would suck to be going on about your day, and then a plane falls out of the sky on you.

[BOROSUN]

damn that sucks, his plane kill 3-4 ppl and 3 homeless family. i would rather have died trying to manuver to a clear area if i knew that would happen.

[shishcabobers]

damn that sucks, his plane kill 3-4 ppl and 3 homeless family. i would rather have died trying to manuver to a clear area if i knew that would happen.

Well I was pretty much watching the news the entire morning on it, and what happened was he was trying to make an emergency landing which was a mile away. There was engine failure and the witnesses that called said that when it passed it was quieter then usual so basically it was out of the hands of the pilot.

[BOROSUN]

engine failure...cant you still steer it?

i like to know where he exactly bailed out.

i also checked the map there's a long and huge valley along the rr tracks. i would crash myself there.

[shishcabobers]

Supposedly you cant but correct me if I'm wrong. Also he bailed out pretty much at the last minute, from witnesses said he was really low to the ground. I think he was really trying to get the clear but just couldn't make it.

[ALTRNTV]

engine failure...cant you still steer it?

i like to know where he exactly bailed out.

i also checked the map there's a long and huge valley along the rr tracks. i would crash myself there.
I'm guessing since the engines were dead, he was as good as a sitting duck. I don't think he could have done much, or
steer, in that matter.

As much as people say they would have crashed themselves somewhere else, I'm sure when put in a situation like that.
you'd save yourself first and foremost.

[BOROSUN]

iono, not me. i'm the type that goes down with the ship.

[w0nderbr3ad]

I always see giant C-130s and other jets flying over MCAS all the time when I used to drive up and down the 15 or 805 for work. Prayers go out to the families that were involved in the crash.

[theicecreamdan]

wow, I can't believe I didn't hear anything about this.

[kevmeistah21]

that's intense.. like 3-4 people died? and the pilot walked away..

[jrocslider]

everybody was talkin about that here at the Boeing in San Antonio today. so sad to hear that 3 lives were lost. i read that there was a grandmother, a mother and two children in the home.

and Borosun says he would die with the plane? you are all talk until you are in that position. if it was more than just engine failure which nobody really knows at this point something could have happened to where his hydraulic systems also fucked up to where he could not steer.

[adrians_s13]

that's intense.. like 3-4 people died? and the pilot walked away..

that's what I heard as well. One of them was an infant.

fucking crazy man... :-/

[LoneStarSilvia]

Heard this tonight at work. Crazy indeed.

To be captain obvious though, that pilot will never fly anything again and could quite possibly be prosecuted and sent to prison.

Its the pilots responsibility to steer a jet away from endangering civilians like that and they're expected to fight to the very last second to keep that jet from putting people in danger, even if it means sacrificing his life.

Although I can't blame him, its only human nature to wanna punch out in whatever circumstances he was in, but to land it in a highly populated neighborhood is inexcusable unless that thing would absolutely not turn which is unlikely unless his hydraulics completely failed him.

Definitely interested in hearing what the official cause was.

Edit: After reading the whole story, this could very well be the cause.

"The Navy recently inspected hundreds of F/A-18 Hornets built by Boeing Co. after discovering "fatigue cracks" on more than a dozen aircraft. The Navy announced last month it had grounded 10 of the jets and placed flight restrictions on another 20 until repairs could be made.

The inspectors checked the Hornets for cracks in a hinge that connects the aileron — flaps that help stabilize the jet in flight — to the wing."



They grounded tons of A-10s for the very same reason here, hairline cracks in the wings. Scary shit.

[Pank]

Heard this tonight at work. Crazy indeed.

To be captain obvious though, that pilot will never fly anything again and could quite possibly be prosecuted and sent to prison.

Its the pilots responsibility to steer a jet away from endangering civilians like that and they're expected to fight to the very last second to keep that jet from putting people in danger, even if it means sacrificing his life.

Although I can't blame him, its only human nature to wanna punch out in whatever circumstances he was in, but to land it in a highly populated neighborhood is inexcusable unless that thing would absolutely not turn which is unlikely unless his hydraulics completely failed him.

Definitely interested in hearing what the official cause was.

Edit: After reading the whole story, this could very well be the cause.

"The Navy recently inspected hundreds of F/A-18 Hornets built by Boeing Co. after discovering "fatigue cracks" on more than a dozen aircraft. The Navy announced last month it had grounded 10 of the jets and placed flight restrictions on another 20 until repairs could be made.

The inspectors checked the Hornets for cracks in a hinge that connects the aileron — flaps that help stabilize the jet in flight — to the wing."



They grounded tons of A-10s for the very same reason here, hairline cracks in the wings. Scary shit.

what? why the fuck would he be sent to prison?
Do you think he ejected right when something went wrong? i guarantee you he ejected less than a second before impact

[SexPanda]

most of the airplanes we have in the military today have outlived their designed lives by years. They're just accidents waiting to happen...

Take the A10. They were all supposed to be decommissioned years ago, but theyre useful. They dont even have alot of specific tools to work on them. Back at whiteman, they had ghettorigged some f16 canopee supports to work on the damn things. And when you have a plane built around a huge fucking gun... Thats alotta stress. I guess its a little different for me. I've lived on AF bases all my life. Planes flying over all the time, a mishap here or there... Kinda sucks shit like this happens... A b2 crashed a little while back. A B fucking 2. If it goes up, it'll come down.

[irax]

will a pilot please come into this thread and explain the situation from a pilots experience?

A-10 which was grounded, no clue why lone star silvia brought this plane up
http://www.airforce-technology.com/projects/a-10/images/a10_2.jpg

f18, the fighter jet that crashed in San Diego's University City(AKA UTC/La Jolla) Area
http://www.indiadefence.com/F18-3.JPG


kinda hard to confuse the two.... still don't know why LSS brought the A-10 up?

Anyways I don't think the guy will be sent to prison or prosecuted if it was a mechanical failure, and not laps of judgment or at will crash. I mean... didn't you guys watch Top Gun??? I know it's a movie but basically same course of action...

[DataXUnknown]

Thats a bigger tragedy than everyone thinks. a $57 million dollar jet, 3 dead people and 1 missing, 2 $500k+ homes destroyed, 20 Homes evacuated..

It's really too bad there was nothing the pilot could do to get it away from residential area. Well of course we don't know that for sure, but still..

[S13SilviaGirl]

Heard this tonight at work. Crazy indeed.

To be captain obvious though, that pilot will never fly anything again and could quite possibly be prosecuted and sent to prison.

Its the pilots responsibility to steer a jet away from endangering civilians like that and they're expected to fight to the very last second to keep that jet from putting people in danger, even if it means sacrificing his life.

Although I can't blame him, its only human nature to wanna punch out in whatever circumstances he was in, but to land it in a highly populated neighborhood is inexcusable unless that thing would absolutely not turn which is unlikely unless his hydraulics completely failed him.

Definitely interested in hearing what the official cause was.

Edit: After reading the whole story, this could very well be the cause.

"The Navy recently inspected hundreds of F/A-18 Hornets built by Boeing Co. after discovering "fatigue cracks" on more than a dozen aircraft. The Navy announced last month it had grounded 10 of the jets and placed flight restrictions on another 20 until repairs could be made.

The inspectors checked the Hornets for cracks in a hinge that connects the aileron — flaps that help stabilize the jet in flight — to the wing."



They grounded tons of A-10s for the very same reason here, hairline cracks in the wings. Scary shit.


WOW. I don't know what to say to your post. If it was done with malice, then yeah, he can go to prison. BUT, if the shit was fucked up the shit was fucked up. Things happen. Naval and MC squadrons have RIGOROUS inspections, that trust me, are not a cake walk. From being apart of the F-18 community, I would have to guess that he had a major system failure for him to ditch in a residential area. Also, this is a legacy f-18, which means it is older. It is NOT the newer of the f-18s (e/f's). The legacy f-18s have been flying since the f-14 was in service. That is a LONG time in the air. If this was due to ailerons and failures there, then, the whole squadron will get it. First for Airframers NOT inspecting the jet properly, the corrosion team, plane captains, all the way to maintenance control. That squadron was on lockdown the moment he called mayday, and punched out. If there was anything shady or any maintenance mal-practice it will come out in the next few days. Yes, it sucks, and is a tragedy. But, as for anyone that lives near any airport, it is something that is always in the back of your mind.

I will say though, I am surprised his chute worked :keke: The Marine ALSS techs are not the best I have seen. I have had to fix a LOT of fuck ups on chutes from Marines not reading properly.



As for the people that bitch about their houses being by a military base, the noise, the danger....go piss in a pot. You bought the house knowing there was a base right there. Deal with it or don't buy the damn house.:smash:

[kevmeistah21]

what? why the fuck would he be sent to prison?
Do you think he ejected right when something went wrong? i guarantee you he ejected less than a second before impact

Well the pilot was able to eject out in the ocean to evade hitting any residential areas but he thought he was able to reach the airfield which he was suppose to land at but miscalculated..

[Koopa Troopa]

Thank god this didn't happen in Japan...

[Teambadrun]

Why? Or do you mean because of many houses nearby eachother?


I feel sorry for the people who died... They did nothing wrong :(

[Quail]

damn that sucks, his plane kill 3-4 ppl and 3 homeless family. i would rather have died trying to manuver to a clear area if i knew that would happen.

Sounds like the pilot was a sitting duck.

Eject and kill 3-4 civilians, or don't eject and kill yourself and the same amount of civilians.

I know which one I'd choose.

[RedStage]

umm...an airplane....without power to the engines will only stay in the air for so long.
They are not gliders and even gliders are affected by gravity....

Whether or not he had hydraulics really doesn't make alot of difference...

I feel for those that died in this, but honestly....would it make things better if the pilot committed suicide by riding the plane into the ground?

On the Japan comment....how close the houses are is one point, but I suspect the media circus that would have ensued had this occurred at any one of the US Airbases in Japan would have been a huge problem for the government....

damn....looking at the CNN info they have a map of the crash.....he was definitely trying to make it to the field....

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/US/12/08/military.jet.crash/index.html#cnnSTCOther1

[Om1kron]

engine failure...cant you still steer it?

i like to know where he exactly bailed out.

i also checked the map there's a long and huge valley along the rr tracks. i would crash myself there.

it's a fucking jet not a propeller plane, the engine on a jet dies it becomes a paperweight susceptible to gravity... thus no maneuvering... it goes straight down as it loses propulsion.

[butters149]

flyng brick

[HyperTek]

its just tragic and should have been avoided.. Im sure the pilot did not intend for this, he did the best he could.

[HyperTek]

the husband is on the news right now giving a speech.. poor guy, lost everything. Thats got to be the most difficult thing to deal with. New family, house, gone.

[ALTRNTV]

I saw the press conference. Felt bad for the guy, his wife, 2 kids, and mother-in-law, all dead. I applaud him for not blaming the pilot, as he had good words for him, calling him a "treasure of this country".

[blu808]

4th victim 15 month old baby was just found.

Poor family.

[LoneStarSilvia]

I brought up the A-10 because it was under similar problems when they were grounded, they found cracks in the wings and they began to go under inspections and repairs. Thats what they stated in the article, the were going through similar stuff. Alot of A-10s are still flying obviously, only the ones deemed flyable are still flying everyday.

I said the thing about pilot because he's in the military obviously, not some commercial pilot that just had an "oops" moment. There is no excuses for shit going wrong UNLESS HE ABSOLUTELY HAD NO CHOICE. Funny, thats what I said in my original post.

When the investigation is done and the report comes back and it says anything about him having the slightest chance to have recovered the jet in some way that could've kept from civilians being injured, I garauntee they'll prosecute him on that.

If there's one thing I've learned from being in the military, if something goes this bad, someone is going to be blamed. So like I've said, again, unless he had no chance of directing it somewhere else, he'll never fly again. Period.

[S14DB]

Man who lost family when jet hit house: I don't blame pilot - CNN.com (http://edition.cnn.com/2008/US/12/09/military.jet.crash/index.html?iref=mpstoryview)

Jets without engines are like bricks. They just dead stick, stall and go in like a rock.

It's not like a nice a slow high wing propeller craft that you can land dead stick.

Fighter Jets have ejection seats cause there is no chance of recovery when everything goes to shit. Odds are that they will be in the middle of nowhere.

I dunno why people keep building houses close to airports.

[mrmephistopheles]

To be captain obvious though, that pilot will never fly anything again and could quite possibly be prosecuted and sent to prison.

Its the pilots responsibility to steer a jet away from endangering civilians like that and they're expected to fight to the very last second to keep that jet from putting people in danger, even if it means sacrificing his life.

First comment is so ignorant I'm hesitant to pursue correcting you on it.

Second comment is nearly so, with the exception of the somewhat true part.

Also the speculation in regard to stress cracks or whatever being related to this crash... Well... WAY TO SPECULATE! :golfclap:

The pilot will be investigated, sure, but I can all but guarantee you he was doing everything in his power to avoid crashing in the first place, and into a residential neighborhood secondarily. Prosecution and prison is appropriate for a malicious or neglectful act, but this was neither. That aircraft (from what I've read) was very quiet when it came down and was already on one engine to begin with (the reason it was coming to Miramar). Reports said he punched out at ~100ft off the ground. Even if he were 200ft when he punched out, it would have made maybe 5 feet worth of difference.
You can armchair pilot all day, but this guy didn't want to have 4 innocent deaths on his head for the rest of his life, no matter how you slice it. I also read that he was trying to put it into the canyon, and from the position of the house, he was damn near doing so.

Well the pilot was able to eject out in the ocean to evade hitting any residential areas but he thought he was able to reach the airfield which he was suppose to land at but miscalculated..

He had an engine failure which led him to attempt a landing at Miramar. If the aircraft had become uncontrollable over the ocean, he would've bailed there. There's no reason to bail over land rather than sea, especially when that land is populated.

Thank god this didn't happen in Japan...

Like the helo crash that happened a few years ago in Oki?

the husband is on the news right now giving a speech.. poor guy, lost everything. Thats got to be the most difficult thing to deal with. New family, house, gone.

Yeah, it's super shitty. A friend of ours (former moderator on here) used to live near there (within 2500ft) with his extended family. They've moved away from there now, but it's still one of those 'what if' things.


I said the thing about pilot because he's in the military obviously, not some commercial pilot that just had an "oops" moment. There is no excuses for shit going wrong UNLESS HE ABSOLUTELY HAD NO CHOICE. Funny, thats what I said in my original post.

When the investigation is done and the report comes back and it says anything about him having the slightest chance to have recovered the jet in some way that could've kept from civilians being injured, I garauntee they'll prosecute him on that.

If there's one thing I've learned from being in the military, if something goes this bad, someone is going to be blamed. So like I've said, again, unless he had no chance of directing it somewhere else, he'll never fly again. Period.

Oh god, you are/were in the military? That makes your ignorance all the worse. Sure, there will be an investigation, and you can bet that any bad decisions or poor maintenance will be addressed, but you can't simply assume out of hand that it's a matter of negligence on the part of the pilot. This seems like a clear case of equipment failure, and while it might be the fault of a negligent maintainer, to assume so without warrant is ignorant.

[alindeman1989]

dam thats nuts. i could never imagine seeing that in person.