Posted on 06/15/2005 3:37:11 PM PDT by AFPhys
Just breaking: Harrier, probably Marine Corps, crashed in Yuma, AZ - possibly within the city.
It's taking some time for them to get to this thing.
I hope the "house on fire" wasn't very intense, or too near the ordinance. Apparently not, or we may have heard something more by now.
Ping....
That's a Marine Air Station. They fix Harriers there. I am in Yuma often. The Marines are the greatest guys.
One Marine repairman is a woman, very intelligent, the daughter of two physicians.
I wasn't a seat guy. I have no idea. All I know is what they taught me in crew chief school. Which was mainly what to NOT TOUCH.
By the way, the description above is the short version.
At least us AF guys would get in/out of the seats for preflight etc. Some of our folks went TDY to an RAF base with F-4's, and said that the Brit guys wouldn't even get near the cockpit.
Thanks for the info
A/C & pilot are from 214?
That was the short version. Let me see if I can conjour up more details.
Assuming the front guy, pilot, pulls the D-ring:
1) Back seat canopy blown off with 1500psi air from the reservour.
2) A charge fires, snatching the pilots shoulders tight up against the seat, least he be bent over and it breaks his back. Also his feet are snatched back to the seat off the rudder pedals.
3) Cannon goes off in the telescoping tube (I'm sure there are very official names for this stuff, I just don't remember), burning the extra propellant as it goes up.
4) Seat reaches end of rope line, trips rocket sear, rocket goes off.
5) About 2-4 seconds later, fuse on the drouge chute goes off, firing a shotgun shell sized explosive and a metal rod weight about the size of your thumb and 10 inches long up over the seat, draging out the drogue.
6) When the seat is below 10k feet, or the pilot pulls a handle on the seat, the drouge releases and pulls out the main chute. At the same time the pilots harness is cut from shoulders, wast, and legs, releasing the seat, but retaining the first aid kit he's sitting on.
That's one seat. The other does virtually the same.
I'm not totally certian about the Martin Baker F4 seat, but I know in some seats there's a gyro that will aim the rocket so that if the pilot punches out with the airplane upside down, it will turn the seat right side up so he doesn't hit the ground.
When below 10k feet, all that happens in 3-4 seconds. The time between the front guy pulling the handle to when the both pilots are out of the AC is 2-3 seconds. I'm sure that front seat guy thinks it's much longer.
That's all from 30 year old memory, so nobody gripe if I've got a detail wrong.
We use to call them "North Carolina Lawn Darts" when stationed at Camp Lejeune.
From 513...
The MCAS bomb disposal unit was called in to recover the ordnance from the scene of a Marine Harrier jet crash in a residential neighborhood in southeast Yuma Wednesday afternoon.
There were no injuries immediately reported.
An unidentified 33-year-old pilot ejected from the aircraft at about 1,000 feet in the air before the plane crashed near a home in the area of Kuns Court, according to initial reports. The pilot was reported in good condition.
The aircraft reportedly was carrying four 500-pound bomb and 300 25mm cannon rounds at the time it crashed, said Lt. Col. Mark Butler, a spokesman for the Marine Corps Air Station.
Residents living within an area bounded by Arizona Avenue, Pacific Avenue, 24th Street and 32nd Street were being evacuated to Gila Vista Junior High School for an anticipated period of 12 hours or more.
The Harrier was assigned to Yuma-based Harrier squadron VMA-513 and was on the way back from a training mission, Butler said.
He said the pilot would not have left on the training mission had he not planned to drop the ordnance in the training. Butler said an investigation will determine why the ordnance was not used in the mission.
The cause of the crash is under investigation.
The crash created a large black cloud that hovered over the southeast corner of the city. Police and emergency vehicles would be seen racing along 24th Street to the crash scene shortly after 2:30 p.m.
Police at the scene said the aircraft was a Harrier jet.
The Sun will update this bulletin as more details become available.
http://sun.yumasun.com/artman/publish/articles/story_17263.php
My dh flew those lawn darts, until too many of our friends were killed, and too many parts kept falling off those that actually made it off the deck.
Last I knew -214 was stationed at Yuma, and flying AV-8Bs.
My husband was a Blacksheep. Unless there's been a change, there are 4 harrier squadrons based in Yuma - 211, 214, 311 & 513.
As a retired USMC cfr guy from MCAS Yuma I know the area and "bird" very well.
The harrier is refered to the N.C. lawndart! it does not take much for the aircraft to refuse to fly, any slight malfunction is reason enough for the pilot to punch out. That part of the county is growing rather rapidly too.
D-ring:AF type
face curtain: navy type
Give him a "Pappy Boyington Rocks" from an old Air Force guy. If my eyes had been good enough for pilot training, I would have joined the Marine Corps rather than the Air Force.....but if the Army still had had horsed cavalry, I would have joined the Army before either. I love planes, but horses are in my soul.
UPDATE From the Yuma Daily Sun;
The aircraft is from VMA 513, the 33yo pilot ejected and landed ok. The aircraft was carring 4 5oolb bombs & 500 25mm rounds. The crash occured at aprox 1425hrs local. The MCAS EOD,CFR, & Recovery teams are there along with local civillian assets from the local community. The a/c was at aprox 1000 ft agl when it stopped running, the accident is under investagation at this time. The air field is a dual use airfield, the old Mcdonnell Douglas a/c shops were closed when Boening took over. It is number 13 on the list of emergency landing fields for the space shuttle as well. The crash crew is one of the best in the Navy/Marine Corps bar none. This fact is listed by the DOD on an annual basis.
so if you are flying into Yuma & if you have a problem with your air craft you are in great hands, the c/c has to train in all makes & types of a/c to keep their FAA ratings up to snuff.
Hope he punched out in time.
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