Posted on 06/04/2014 6:58:46 PM PDT by BAW
About 1,300 people were evacuated after a Marine jet carrying ammunitions crashed in a Yuma, Arizona neighborhood Wednesday. The pilot ejected safely. A Marine spokesperson said the jet was trying to land when it crashed in the backyard of a home about a mile from Marine Corps Air Station-Yuma.
Authorities say there have been no reports of injuries related to the crash.
A Marine spokesperson said the AV-8B Harrier was carrying four 500-pound bombs and 300 rounds of 20-milimeter ammunitions. A one-mile area around the crash site was evacuated so a military explosives disposal team could safely retrieve the ordnance.
Evacuees headed to a shelter set up at a local school. Most of the residents were told they could return home late Wednesday night, but about 52 residents were told they still needed to stay away.
A Marine spokesperson said the four bombs on board had been removed but the rest of the ammunition would be taken from the site Thursday morning.
The Marine Corps Air Station in Yuma is home to four Harrier jet squadrons. It's also a principal site for training marine pilots. The British-designed fighter has been used widely in both Iraq wars.
(Excerpt) Read more at tucsonnewsnow.com ...
Someone with some military aviation savvy... are these Harriers safe?
I seem to recall some sort of controversy when the Marines adopted them....
2 Harriers in one day?
Glad everyone is safe.
Sorry about the loss of such a sweet airplane.
I noticed that too, but no other comments on either thread.
Only in the hands of a really experienced pilot.
Spooky...
The mishap rates on Harriers has always been extremely high. The Marines crashed almost half of the A models they bought. As soon as you move the current model aboard ship the mishap rate skyrockets. Added to that problem has been a fair amount of down time so a lot of Harrier pilots are low time pilots, getting a fraction of the hours that their peers get in other tactical platforms.
Hate it when that happens. Wonder if this is covered by homeowner's insurance.
True. But that said, we’ve been flyin’ ‘em since ‘71.
Budget cuts......
Harriers have the highest loss rate of any modern military aircraft.
Loss rates have gotten better over the years, but they are far and away the most dangerous planes.
They are doing things planes shouldn’t do, like hover. Problem is that if the engine dies, hover rapidly becomes plummet.
Going by Wikipedia, this crash is the 60th of a US operated Harrier. At one point, 1/3 of the Harrier fleet had crashed, according to one story from 2002.
My husband flew them, but I’m thinking this news source must have been alluding to the one in Imperial County, California. We haven’t heard of two separate incidents.
Everyone in the Harrier community called it the widow-maker. We’ve lost lots of awesome guys in that beast - but the guys who fly them would probably give a small digit to take it out for one more spin.
I know quite a few Harrier guys that were scrambling to get into the F-35 program even when they never expected to fly the jet. just to get out of Harriers.
http://news.yahoo.com/military-jet-crash-sets-homes-ablaze-california-014917028.html
The narrative of the story in the thread sounds like the Harrier crash here in Yuma in 2005.
They have a better safety rate than the contemporary Lockheed VTOL effort. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_XV-4_Hummingbird
I was on the Essex and we dropped one in the trench 75 nms off of Guam. Pilot survived. The Rolls Royce engines quit.
Is there extra stress on the engines because of the vertical operations, that cause them to flame out?
well, they were called widowmakers at one point I think
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