Posted on 04/06/2012 10:28:44 AM PDT by Free ThinkerNY
(CNN) -- A Navy jet crashed Friday into some apartments near Virginia Beach, Virginia, sending flames and thick black smoke into the air, a military spokesman and a witness said.
Two apartment buildings were on fire, CNN affiliate WTKR reporting, citing witnesses.
The jet was from Naval Air Station Oceana in Virginia Beach, the Federal Aviation Administration said.
The crew of the two-seater F/A-18 safely ejected, but their condition wasn't known, a Navy spokesman said.
The plane is from a training squadron, the Navy said.
George Pilkington, an eye witness to the crash, said he was the plane flying low, with its nose up and tail down, ejecting fuel -- which struck him as unusual. The engine was straining, he said.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
It appears to have gone down aprox. 2 miles short of Rwy 23L, which at 12,000’ is Oceana’s longest.
What ever happened to editors?
I’m sitting here in the customer lounge having my car serviced, watching it. One pilot is hospitalized. Five apartment buildings on fire, injuries and fatalities on the ground are unclear, several dazed survivors came stumbling out of the smoke according to witnesses.
How it happened is described by a USAF member familiar with the training exercises taking place at the time. Also from the Internet.
"This was a MITO (Minimum Interval Take-Off) with a B-52H in front, and a B-52G in the rear.
"SAC TAC Doctrine required 9 second spacing between similar aircraft, but 30 second spacing between dissimilar aircraft.
"Unfortunately, the planners thought that B-52G's and H's were similar aircraft--They are not.
"For about 90 seconds during take-off, the B-52G's water injected engines are more powerful than the otherwise perkier B-52H engines.
"The pilot of the trailing B-52G pulled back power to avoid collision with the B-52H...Several engines flamed-out, and the G-model crashed in a field. Only the EW ejected, but the hapless fellow's chute took him through the fireball. Needless to say, nobody survived."
It was reported that the pilot avoided hitting any structures on the ground.
Yet more reminders that even without actual combat there are hourly heroics and sacrifices made by our military.
They got lazy and assume that if text passes MSWord's spelling and grammar check, the spelling and usage is correct.
(I note with amusement the irony of your replacing whatever with "what ever" in your complaint.)
>>George Pilkington, an eye witness to the crash, said he was the plane flying low<<
Hey, it passed spell check!
Seriously, I hope no one on the ground was hurt. Those planes are bigger than people realize.
Freep the comments at Daily Mail!
CNN sucks.
A co-worker friend of mine just relayed a story to me....his step-father was a navy pilot that flew an A4. He told my friend (his step-son)about a time when he had a flame out and took his jet out over the Pacific and ejected. He was pissed that he had to swim:). But he said they were told specifically if over houses to either ride it into the ground or get it over the water and eject but under no circumstances were they to eject over houses where they would live and innocents would die.
I wonder if that’s still how they are supposed to think. I would hate to think i killed someone and walked away personally but at the same time riding a jet into the ground when there is no control left seems silly too. Does anybody know anything about this stuff?
Not to make like of the story at all. Prayers up.
I think I’ve been there and done this - “with its nose up and tail down, ejecting fuel”
Although an extremely noble gesture, like a captain going down with his ship, it’s usually not the pilot’s fault. And for the crew to ride the aircraft into the ground is a needless and useless exercise.
I’m not saying one human life is worth more than other, but in an accident scenario, should we be advocating the “sacrifice” of highly trained combat pilots?
“What ever happened,” seems like perfectly fine grammar to me. Take out the ever, it would read “what happened.” Whatever is a slang word, what kids say when they don’t want to hear what adults are saying. Irony, indeed.
I think the idea was that maybe you could save someones life by steering it as best you could until it hit the ground and avoid taking others with you. My story was a second ahnd story so im just relaying as it was told to me.
I’m not advocating anything. I was just wondering if anybody knows what the policies or practices that pilots are taught nowadays are. It would probably depend on exactly what the mechanicle failure was too, loss of power equals no control so there would be no point in sticking around, i agree.
Understood,
Most, if not all pilots try desperately to steer away from populated areas, some try so hard they don’t make it out of their aircraft.
Sorry, didn’t mean to make it sound like you were “advocating”, re-reading my comment I can see where it might look like that.
From my time in the USAF, I’m not sure if there is a “policy”, probably some unwritten “rule” that you do your best, but that the aircraft can be replaced, people can’t.
Some failures are so catastrophic, that pilots aren’t given a choice to try and avoid populated areas and are forced to eject as soon as possible. Re: the F117A crash in Maryland about 10 years ago. The wing came apart and the aircraft instantly went out of control. The pilot had no choice but to eject and pray for those on the ground.
He was the plane. Gotta love that ...
“...that even without actual combat there are hourly heroics and sacrifices made...”
A good friend of mine, a retired Fleet sailor on carriers for most of his career said it this way:
“We never came back with everyone we left with. Never.”
From what I understand, the plane crashed shortly after takeoff, which may mean that there was no time or power to steer the craft to a safer area.
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