Navy F-18 Crashes in VA

[RelaxTheMind]

good thing they opened up the highway before i got off work. traffic around here is bad enough as is. wondering if they are still having the air show here thats scheduled a month from now. been seeing jets flying in formation for the past 2 weeks... wonder if its related.

 

[runzwithsizorz]

"Apparently it was spring break there for the schools, so kids could have and probably were home."

The apartment complex is for seniors only, so in reality a lot of retired people could have been there, but as luck would have it, weren't. Examples I've heard thus far; a hairdresser appointment, decided to go have lunch, out walking the dog, and son picked up his dad to go shopping. A man who found one of the pilots, *still strapped in his seat*, with facial cuts, and dazed in his back yard, said the pilot kept saying he was sorry. Sounds as though he stayed at the controls as long as he could, and damned near chuted into the crash site. Neighbors helped carry him, seat and all away from the increasing flames of the burning buildings. The other pilot was able to separate from his seat.
Another 400 yards or so and they would have been past the shore line.

 

[CVSiN]

good thing they opened up the highway before i got off work. traffic around here is bad enough as is. wondering if they are still having the air show here thats scheduled a month from now. been seeing jets flying in formation for the past 2 weeks... wonder if its related.

No VFA-106 is a training squadron for the F/A-18.
this was a routine training flight..

 

[HybridSquirrel]

I think they absorbed some birds on take off. My plane ran into a bald eagle once on take off, the pilot said since we were going "slow" and the plans are so big it was easy to float it back down....I can't imagine what eating some birds in a F/A 18 at take off speeds would be like...

 

[AMCRambler]

All victims have been discharged from the hospital according to CNN. No civilian deaths :thumbsup:

Sooo all the knuckleheads who have flown off the handle can now pack it in. Feel silly yet?

Nice job by the pilots. True professionals.

 

[lupi]

 

[Blitzvogel]

To anyone arguing about the proximity of the base to residential areas:

That airfield (like most) was probably there long before it got surrounded by neighborhoods.

 

[Gerle]

That was one issue I wanted to bring up, such as Miramar... do you know why MC didn't originally plan the base to be right off the water? Other bases in our area such as Pax NAS do not have this issue and make it statistically less likely to involve civvies in an accident.

Because it was originally an Army base, Camp Kearney, established 1917. Then a mixed USN/USMC base, followed by partly USAF and NASA, and more Marines and Navy. For a while the city of San Diego was contemplating using it as the main airport, but decided not to since the majority of the population lived too far away!