F18 down in san diego

Daveroo

Daveroo

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i dont have much..but an F18 went down in san diego shortly before noon pst today 12/8/08..seems the pilot ejected..but no word on his condition yet..nor on people on the ground...seems one house is distroyed and two cars...any one got more information???
 
I JUST heard this on the news. I'll keep tracking it. I'm curious to hear what happened. I'm also curious what model F-18 it was (C, D, E models). I would assume that since they said "pilot" it is a single seat model...
 
Military jet crashes in Calif. residential area
Pilot reportedly ejected before plane crashed into neighborhood

BREAKING NEWS
msnbc.com staff and news service reports
updated 3:35 p.m. ET Dec. 8, 2008

SAN DIEGO - An F-18 military jet crashed in a San Diego neighborhood on Monday, sparking at least one house fire.

It wasn't immediately clear whether anyone was injured, said Maurice Luque, a spokesman for the San Diego Fire-Rescue Department. Television news footage showed one house and two cars on fire.

The plane crashed shortly before noon Monday as it prepared to land at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, said Ian Gregor, a Federal Aviation Administration spokesman. The crash occurred two miles from the base.

The pilot ejected, Gregor said.

"We saw two big bangs," resident Scott Patterson told KNX radio. "The smoke came up. We don't know what it was."

The F-18 is a supersonic jet used widely in the Marine Corps and Navy.

Miramar, well known for its role in the movie "Top Gun," is home to some 10,000 Marines. It was operated by the Navy until 1996.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28115760/
 
I was not able to follow this much due to being at work, but as of now the local news channels are reporting that the pilot ejected and suffered minor injuries, and sadly 2 people on the ground were killed and apparently 2 are missing :frown:

Latest, according to one of the residents who was one of the first to get to the pilot and talked to him...
The plane took off from a carrier about 100 miles off the coast, and shortly after takeoff he lost an engine. He elected to try to fly it to Miramar and was almost there when he lost the other engine...
 
Hey All,

Jeez I hate seeing this... So tragic and to be honest - angering - it's always small children never "the jet crashed into a known drug house where the occupants were killed as they manufactured crystal met" no it always has to be... (from Aeronews.net)

The Los Angeles Times reports two people on the ground were killed, with "a grandmother and two small children" who lived in the burning home still missing. The pilot's condition is unknown, though witnesses saw the pilot walking around "in a daze" after the accident. Witness John Kreischer told the Times he saw and heard the jet laboring as it approached to land at MCAS Miramar.
"It was must mushing through the air," Kreischer said. "It was chugging along with what seemed like one engine. Then I heard a roar of engine and all of a sudden, woop, dead silence.
"This guy could have turned it around and put it in the ocean," he continued. "He was never going to make it to Miramar."
Click to expand...
Think there will be any fallout from this one? I hope so - in situations like this you don't even consider trying to save the jet.

-Ed-

Clearly the news has been updated since this but still - mother grandmother small children probably all looking forward to Christmas.
 
EasyEd said:
Hey All,

Jeez I hate seeing this... So tragic and to be honest - angering - it's always small children never "the jet crashed into a known drug house where the occupants were killed as they manufactured crystal met" no it always has to be... (from Aeronews.net)

Think there will be any fallout from this one? I hope so - in situations like this you don't even consider trying to save the jet.

-Ed-

Clearly the news has been updated since this but still - mother grandmother small children probably all looking forward to Christmas.
Click to expand...

Pretty bold statements when a safety report hasn't even been written yet...And I doubt the safety investigation has even begun...


(and my deepest sympathies for the families involved)
 
EasyEd said:
Hey All,

Jeez I hate seeing this... So tragic and to be honest - angering - it's always small children never "the jet crashed into a known drug house where the occupants were killed as they manufactured crystal met" no it always has to be... (from Aeronews.net)

Think there will be any fallout from this one? I hope so - in situations like this you don't even consider trying to save the jet.

-Ed-

Clearly the news has been updated since this but still - mother grandmother small children probably all looking forward to Christmas.
Click to expand...

Ed, I doubt the pilot decided alone to try and reach Miramar on one engine. Although, he does have the final say so, he would have been advised by senior pilots (don't know what the Navy calls SOFs?) who would have looked the situation over completely. You can bet an O-6 or above was aware of the situation.

The fact the jet was flown over a populated area leads me to believe they (a collective they) felt it fairly safe to attempt the landing. As the other Ed said, we don't really know any of the facts, other than it crashed and killed three people.
 
Hey All,

I don't dispute what you say Panther or Jmig - we'll see what the investigation finds. Maybe you know - will every detail be as public as an NTSB report on a crash since it's military with civilian casualties? I think there are risks that you just don't take.

-Ed-
 
Panther, I am glad that I am not doing that anymore. My last investigation was Ron Brown A/C in Croatia. -- K
 
We've got friends up in Massena, NY that have a daughter, her husband and kids in San Diego. I hope they are all ok. Her husband is retired from the Navy and was based at Miramar.

Thoughts and prayer for the victims.
 
GT, I'm sure they're OK. Apparently the fatalities were limited to the four folks in the house. Korean family, last name Yoon.
 
I just watched the man who lost his whole family try to give a news conference...very hard to watch. The poor man is just devastated, but despite what happened he asked that prayers be offered for the pilot of the plane (he was released from the hospital today)...and stated that he held nothing against him.

I got both on my list.

What I don't understand is the decision to go to Miramar vice North Island. North Island would not have required any overflight of a populated area with a known defective aircraft.
 
Hey All,

http://www.sandiego6.com/news/local...1e261b8c-260e-46de-9da0-cb1635075720&rss=tick

for some details.

My prayers are with the father too.

As I said before I think there will rightly be fallout over this one. From all I can tell the decision-making was pretty poor to say the least. I'm going to make a point of following this one through just to see how it ends up.

Next question I have is: Do military bases (or even airports for that matter) located in crowded urban areas have emergency highway/freeway landing strips preidentified and actually work with and practice how fast local police/sheriffs/highway patrol/fire depts can make one ready? If not why not? Wouldn't it help get local government bureaucracies including the military used to working with each other as well as potentially avoid this kind of krapp? Seems to me some countries Finland for one routinely practice using highways as runways - for the FA-18 as well as other aircraft. Strikes me as a pretty obvious thing to do.

-Ed-
 
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