F-18 Crash

Some shocking news is breaking at the moment as an F-18 coming in to land at Miramar has crashed onto a residential area. There are reports that the crew got out ok, not heard anything yet about casualties on the ground

news.bbc.co.uk...

I hope there are no injuries, don't see how that could happen, but I sincerely hope people are ok.

I have a few friends that are at that particular station, but they are not on base at the moment, so I have no real information to add at this time. I will try to contact some friends at Point Mugu to see if they may have any info as well.

Initial information on that vid link seems to point to an approach problem though?? that is speculation of course but depending on winds, the approach can be right over the homes there.

God Bless, peace,
Mondo

Yikes. I certainly hope that everyone in the area is ok.

As of now, they are not releasing the condition of the pilot whom ejected and was transported to the hospital but seems to be ok. This is being reported as an F/A 18D at the moment but had only one crew member, the pilot onboard.
It is also being stated that he was on final and had a power loss, possible bird strike, but that is not substantiated yet either.

After watching a few vids of it, it's hard to believe that nobody in that residential area got hurt, but let's hope.

Peace,
Mondo

[edit on 8-12-2008 by Mondogiwa]

Originally posted by waynos
Some shocking news is breaking at the moment as an F-18 coming in to land at Miramar has crashed onto a residential area. There are reports that the crew got out ok, not heard anything yet about casualties on the ground

news.bbc.co.uk...

If the crew of this aircraft ejected over a populated area they are going to be court marshaled. Navy protocol strictly states that a pilot is not to eject over a populated area but to guide the aircraft to the area of least possible harm. If this is true it is considered to be an extremely severe offense and they will be punished very severely. I am going to keep up on this. Thanks for the info.

I have seen this played out in Mississippi when our X.O.'s plane went down, he did eject, but not until the last possible minute and only after he had the aircraft in an unpopulated area. After the incident there was meetings on all levels about the protocol and what the consequence was for non-compliance.

[edit on 12/8/2008 by DarrylGalasso]

Originally posted by Mondogiwa
As of now, they are not releasing the condition of the pilot whom ejected and was transported to the hospital but seems to be ok. This is being reported as an F/A 18D at the moment but had only one crew member, the pilot onboard.
It is also being stated that he was on final and had a power loss, possible bird strike, but that is not substantiated yet either.

After watching a few vids of it, it's hard to believe that nobody in that residential area got hurt, but let's hope.

Peace,
Mondo

[edit on 8-12-2008 by Mondogiwa]

An F-18 is a twin engine aircraft which is capable of operation with only one engine , albeit more difficult than with both engines, it is still easily accomplished. So I do not believe that a bird strike causing engine failure would be to blame as that would only damage one engine and furthermore it would only damage the first 2 or 3 stages of compressors, and the engine would still function, with less power obviously, but none the less it would still be operational. And that would take a rather large bird to do that much damage. I would be more inclined to believe another reason for the failure such as some condition that caused a flame out in both engines such as a massive electrical system failure. This too though is rather unlikely as all military aircraft have redundant systems in place for just such occurrences.

[edit on 12/8/2008 by DarrylGalasso]

reply to post by DarrylGalasso


Actually, I don't think even an electrical problem could cause a flame out. I was a hydraulics and structural mechanic so engines are not my forte, but I believe they work in the same manner as a diesel engine and the glow plugs or ignitors as they are called on aircraft are only used to start the engine and afterward it works completely on compression.

The whole reason the navy went with the F-18 is the two engines. I beleive that during qualifing the airframe was required to make carrier landing with one engine out.

That being said: It possible that a bird strike may have induced the airfraft into afatal spin if the pilot was not quick to correct or there was no time too.

Originally posted by FredT
The whole reason the navy went with the F-18 is the two engines. I beleive that during qualifing the airframe was required to make carrier landing with one engine out.

That being said: It possible that a bird strike may have induced the airfraft into afatal spin if the pilot was not quick to correct or there was no time too.

I have never worked with F-18's; however, I believe that all of the advanced aircraft incorporating onboard computer control systems would make an automatic compensation to avoid any fatal spin. But more importantly the thrust ratio of an incoming bird (unless it is a pterodactyl) would not be sufficient enough to over enhance the thrust of the remaining engine in order to upset the aircraft's yaw enough to cause a spin. This would be easily countered with a slight application of the opposite rudder pedal and could be controlled indefinitely in flight with rudder trim. I may not have experience with the hornet, but I do have 8 years of experience working with control surfaces and yaw, pitch, and roll work exactly the same on all aircraft incorporating traditional airfoils and control surfaces which the hornet does incorporate. This is applicable to all aircraft whether they are of a fly by wire design or traditional hydraulic assisted control cable designs so long as traditional control surfaces are incorporated in the design. This would not hold true with the stealth planes as some of them have either altered horizontal stabilizers or no horizontal stabilizer at all and they could in fact be very susceptible to aggravated yaw influences.

Originally posted by cluckerspud
Yikes. I certainly hope that everyone in the area is ok.

Sadly seems that there may be 2 dead, Theres talk of a women and child,

reply to post by DarrylGalasso


ANY fighter sized aircraft is vulnerable to a bird strike. Even a twin engined aircraft. More fighters were lost to bird strikes on take off or landing than just about any other cause for many years. On approach there is a lot happening very quickly depending on where you are in the approach. If you lose an engine suddenly then you can lose the aircraft quickly. They don't have any kind of automated anti-spin on fighters. The F-15 used a stick center system to help combat spins, where you let go and the stick will go to center. But any of those systems, even if they're on the aircraft need time to react and recover. On approach time is the one thing that you don't have. As for how easy it is to recover from losing an engine, it's not nearly as easy as you say. When you lose an engine the plane immediately pulls to that side. If you aren't expecting it, then it's very fast, and you are very quickly in a bad situation. If you're at 500 feet or less, you don't have anywhere near enough time to get out of it.

I've never heard of any service court marshalling a pilot for ejecting over a populated area, unless it was a situation where they COULD have saved the plane and ejected. The services WANT them to try to ride it to an unpopulated area, but they also want their pilots to survive.

I wouldn't be surprised at all to see that this was a bird strike. Birds have brought down bigger airplanes than an F-18 in the past, and will again in the future.

Between the reports of the pilot cycling the gear and the reports that the aircraft's engines were not heard by witnesses near the crash, I am thinking there must have been some kind of spreading failure that affected multiple systems in the aircraft. Perhaps an engine failed explosively and shredded fan blades damaged multiple hydraulic lines.

By all eyewitness accounts the pilot did not eject until the aircraft became completely uncontrollable.

As a local resident (I'm three miles or so away and I am pretty sure I heard the "crump" of the crash out my window) it's a sad reminder that the free airshow we get around (I see F-18's pretty much every day) here comes with risks.

I'm leaning towards a hydraulic failure of some sort as my initial impression. But I wouldn't say with certainty that is what happened. I've had F-16s (that you can hear a good quarter mile away on the taxiway) fly less than 200 feet over my head and barely heard them. Under the right conditions, he could have been coming down with both engines operating normally, but they might not have been heard.

What's so shocking the U.S. has crashes ALL THE TIME but you'll only hear about Russian ones on western News souirces. If you look at the AirInternational Magazine's "CIVIL & MILITARY ACCIDENTS" in each months issue you won't be suprised when you hear about USAF crashes.

I hear about US military crashes every time they happen in the news. I would hardly say that they happen "ALL THE TIME" like you're trying to claim.

For FY08, the USAF had 31 Class A mishaps until July 31st. Those are accidents that result in over $1 million in damages. Of those 31, 19 resulted in the loss of at least one aircraft. Two of them resulted in the loss of 2 aircraft. These also include missiles, and UAVs. Of the 19, 7 were UAVs.

So they've lost roughly 20 aircraft from the start of FY08 until July 31st 08. Wow. They're really losing aircraft ALL THE TIME this year.

As for General Aviation, they're usually only reported in the area they happen, because they're usually small planes holding at most 4 people. They don't affect huge numbers of people, or large areas.

The only Russian plane crashes I hear about are ones involving large airliners, which unfortunately they've had several of over the last couple of years, or spectacular ones at airshows.

[edit on 12/8/2008 by Zaphod58]

Well I've been on this ATS for awhile and everyone makes comments about Russian military crashes, like it's more than U.S.A.'s

That's because there ARE more Russian crashes. In one article from March of this year, the author (from the Eurasia Daily Monitor) is quoted as saying:

Accidents involving Russian-made aircraft have become so frequent over the last two years that even the most pro-Moscow media have begun to raise doubts about their safety.

www.jamestown.org...

DarrylGalasso,

Just to be understood, I worked as part of a test and evaluation squadron out of Point Mugu for about 6 years, so other than Zaphod here, I doubt that many people have the experience with that particular aircraft here than I do. So, please don't misinterpret my clearing this up as a sign of frustration..it is not.
A bird strike can very easily and I mean easily cause any aircraft (twin engine or not) to go down...it's all about attitude and the situation the aircraft is in. I am not saying that it is in this case but your assumption that a twin engine aircraft is bird-strike proof is heavily faulted. Yes, they do tests and are capable of performing with only one engine, but again there are limitations to this scenario.

We don't, none of us here at least yet, know what exactly the pilot was or was not doing when this happened. Any number of things could have happened and it does not necessarily matter what systems compensate or do not compensate. Pilot induced control failures happen, usually on approach and rotation as I am sure that you will agree since you seem to have been involved as well in this field.

Needless to say, we are not on the team examining what happened, merely reporting what we have heard. Let's not start to tell others what their own business may be since we may inadvertently offend others who have also dedicated time and careers to this field.

Peace, regards,
Mondo VX 9

Originally posted by Zaphod58
That's because there ARE more Russian crashes. In one article from March of this year, the author (from the Eurasia Daily Monitor) is quoted as saying:

Accidents involving Russian-made aircraft have become so frequent over the last two years that even the most pro-Moscow media have begun to raise doubts about their safety.

www.jamestown.org...

Thats B.S. the U.S. had more inthe last 2 years, better read "AirInternational"

[edit on 8-12-2008 by 121200]

The Russian military hasn't had as many crashes because they don't fly as many hours. But if you look at the total number of Russian built military planes that have crashed it's higher. I don't have time to do a search on it, but the number that have gone down, and the number of people that have been killed on them is very high.