Navy confirms jet has crashed in Virginia Beach

Navy confirms jet has crashed in Virginia Beach

The Virginian-Pilot © April 6, 2012 VIRGINIA BEACH Cmdr. Phil Rosi, a spokesman for Naval Air Force Atlantic, said the F/A-18 Hornet -- a two-seat jet belonging to VFA (Strike Fighter Squadron) 106, has crashed in the vicinity of Birdneck Rd. Rosi said preliminary reports indicate that two parachutes were seen, which may indicate the aviators were able to eject from the plane. VFA-106 is a training squadron for student pilots. The crash was reported shortly after noon in the 900 block of S. Birdneck Road, according to emergency dispatchers. Virginia State Police have shut down Interstate 264 in both directions at Laskin Road, said spokeswoman Sgt. Michelle Anaya.

Such a crazy thing to happen right in my own area. It seems to have caused quite a stir to the area and has caused obvious problems in relation to the affected areas not limited to the highways.

Right now there is no real information on why this could have happened but I am sure time will tell.

SOURCE

A tragic event. Unfortunately, sometimes these aircraft experience technical problems that leave the pilots with no option but to eject. (I'm sure they tried everything they could to avoid the plane coming down as it did.) We had a situation here (Czech Republic) some years ago when two military jets collided and went down in an inhabited area. By a miracle, no-one on the ground was killed but an apartment block was extensively damaged.

It will be a difficult site for authorities to deal with because there might be some hazmat issues, but hopefully the fire fighters have been briefed on that aspect by now.

Just hoping they can limit the casualties as much as possible.

Mike

Thanks for sharing this with us so quickly...

Terrible accident... I hope the losses were few (and pray there were none at all.) But I suspect that is too much to ask for.

I wonder what may have gone wrong?

There was a witness on CNN talking about it a few minutes ago. He was saying that he`s noticed lately that these planes are flying lower than they used to, faster than they used to, and has seen them take what seems to be ``risks`` that they didn`t do before, in residential areas.

Why are they starting to fly low over residential areas, making what this guy terms dangerous maneuvers

The witness said he plays tennis in the area, and has been noticing this riskier behaviour over the last few months.

Originally posted by JustMike
A tragic event.

Unfortunately, sometimes these aircraft experience technical problems that leave the pilots with no option but to eject. (I'm sure they tried everything they could to avoid the plane coming down as it did.) We had a situation here (Czech Republic) some years ago when two military jets collided and went down in an inhabited area. By a miracle, no-one on the ground was killed but an apartment block was extensively damaged.

It will be a difficult site for authorities to deal with because there might be some hazmat issues, but hopefully the fire fighters have been briefed on that aspect by now.

Just hoping they can limit the casualties as much as possible.

Mike

Yes, it does happen, more than we hear about. While I was in the Navy, I think my command alone responded to four distress signals activated by pilots that were in trouble within a one year time frame and had to be picked up out of the water. This does not include the number of distressed marine craft we had to go assist.

Then when stationed at an air station, during the nine months there I personally handled over 140 emergency landings which required the use of the shore based arresting gear. Luckily, everything went as it should have and the landings were uneventful, but never the less, the plane could not safely land without assistance.

Oh wow....

Witnesses saw flames shooting from the plane before it hit, so it was coming
down as it was in distress!

“There was flames coming off the back … The plane got lower and lower
and just as I turned … it crashed. " usnews.msnbc.msn.com...

"He was smoking really bad. Bad smoke was coming out of the engine.

It kind of backfired a couple times. I heard two pops … then 15 seconds later I heard the explosion."
Gonzalez said the other jets then started circling around the crash site.

Amy Miller told The Virginian-Pilot she was outside the cleaners where she works

when she saw a plane coming down with fire on its wing.

www.navy.mil...
From Commander, Naval Air Force Atlantic Public Affairs

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (NNS) —

“An F/A-18D assigned to Strike Fighter Squadron (VFA) 106 crashed in Virginia Beach, Va. April 6.

Initial reports indicate that at approximately 12:05 p.m., the jet crashed just after takeoff at a location just off of the base.

Both aircrew safely ejected from the aircraft.VFA-106 is based at Naval Air Station Oceana, and serves as the East Coast Fleet Replacement Squadron.

Their mission is to train Navy and Marine Corps F/A-18 Replacement Pilots and Weapon Systems Officers (WSOs) to support fleet commitments.

Pilot lands on man’s back porch; apologizes for jet crash blaze

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (WTVR) – A retired rescue squad member said the pilot of a military jet that crashed into an apartment building Friday landed on the man’s back porch.
“I heard three loud booms, so I up out from the couch and went to my back door,” said Pat Kavanaugh, who lives in the Mayfair Mews apartments. “When I looked out, I saw a pilot on the ground with a parachute hanging from the building.”
Kavanaugh said he ran outside to see what he could do to help him. He said the pilot had facial lacerations, was in shock and appeared to be still strapped to his seat.
“He apologized very much for hitting our complex and I said, ‘don’t worry, it’s going to be fine,’” said Kavanaugh.
Pat Kavanaugh said he and some neighbors carried the pilot, who was in shock and still strapped to what appeared to be his seat, to safety.
The group picked him up and carried him to another part of the complex away from the fire.
They managed to drag him to the other side of the apartment complex to wait for first responders to take him to the hospital.

SOURCE

Here is an update. Such an odd day this has been,

CNN just said this was a training exercise.

A training exercise over a residential area.

:shk:

Don`t they have less populated areas for training

Training exercises are done around those kinds of areas all the time. It is never a surprise around here to see fighter jets flying around doing exercises.

reply to post by snowspirit


What is strange is that none of the media video is talking about the fact that
witnessess saw the plane in flames before it crashed.

You would think that would be a very important detail,
maybe one they want to play down?

Another witness, Zack Zapatero, said the plane crashed into a building occupied by senior citizens. He took photographs of the crash scene. "There's these large fire balls coming up," Zapatero said. "I was told there was a bunch of senior citizens that live in that building, which worries me a lot. "Buildings were starting to collapse," he said of the wreckage scene.

Yeah, you're so "worried" about the senior citizens that instead of possibly trying to help some of them who may have been injured, you stand there filming with your cell phone.

WTH is wrong with people these days? Nobody cares about anything but themselves anymore. This guy probably didn't even realize he was making himself out to be a totally callous GOOF by "reporting and filming" instead of actually trying to help

I hope no one was seriously hurt....

reply to post by burntheships


It is strange.
All they`ve really talked about is a couple of people heard a ``pop`` before it started to go down.
Something was obviously very wrong with the plane, I think I heard someone say that it wasn`t in the air very long at all.

They said the pilot tried to make it out to the water to avoid crashing into a populated area, but just couldn`t make it.
I wonder what the advantage is, to train over residential areas, if there are unpopulated areas nearby

There must be a reason...

Flying over the land makes the planes easier to track. I am no real expert but that is the best solution I can come up with.

Marvelous timing. This is suspicious to me, seeing whats going on in the eastern part of the world. I hope i'm wrong and this is pure pilot/machine error..

reply to post by TheBloodRed


Good post and F n S

Just shows, even with all the redundancy systems still fail... (assuming system failure which is likely)

reply to post by snowspirit


It was in distress in the air, it went down just after takeoff. I would assume that
the training area is not above the complex, much further away but the jet never made it.

Another witness saw it dumping fuel.

George Pilkington, a witness, said he saw the plane flying low, with its

nose up and tail down, ejecting fuel -- which struck him as unusual.

The engine was straining, he said.

"It came over the top of my truck emptying fuel," Pilkington said.

www.cnn.com...

They don't actually "train" over populated areas, they simply traverse populated areas to get to training areas. The training areas are clearly marked on aviation maps.

This pilot apparently had problems immediately upon takeoff, and stayed with the plane til the very last possible moment, and that is why he was still strapped to the ejection seat when residents found him in the same complex as the crash!

Just my amateur guess, but I would guess a maintenance error. Something was left undone, or some tool was left in the plane. I used to know a lot of AF mechanics, and they laughed and cringed about how often planes would come back from training missions and still have those big red "Do Not Fly" tags attached in key areas on the plane!

Hopefully nobody was killed, so far only 1 is reported to have been transported to a hospital. It would be quite miraculous if nobody was killed.

Originally posted by TheBloodRed
Flying over the land makes the planes easier to track. I am no real expert but that is the best solution I can come up with.

I tried to google how Canada deals with training and population, and I couldn`t find anything definite, but it sounds like we just have an abundance of unpopulated land, and no training is allowed over residential spots because we don`t need to.

Maybe there just aren`t as many areas like that down there.
Not enough space between cities

From above post:

They don't actually "train" over populated areas, they simply traverse populated areas to get to training areas. The training areas are clearly marked on aviation maps.

OK, that makes more sense. It also fits with my above theory, not enough empty space.

Both local Naval(Oceana, the one involved in the story) and Air Force(Langley, based in Hampton) are very near and surrounded by residential zones. Aircraft from both bases can be seen very often doing exercises or whatnot.

Back in community college teachers would have to pause and repeat because of flights from Langley flying directly overhead and causing so much noise.Then again the school isn't that far from Langley to begin with.