F-18 Fighter Jet Crashes Into Virginia Apartment Complex

New submitter atomatica writes "A Navy F/A-18 Super Hornet crashed shortly after takeoff into an apartment complex near Virginia Beach, Virginia. Both pilots and multiple civilians have been transported to a hospital." Gizmodo has lots of shiny pictures and more detail.

Comments

Duh McDuhface

[Cazekiel]

The coverage of this was nuts. The TV in my restaurant had some idiot reporter asking someone who was there asking him, "What's the chaos like? Were there people scattering?" #1, it's a sure bet she wanted to say BODIES scattering, an #2, if not, then the question is one of the dumbest I'd ever heard. That's like asking, "Is everyone standing there in harm's way, or fleeing in terror?"

Re:Duh McDuhface

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

The idea that the medium is the message is overblown; but it certainly shapes the message. Unfortunately, TV gets all the wrong shaping.

In order to take advantage of the 'live' nature of the medium, the station is effectively required to field somebody to stand at the scene and make noises while facing the camera as soon as humanly possible. Regardless of whether they know anything useful, and regardless of whether they could spend the camera time learning something useful to bring back to the camera. At one time, this did have the virtue of ensuring a camera at the scene; but cheap silicon sensors have basically covered that now. Since they don't actually know anything of use, they generally fill their time by asking unutterably stupid questions. Since that is boring, they'll have to elicit some emotion or 'reaction' so that the audience doesn't glaze over and change the channel.

Even better, after the big kids have had time to sift through the details, airtime is too limited(and broadcast video not terribly information dense) for those details to be presented in any comprehensive or coherent way. Instead, you generally get a brief summary "Pilot Error!/Mechanical Failure!/Search For Answers Continues!" followed by some emotive human-interest stories.

Really?

[Daetrin]

Both pilots and multiple civilians have been transported to a hospital.

Gizmodo has lots of shiny pictures and more detail.

Really Slashdot/Unknown Lamer? I've got a morbid sense of humor at times, and i'm not even saying i'm not interested in the pictures, but "lots of people are injured and some of them may die" and we've got "lots of shiny pictures" about it! seems a bit callous to me. I mean if it were actually part of some morbid joke it'd be fine, but it's not even a joke, it's just being totally insensitive for no good reason.

6 people, pilots stopped it from being more.

[pbjones]

2 pilots that safely ejected, 1 person fainted, 1 police who was hurt while attending the scene, 2 for smoke inhaulation. It seems that the pilots knew that something was wrong and were dumping fuel before the crash. Quick thinking stopped a larger fire and the possibility of more casualties.

Grim Factoid?

[Bob9113]

FTFA:

Update 3:31 PM EDT: The Virginian-Pilot points out another grim factoid about the Navy base in question today: There have been more than 25 crashes involving Navy aircraft on or near the base over the past four decades.

That's grim? Less than one crash per year with people flying fighter jets? That seems like an outstanding safety record to me -- those things are twitchy and the pilots take them to the boundaries as a matter of proper training. Calling one crash per year "grim" strikes me as misleading and sensationalistic.

Re:Things break, even multi million dollar equipme

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

The ejector seats definitely separated from the aircraft before it hit the ground, so they must have ditched; but I get the impression that fighter jets don't give you very much "we'll just glide along for a while until we find something that looks nice and open" time once the thrust goes out so they quite likely didn't have much choice about location.

Re:Hmm

[slimshady945]

Gravity never loses. The best you can hope for a is a draw. -- old pilot axiom