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

Combat record

[Leebert]

Even if you only count one apartment building demolished, the F-18 still has a better combat record than the F-22.

(I only joke because there were no fatalities!)

Re:Combat record

[kanto]

Even if you only count one apartment building demolished, the F-18 still has a better combat record than the F-22.

(I only joke because there were no fatalities!)

The F-18, now also fitted as a suburbian domicile buster.

Re:Combat record

[DesScorp]

the F-18 still has a better combat record than the F-22.

(I only joke because there were no fatalities!)

And this will remain the case as long as F-22's are so expensive... around $150 million apiece, flyaway... that we're reluctant to risk them in, you know, actual combat.

Re:Combat record

[dotbot]

(I only joke because there were no fatalities!)

How do you know? I cannot find an article saying all residents have been accounted for.

Re:Combat record

[Anonymous Coward]

As of Friday, 4/6/12, 11:15pm EST; 7 injured, 3 residents are unaccounted for.

Re:Combat record

[Luckyo]

It's not the cost that stops deployment, it's the lack of need of deployment. F-22 is a fighter plane, not a multirole fighter/attack plane which is what is needed in modern world.

Re:Combat record

[Luckyo]

Most of the countries US went to war with this century had planes. Some were good enough to kill a 4th generation multirole fighter-bomber craft. But modus operandi of such wars is to use 5th generation stealth bombers and cruise missiles to destroy runways, and important AA radar and missile sites, after which rest of the planes come in.

And if you're talking about someone who actually has 4th generation air superiority fighters and up, no, US will not go to war with them because there is no way it could ever win such a war. The only outcome of such a war is strategic nuclear conflagration, likely followed by biological "doomsday" strikes that will wipe out most of humanity. Fighter plane is about as useful in such a war as a musket.

Re:Combat record

[cavreader]

The F-22 is capable of both air and ground attacks. The F-22 has not been in service long enough to make any combat comparisons but 1 F--22 regularly fights 5 F-15's just to get a work out. The F-22 is most likely the last manned fighter the US will develop. Un-manned fighters are the future. They are cheaper to build, have lower operational expenses, and are capable of executing longer missions.

Re:Combat record

[Luckyo]

F-22 is a pure fighter with no attack capability. F-35 is the multirole F/A craft. Which incidentally is manned and in test flight phase.

Re:Combat record

[cavreader]

You are wrong. Look it up. The F-22 is perfectly capable of launching precision ground attacks but that is not their primary role. They carry JDAMS which are not very useful in aerial combat scenarios.

Re:Combat record

[Luckyo]

Any plane with hardpoints is capable of "launching precision ground attacks" as other planes can guide them. F-22 however does not have a dedicated ground attack suite to perform such tasks.

Re:Combat record

[cavreader]

You are mistaken. The F-22 was designed to track multiple air and ground targets and the standard armaments they carry include missiles (JDAMS) to engage a ground target. The biggest thing separating the F-22 from the F-35 is it's threat assessment capabilities across the entire battle space. The F-22 is also able to create an integrated network with other F-22's in the area to expand the cover a large amount of both land and air space. Plus the F-22 doesn't hard rely on hard points for carrying armaments they are stored internally.

Re:Combat record

[Luckyo]

In order:

1. No, it cannot. While radar technically has this capability, the software needed is not written beyond barely working beta stages (as of last checking it). There was a big scandal about it some seven or eight years ago.
2. Threat assessment of entire battlespace is done on AWACS/command center, not individual fighter, unless there's a severe emergency. This also feeds into 3.
3. Almost every modern plane can do this to varying extent. It's a system lifted from 30 years old MiG-31. The main differences in reality are full ground attack capability, single engine and HUD lifted from MiG-29 allowing for much wider fire control radar coverage of airspace in front of the fighter (and rumoured worse stealth).
4. F-22 has several hard points. They are generally not used because carrying external munitions essentially negates stealth. Problem: It can only carry minimal air to ground weaponry (and even AMRAAM's had to be modified to fit by cutting off tips of control wings, making missiles much less capable of maneuvering, the bays are so small).

Re:Combat record

[peawormsworth]

Even if you only count one apartment building demolished, the F-18 still has a better combat record than the F-22.

(I only joke because there were no fatalities!)

The article does not say there were no casualies. Are you reading a different report then the ones linked above?

Re:Combat record

[cavreader]

Your still underestimating the capabilities of the F-22. Development started over 20 years ago for this plane. Where you involved in the project at anytime? I was lucky to be involved in a very small piece of the software development used in the simulators. Mapping air and land threats without needing to rely on an AWACS assets gives the F-22 a faster response time. Relying on an AWACS or other non-stealth aircraft undermines the stealth advantages. The F-22's primary advantage is it's stealth and using other non-stealth planes tends to make people start looking for a threat. Ideally the enemy should not be aware of any air activity until after the targets start exploding. Name one other fighter in the world that can engage and "destroy" up to 5 top of the line F-15's at the same time. And you need to provide some proof about your claim of the F-22 using a 30 year old Russian technology. The performance of the top of the line Russian fighters has always been overestimated along with much of their other technologies. It has always been in the US best interest to exaggerate Russian capabilities to make sure funding keeps flowing to military projects.

Re:Combat record

[Luckyo]

Standard MiG-31 quad can conceivably drop a small fleet of F-15s (until they run out of missiles) long before F-15s ever see these MiGs with their radars. But that's not here or there, as MiG-31 quad is essentially a flying long range AAM site + AWACS unit rather then a fighter plane squad. It was also the first plane in the world to have a passive phased array radar and it was essentially an F-22 of its time. A ridiculously expensive machine full of cutting edge tech designed to achieve total air superiority that simply did not have equivalents at the time. It still doesn't, but stealth aircraft like F-22 displace its air superiority advantages by negating its superb long range engagement abilities.

If I remember correctly, MiG-31 was the first plane in the world to debut the P2P networked data distribution system in core design - I don't think I've ever heard anyone credible claim otherwise as computers back then were simply too weak and data links too slow to provide for this without some massive programming expertise. Look up how MiG-31 quad squads work. You'll find that US copied this in their own implementation (AWACS + current battle theatre command and data distribution) very closely while successfully expanding the concept to share the data beyond the single unit. Russians had a severe problem getting the data sharing to be scaled up beyond that single unit + potentially led MiG-25s downlinked to these command planes, US worked around the problem much better and had a full theatre control far earlier then (it's known) for russians to succeed in the same task.

I'm also confused as to why you seem to doubt that parts of F-22 were clearly lifted from russians. It's fairly obvious that with tech stealing going on in cold war, most of the cutting edge technologies were stolen and copied, typically debuting around 10-20 years later it took to properly reverse engineer, implement and roll out the new military technology. Example: russians copying early guided AA missiles (AA-2 Atoll).

Russians weren't any different in this regard. While some technologies were successfully kept secret, most leaked at one point or another. Another great example is the HMD (helmet mounted display) of F-35, touted as one of the most revolutionary parts of the plane. It's a direct copy from MiG-29, and it's been all but admitted that it was lifted from GDR MiG-29s that were "donated to the cause" by Western Germany after the unification of Germany. Revolutionary being the ability to aim fire control radar in a much wider cone in front of the fighter then current generation of US fighters can.

Re:Combat record

[cavreader]

It was both the US and Russia who secured the earliest stealth and missile technology from Germany after WW2. Germany had designed, but not built, an airframe that closely resembles the F-117 design. Of course they didn't have the computer technology and radar absorbing materials at the time. Claiming a Mig-31 can drop a small fleet of F-15's is total BS and there is no evidence they are even capable of destroying 1 F-15 in a head on confrontation. If you have proof of your claim please provide it. The Russians also lack the most important advantage when it comes to jet warfare which is actual operational experience.

Re:Combat record

[Luckyo]

MiG-31 will never go "head on" with F-15. It will splash it from 150-200km away along with whatever high value escort plane it's escorting. That's how MiG-31 is designed to work, and that's why NATO gave it a fitting call sign of "foxhound".

Closest US example of similar plane is F-14, but US never got that to work as well as USSR did with MiG-31 due to different command stricture and F-14 being shoehorned into naval patrols, which forced it to be suitable for dogfighting as well as long range engagement as well as lack of AA-9 Amos-like missile (AIM-54 just plain sucked in comparison).

Re:Combat record

[cavreader]

Has the vaunted MiG-31 ever did anything to prove your claims? The F-15E has the same range and has used it in actual combat. The F-22 would destroy a MiG-31 easily, and from a great distance. The MiG pilot wouldn't even see the F-22 or suspect it was launching missiles until right before he gets destroyed. The plain and simple fact is long range anti-aircraft missiles are becoming useless because both the plane and launch can be detected. The F-22 has effectively removed the ability to detect it. Air combat is also going to be rare if both jets can detect one another about the same time. The ground or ship mounted anti-air missiles are capable of mach 5 which will take out any air asset when targeted. The only real defense is stealth. If you are detected and targeted you are dead. What I would like to know is if anyone has been able to detect a stealth aircraft. I have seen no information stating this has been successfully done. The F-117 shot down in Yugoslavia happened because the pilot was flying at too low of altitude and it was visually detected from the ground. After all stealth doesn't mean it's invisible.

Re:Combat record

[Luckyo]

I don't think you quite understand the ROLES of the aircraft. Also F-22 has done equally "nothing" to prove your claims, however you boldly proclaim victory without noticing that the same merits used to prop F-22 in your argument have been used to prop MiG-31 in mine, yet you actively move to dismiss my claims while boldly presenting yours on exactly the same merits in the very next sentence.

And mind you, FLYING is enough to back this up. MiG-31 has a combat speed higher then F-15's maximum speed even if it redlines its engines.
Notably MiG-31 is a high speed interceptor designed to control airspace as both AWACS aircraft and a extremely long range anti air missile platform. Situation where F-15 would actually be able to engage a MiG-31 is not dissimilar to an artillery unit going into melee combat. Sure, it will lose in melee against a melee specialist unit, but it will decimate such a unit long before it ever gets in range, and if in danger it will either run or be shielded by aircraft escorting it with much better close combat capability. Not to mention that even if its out of missiles, all it needs to do not to lose it to simply climb and run. F-15's engines and frame cannot handle more then mach 2.5-2.6, while MiG-31 is known to reliably fly at mach 2.8 and if redlining engines up to mach 3.3. How do you plan to use a plane that simply cannot catch up to even get to weapon range to kill that target?

What US actually does nowadays is far more sane and a whole lot less pretentiously ignorant of real threats. It puts electronic warfare planes such as Prowler to support its self-supporting strike aircraft that will attempt to jam any medium and long range missiles fired at those aircraft. Which is why modern fighters and attack planes can in fact often survive missile engagements, especially against older models of missiles. A fired missile is by no means a certain kill, because both electronic countermeasures from the targeted plane as well as electronic countermeasures from electronic warfare support aircraft can jam even a modern missile with a relatively high success chance. Even after this, there's still the last ditch maneuvering done by modern aircraft, not to mention the most obvious approaches of either denying mid-life situation update by forcing enemy aircraft to get its fire control radar to stop tracking the target usually by forcing it to flee (this kills AMRAAM in long range engagement for example which essentially requires a mid life update for successful engagement at long ranges if target significantly changes its course during inertial guidance phase) or just turning around and fleeing until incoming missile runs out of fuel. SAMs tend to be a bit more robust in terms of guidance, but are still prone to jamming and even more so to range issues.

Anyway, this is not really up to the argument. Neither of the planes suggested have even a theoretical capability to engage aerial targets at more then 50km away, as they simply do not have weapons that are capable of such feats. Last generation of AMRAAM, which is the longest range air to air missile in service in US that can be mounted on F-15 and F-22 has around 50km maximum range (the last upgraded version currently in service). Neither aircraft can field AIM-54 even if it was brought back to service due to lack of radar needed to support the missile's guidance which was buried alongside F-14.

Which is again neither here or there. US and Russia (formerly USSR) have always tried to counter each other in weapon systems. Stealth, and by extension F-22 has been largely used a counter to superior radar technology fielded by USSR, US naval surface superiority was effectively countered by Russia's heavy reliance on supersonic mach2+ tactical bombers and very unique anti-ship missiles, US superiority in submarine silent running tech has been countered with Shkval cavitating torpedoes, Russia's reliance on tanks and light armour on the ground was countered with heavy investments in attack planes and helicopters on US side and so on. To

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.

Re:Duh McDuhface

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

If it bleeds, it leads. The media is a bunch of ghouls when it comes right down to it.

A proud few choose to rise above mere feeding on the already dead...

Re:Duh McDuhface

[mcneely.mike]

The one i love is where the reporter shows up at school where a few kids were shot and killed and the reporter asks the friends "And how are you feeling right now?"

stupidest question ever. What response are they expecting?
"Why, we are sad, because they got out of taking the test and we didn't. Boo hoo for us, but we are happy for the dead kids!"

Re:Duh McDuhface

[Ihmhi]

Well, you know what says a lot about the pilots? They ejected as close to the last second as possible. When you have a rocket chair that leads to instant safety, it's gotta be pretty goddamned hard not to take that option when you know shit hit the fan.

But they didn't. They got the plane under control as best they could and only ejected when crashing was practically imminent.

Re:Duh McDuhface

[Cazekiel]

Yea, gotta respect. I can only imagine how awful they feel, which is why I hope the details come out ASAP. I don't doubt it was something out of their control. I've had a lot of crap happen in my car, whether lost brakes or severe ice storms, where if I hadn't either recovered or drove off the road to avoid other cars I would've ended up crashing my way through rush hour traffic. That's a heart-stopping event enough--can't imagine being at the helm of a machine that causes an apartment complex being destroyed. :P

Re:Duh McDuhface

[mister_playboy]

They ejected as close to the last second as possible. When you have a rocket chair that leads to instant safety, it's gotta be pretty goddamned hard not to take that option when you know shit hit the fan.

Using an ejection seat is surely one of the most dramatic "controlled" events you can subject your body too... and there's still plenty of potential for something to go wrong.

I'm sure no fighter pilot wants to return to base after losing his ride in a crash. That sounds very hard on the 'ol ego. :)

Re:Duh McDuhface

[Mabhatter]

This sounds like crazy stupid luck there were not piles of bodies. Fortunately, it was lunchtime on a work day/ long weekend so most people were not at home. Had this happened 12 hous earlier it would probably have a high casualty count with everybody in bed.

I wonder if insurance covers this?

Re:Duh McDuhface

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

This might be a rare circumstance where the contractual and military senses of the phrase 'Force majeure' quite literally collide...

Conspiracy

[Anonymous Coward]

We all know it was an inside job by the owners of the apartment complex who just wanted to build more expensive real estate without having to actually pay for it.

Re:Conspiracy

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm really surprised that the gov. of the US of A isnt using this to start a war somewhere rich in ressources...

Re:Conspiracy

[sjames]

They heard someone in the complex was hiding yellow cake in the kitchen.

Re:Conspiracy

[Ihmhi]

The United States should declare war on itself and win hearts and minds by providing jobs and building infrastructure.

Hmm

[lightknight]

Anyone have an idea why this happened? Pilot error? Mechanical failure?

Re:Hmm

[DesScorp]

Anyone have an idea why this happened? Pilot error? Mechanical failure?

A witness was quoted as saying that the engine sounded like it was dying. The problem there is that the Hornet is a twin engine plane. If it was an engine going out, then they could have just shut it down and flew home on the remaining engine. The Navy has had a policy of two engines for decades now precisely because of the safety factor (and this is why there's some grumbling about the F-35C being a single engine bird). Unless it was the world's biggest birdstrike and FOD-ed up both intakes, it had to be something else... loss of power, internal fire, something.

Re:Hmm

[Nidi62]

The average US Air Force/Navy pilot probably has more flight time as an individual than many other countries do in their whole air force. Nice try though. Also, when trying to insult America, it helps to at least use proper grammar in your insults. Otherwise we just laugh at you.

Re:Hmm

[Nidi62]

There was also apparently a fuel dump. So, either the student pilot hit a wrong button, or when they say "catastrophic mechanical failure", catastrophic is probably not an exaggeration.

Re:Hmm

[lightknight]

Hmm. I was following it through other sources, which lacked details at the time of my post.

Re:Hmm

[Black Parrot]

Great troll! Very original.

However, you could have linked to goatse, claiming that it was a report supporting your claim. So you only get ***/*****.

Re:Hmm

[lightknight]

Agreed. Most other nations are limited by expense from flying as much as American pilots.

Re:Hmm

[Cazekiel]

Yes, of course. Never before have there been mechanical failures; just us dumb Yanks fucking everything up, every time.

Your jerk off material may be your country's national anthem, but that doesn't mean you're right, or better.

Re:Hmm

[ColdWetDog]

Anyone have an idea why this happened? Pilot error? Mechanical failure?

Gravity.

Re:Hmm

[lightknight]

Indeed. I thought it rather odd that a Hornet would drop from the sky. It's an older plane, so one would think any teething issues have long since been worked out. Still...both engines suddenly going out? Someone else forget one of those cleaning rags in the fuel line?

 

Re:Hmm

[Psychotria]

What student pilot? (Seriously, I cannot find mention of a student pilot, except in reference to a similar accident that occurred but they were referring the a student pilot in the previous incident in that case). I'm not saying you're wrong or making it up, I'm just looking for where you read that there was a student pilot.

Re:Hmm

[Kneo24]

The article indicates possible mechanical failure from eye witness accounts. This just happened today, so it will be sometime before an official report is.

Re:Hmm

[Nidi62]

The jet carried a student pilot in the front seat and an experienced instructor behind him,

http://www.cnn.com/2012/04/06/us/virginia-plane-crash/index.html?hpt=hp_t1 Second paragraph

Re:Hmm

[Kneo24]

Second paragraph of TFA:

The jet carried a student pilot in the front seat and an experienced instructor behind him, and the dumping of jet fuel was "one of the indications that there was a mechanical malfunction," Navy Capt. Mark Weisgerber told reporters.

Emphasis mine.

Re:Hmm

[jpmorgan]

There's been quite a few F-18 accidents in recent years. Despite being a two engine plane, it seems there are a lot more mechanical failures than the single engine F-16.

Re:Hmm

[Psychotria]

Thank you

Re:Hmm

[dow]

With current fuel prices being so high, will some lucky person in the area have hit the jackpot when they check their pool for the stuff? They could skim it off the top and run their truck for a week or two. I really should Google aviation fuel, for some reason I have it in my head as being pretty similar to diesel.

Re:Hmm

[Psychotria]

Thanks. I can't view CNN at the moment (not sure why, maybe it's slashdotted from Australia).

Re:Hmm

[jamesh]

To be fair, I thought "catastrophic mechanical malfunction" was just military speak for "a building just went through my engines" and not the root cause of the actual accident.

Re:Hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure is ... quantity of training, not quality of patronage.

I've worked with several allied and friendly militaries. The Brits, Germans and Aussies, just as good as us. Turks, Italians, Colombians and Bulgarians, professional, competent, but much lower fidelity of training and exercises. Mexicans, Kenyans, Ehtiopians, Ugandans, Iraqis, marginal competency and leadership adequate to engage in combat. Every other OPEC country I've worked with, most eastern European countries, and the Chinese -- enlisted mercenary mindset and straightforward patronage in the officer corps.

Western militaries all work on quality of training and equipment. The 3rd world militaries are all about size. China is in the middle of an internal RMA as they realize that their 3 million soldiers are roughly useless with their byzantine C2 structure and backwards procurement, and are pouring money into modern materiel. The quantities and type of procurement, I hope, is aimed at retaking Taiwan in a paper maneuver, but they appear intent on starting the next world war to secure oil and mineral resources. Yes, that means conquering Australia (iron ore), much of the islands to secure oil, and I have no clue how much of Africa they expect to occupy. I sure hope I'm wrong, but hope isn't much to live on.

Re:Hmm

[MichaelSmith]

Anyone have an idea why this happened? Pilot error? Mechanical failure?

Gravity.

Sucks.

Re:Hmm

[fahrbot-bot]

A witness was quoted as saying that the engine sounded like it was dying. The problem there is that the Hornet is a twin engine plane. If it was an engine going out, then they could have just shut it down and flew home on the remaining engine.

The accident happened during (or shortly after) take-off. Anyone know if an F-18 *needs* both engines at that time. BTW, I live in Virginia Beach and the crash happened less than 5 miles from both my house and office. Obviously, the area (Birdneck Road and I-264) is a mess at the moment...

Re:Hmm

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Some flavors of engine failure could spread, when a turbine sheds a blade, say, that part tends to go slicing off in some direction with considerable enthusiasm for its new career... If you are lucky, it chooses a direction away from anything important.

Re:Hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

There's been quite a few F-18 accidents in recent years. Despite being a two engine plane, it seems there are a lot more mechanical failures than the single engine F-16.

Two engines == twice as many engines to fail. Just less likely to crash when one does.

Re:Hmm

[pyronide]

sorry - modern fighter jets use JP8 - something akin to kerosene - and I have yet to see an american motor use that.

Re:Hmm

[Man Eating Duck]

There was also apparently a fuel dump. So, either the student pilot hit a wrong button, or when they say "catastrophic mechanical failure", catastrophic is probably not an exaggeration.

Just a guess, but maybe they dumped fuel in order to incinerate as little as possible of the crash site? It might even make sense for the flight computer to do this automatically if it predicts an imminent crash.

Re:Hmm

[compro01]

You can use it in a diesel engine. The US Army does. JP-8 is their everything fuel.

Re:Hmm

[Stormy Dragon]

The problem there is that the Hornet is a twin engine plane. If it was an engine going out, then they could have just shut it down and flew home on the remaining engine.

It can fly on one engine if one fails while cruising. During takeoff, when the plane is still accelerating to cruising speed, it can't get by on just one. If it could, do you think the Navy would be wasting both the expense, weight, and fuel necessary to purchase and fly around completely unecessary engines?

Re:Hmm

[camperdave]

True! Gravity is a downer.

Re:Hmm

[Daniel Phillips]

There was also apparently a fuel dump...

I will guess that the fuel dump was intentional, a (successful) attempt to limit the severity of damage, knowing that the plane was going down.

Re:Hmm

[ckedge]

> If it was an engine going out, then they could have just
> shut it down and flew home on the remaining engine

It's not so simple at takeoff and landing, any time you are below or near low speeds and at low altitudes things get very very complicated.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/AERO.2000.878212
http://www.pprune.org/archive/index.php/t-58841.html

In summary - in theory you can always save the day. In reality -- one mistake, and you're going down hard.

Re:Hmm

[slimshady945]

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

Re:Hmm

[slimjim8094]

You may have been alluding to this, but it's standard procedure (even in civilian aircraft) to dump fuel when landing after a failure on takeoff. It reduces the landing weight (which is usually lower than the takeoff weight by a surprising amount; the extra weight is fuel intended to be burned), but also reduces the size of a fire ignited by a crash. Thus, one of the first things he would have done if he'd had engine problems would be dumping fuel.

Re:Hmm

[drerwk]

Each engine on an F-18 can produce thrust equal to about 1/4 max takeoff weight. I'd be shocked if that was not sufficient to get the plane off the ground given enough runway. Since it was already air born one engine should be plenty to get an F-18 back into the pattern. Consider this is a plane that can do Mach 1.8 - and rotation (takeoff) speed is likely less than 150 mph fully loaded. So that second engine is not so much for takeoff as for Mach cruise at 40,000 ft.

Re:Hmm

[MichaelSmith]

Though I often wonder where I would be without it.

Re:Hmm

[sjames]

Or one engine went to pieces and damaged the other in the process.

Of course, it could have been entirely unrelated. Many people aren't really aware of just how odd a perfectly functioning jet engine can sound if it's sound reflects a few times and self-interferes.

Re:Hmm

[PPH]

It was pointed out on an aviation site (and visible in a Gizmodo photo that the engine nozzles are set asymmetrically (left side is closed down, right is opened up). So this could indicate a problem with one (the right?) engine.

Re:Hmm

[sjames]

I believe it can be used in a truck diesel, but could be a problem in a light weight diesel engine. It can also be used in a ready heater this winter.

Re:Hmm

[sjames]

Dumping fuel is a normal procedure if you're going to make an emergency landing (to lighten the load) or expect to crash (to minimize the fire)

Re:Hmm

[sjames]

Sure they would. It's a fighter. It needs power well above and beyond what is strictly necessary to fly.

Re:Hmm

[DigiShaman]

I really hope the Chinese aren't *that* stupid. Ya, they might retake Taiwan. But they know it's better to capture a fly with honey than with vinegar. If anything, their navy will be used to secure their place among the pacific. Specifically against Japan, Korea, Russia and India. Regardless of what the media may report, the relationship between China and Russia is dicey at best. As for taking over land. No way! Someone will end up wiping out their navy if not entire cities with nuclear weapons. This isn't the 1940s where the Nazis can walk all over the map. No, nuclear weaponry changed everything. At the very least, MAD.

Re:Hmm

[cavreader]

A problem with the fly by wire system or related computer system could also be capable of taking out both engines or control surfaces which are critical during takeoffs and landings. Advanced fighter jets rely heavily on fly by wire systems just to keep the jet airborne.

Re:Hmm

[TubeSteak]

I've worked with several allied and friendly militaries. The Brits, Germans and Aussies, just as good as us.

India's air force is top notch.
They've embarrassed us a few times during international military exercises.
And they have the 4th largest air force in the world

Re:Hmm

[jargonburn]

He should have used the boost to get through!

Re:Hmm

[blackicye]

There was also apparently a fuel dump. So, either the student pilot hit a wrong button, or when they say "catastrophic mechanical failure", catastrophic is probably not an exaggeration.

Just a guess, but maybe they dumped fuel in order to incinerate as little as possible of the crash site? It might even make sense for the flight computer to do this automatically if it predicts an imminent crash.

They primarily dump fuel to reduce weight, and increase manoeuvrability, the flaming inferno factor usually comes in last.

Re:Hmm

[profplump]

That's not a problem with "fly-by-wire systems", that's a problem with "systems". In any related group of components it's possible for a failure in one component to affect other components, even if they are "fully independent". If the FA-18 had totally separate, completely mechanical control systems it would still be possible for one engine to interfere with the other, if for no reason other than their physical proximity -- if a throttle cable snapped it could become engaged with the rudder cable, or the other throttle cable, or short out the navigational lights.

Re:Hmm

[the_raptor]

From what I have been told by the knowledgeable in previous discussions is that civilian twin engine aircraft are designed to function on one engine, so it is a sure bet that military ones are as well. The only case I can think where this mightn't apply is if the aircraft had a full combat load, but this was a training flight.

From the fact that people could hear a failing engine it is likely that both engines failed one after the other (eg catastrophic turbine failure leading to the other engine being damaged by fragments), or this was something like a fuel pump failure.

Re:Hmm

[dbIII]

Yes, that means conquering Australia

They've allready bought the goodwill of the largest companies, virtually purchased one political party outright via a fat idiot proxy and the fawning goodwill of the other. They have no need to conquer, if it comes down between a choice between trade partner number one and the US at number 5 (after screwing Australia over in a one sided free trade deal) it's obvious which way it's going to go.
The Chinese government would be insane to try to conquer a continent that could easily be turned into a client state without military action. Anyway, most of China's military force is directed towards controlling their own country.

Re:Hmm

[ultranova]

A witness was quoted as saying that the engine sounded like it was dying. The problem there is that the Hornet is a twin engine plane. If it was an engine going out, then they could have just shut it down and flew home on the remaining engine.

Assuming, of course, that the failure wasn't caused by something that would affect both engines - like, say, contaminated fuel or air.

Re:Hmm

[blindseer]

Minor nit to pick, since this was a F-18 it would be running on the Navy's JP-5 and not on the Army's JP-8. A quick Google search tells me that all Navy equipment, which generally have unmodified diesel cycle engines, will run on JP-5.

Re:Hmm

[K. S. Kyosuke]

The boost? You mean the avionics is programmed in C++? I think I've just found the cause of the accident.

Re:Hmm

[rtb61]

Especially as dumping fuel at low altitude just prior to impact could create a fuel air bomb, not a very good idea in a populated area. Considerable altitude should be required to dump fuel. The pilots will be judged by the distance between where their ejection seats landed and where the plane impacted, the greater the distance the worse they will look. Either way, pressure will mount to shift pilot training to a safer location.

Re:Hmm

[GameboyRMH]

Makes sense, they have more experience :-P

http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/vimanas/esp_vimanas_8.htm

Re:Hmm

[GameboyRMH]

Also good for arctic offroading, it stays liquid at much lower temperatures than diesel.

Re:Hmm

[GameboyRMH]

I know that F-18s burn through an ungodly fraction of their fuel on takeoff, that sounds like both engines being used hard...

Re:Hmm

[cavreader]

"That's not a problem with "fly-by-wire systems", that's a problem with "systems". I said Fly-by-wire and other related systems which I believe meets your definition of "systems". It's probably better just to say computer system instead of identifying one of the sub-systems. The do have redundancy in their computer systems but it does not make them susceptible to failure.

Human pilots do not have the physical reflex's needed to manually control a high performance jet operating at the top of it's performance envelope. Without fly-by-wire fighter performance would be substantially reduced. And while I realize this article is about a fighter jet I will just mention that the F-117 and B-2 cannot be flown manually except in a few cases because stealth fighters have sacrificed aerodynamics to EM and heat detection. I am curious if anyone has come up with a way to overcome the stealth capabilities of the F-22 or B-2. The F-117's used in the first Iraq war required coordinated attacks by other non-stealth air assests to keep Iraq's air defense system as busy as possible and they also had to execute a flight plan that required them to enter into Iraq's air defense system at the borders of the air defense area boundaries. Air defense systems are broken into areas of responsibility and are most vulnerable where the area boundaries meet. I would think you could detect a stealth fighter using the wake turbulence caused by the plane. It would not be very precise but it would allow the air defense missiles to targeted close enough that the other detection capabilities can use to lock on. As it is now the first sign of a stealth aircraft in the area is the explosions caused by it's munitions.

Re:Hmm

[bhalter80]

Civilian __TRANSPORT__ category aircraft certified under 14CFR25 which are most large commercial aircraft (Dash8, 767, etc...) are able to takeoff and climb on a single engine. Light twins (Piper Semonole, Cessna 310) generally are not, as the 2nd engine just buys you time until the forced landings. This is interesting since the F/A18 would be considered to have longitudinal thrust as neither engine inop can put the aircraft into a spin below a critical speed.

Re:Hmm

[couchslug]

That IS Funny.

Usually, when such things happen it's due to an engine component coming apart then taking other components with it. Fans, compressors, and turbines spin at high rpm, and if a blade or worse the "wheel" it's mounted to fails the fragments can go sideways, downstream, or both.

The reported "pops" would be "compressor stalls" (backfires) caused by the damaged engines inability to "suck, squeeze, bang, and blow".

I'm a retired engine troop and F-16 crew chief. These things happen now and then. The Safety gurus even predict the yearly Mishap rates in advance, and they are quite good at it.

Re:Hmm

[dkf]

Yes, that means conquering Australia

The Chinese government would be insane to try to conquer a continent that could easily be turned into a client state without military action.

Not just that, to hold Australia militarily, they'd also have to hold a lot of the intervening territory through SE Asia. At a minimum, they'd need to also have the Philippines, Indonesia and a fair chunk of Malaysia. I'm not saying that it's impossible for them to do it, but it's a lot of men and materiel outlay to gain somewhere with a probably hostile population when you can get 90% of what you really want without any of the effort.

I'd guess it would only be on the cards if a Hitler-class megalomaniac comes to power in China. Could happen I suppose, but time enough to worry about it when it does.

Re:Hmm

[couchslug]

If a fan or turbine wheel comes apart in one engine it can send fragments through the side of the engine and damage all sort of important bits nearby.

There are different kinds of engine failure, and some give no chance to shut the failed engine down before Bad Shit happens.

Re:Hmm

[couchslug]

These things are cyclic. F-16s had their years of high accident rates too.

Without Navy and AF Class A Mishap stats handy there's no easy way to know the current attrition rate. They are normally on the web but I'm too lazy to Google at the moment.

Re:Hmm

[MattDaye]

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

gravity is actually one of the weakest forces known to physics. I think they should take a real long look at electro-magnetism, that guy has always been sketchy in my book

Okay, fine

[slashmydots]

I bullshit you not, this is a 100% true story. A friend of mine just got a small apartment complex construction approved by the city and county and the nearby airport denied it because it's in some kind of zone. It's not even the 2-story part, it's a density thing. If it was spread out houses, they'd approve it but having that many people that close together is a safety hazard if a plan were to miss the runway and crash. It was over a mile from the front of the runway by the way. So anyway, they were appealing the decision because "how often do planes randomly crash into apartment complexes next to airports." I have a feeling they're about to either drop the appeal or lose.

Re:Okay, fine

[geekmux]

I bullshit you not, this is a 100% true story. A friend of mine just got a small apartment complex construction approved by the city and county and the nearby airport denied it because it's in some kind of zone. It's not even the 2-story part, it's a density thing. If it was spread out houses, they'd approve it but having that many people that close together is a safety hazard if a plan were to miss the runway and crash. It was over a mile from the front of the runway by the way. So anyway, they were appealing the decision because "how often do planes randomly crash into apartment complexes next to airports." I have a feeling they're about to either drop the appeal or lose.

Going to drop an appeal that likely cost thousands because of a single recent incident? He would probably be stupid to do so.

Here, let me prove my point. When was the last time we heard of a fighter jet crashing into an apartment complex? I can think of a dozen other reasons the permit would be denied that would be a hell of a lot more "in-your-face" issues than events that mirror meteor strikes in probability.

Re:Okay, fine

[commodore73]

I once lived in an apartment complex that was under a landing flight path. The noise didn't bother me during the day, but only in that place, I frequently had dreams of luggage, wheels, engines, and other airline debris falling into our unit. I never even considered a complete plane dropping out of the sky.

Re:Okay, fine

[martin-boundary]

When was the last time we heard of a fighter jet crashing into an apartment complex?

About 11 years ago, on September 11 2001? Well, it wasn't an apartment complex as such, but it was definitely a fighter (commandeered) jet.

Re:Okay, fine

[CharlyFoxtrot]

About 11 years ago, on September 11 2001? Well, it wasn't an apartment complex as such, but it was definitely a fighter (commandeered) jet.

It's not a crash if you "land" exactly where you planned to. Well I guess technically it is but only in the way suicide is technically murder.

Re:Okay, fine

[geekmux]

When was the last time we heard of a fighter jet crashing into an apartment complex?

About 11 years ago, on September 11 2001? Well, it wasn't an apartment complex as such, but it was definitely a fighter (commandeered) jet.

Er, since when did we start mixing fatality via sleep deprivation on the freeway with Charles Manson's criminal record in a potpourri of death statistics?

Even a layman can see there is a large chasm separating a true accident from an intentional act of mass murder/suicide.

And I've seen a lot of fighter jets perform. Regardless of who "commandeered" them, a commercial airliner has about as much "fighter" capability as my radium-powered smoke detector has "nuclear" capability.

Re:Okay, fine

[martin-boundary]

But is it "landing" if you never hit the ground? Also, I can see this being a problem for aircraft carrier jargon, although I seem to recall someone saying that landing on a carrier is like a "controlled crash".

Re:Okay, fine

[MichaelSmith]

Its a landing if you walk away from it, as one of the plots apparently did.

Re:Okay, fine

[martin-boundary]

Your reply illustrates the classic problem when estimating failure probabilities: Instead of being inclusive, you try to fix a narrow definition that represents a failure event, which causes your final probability estimates to be too low. This also happens with nuclear disasters and black swan type market crashes, etc.

I would suggest that your original question "When was the last time we heard of a fighter jet crashing into an apartment complex?" is badly posed. It's too specific to be truly useful, and if answered precisely, leads to an overly optimistic conclusion.

All airplane crashes are different, of course, but they are still crashes. I've been to airshows myself, and I've seen military aircraft (the F15 flying straight up like a candle is most impressive, btw), and incidentally I've also witnessed a crash into a crowd at such an event.

Re:Okay, fine

[shiftless]

All of which is irrelevant to the true question: should the government (or any other entity) be allowed to tell me what I can and can't build, on my own goddamn property, a mile away from an airport?

Re:Okay, fine

[sjames]

It's equally a mistake to lump things together, it obscures the potential effectiveness or ineffectiveness of countermeasures. For example, it would be a mistake to not include a proximity alarm just because it won't prevent a deliberate crash. It would likewise be foolish to act as if a proximity alarm is at all effective in the case of a deliberate crash.

Likewise, a lock on the cockpit door goes a long way to addressing a terrorist risk but is completely useless for the case of pilot and copilot losing situational awareness.

For the case at hand, limiting population density near the runway will not in any way address the terrorist case. They will go wherever the density is anyway. It would address the case of short landings and failures on takeoff. The question is, just how often do those happen a mile away.

Re:Okay, fine

[martin-boundary]

The two types of error aren't equally important. Lumping failure modes together leads to worst case analysis, which is safer than best case analysis. You're worried that people will be overconfident from passing a worst case analysis? As opposed to what? Being reasonably confident from passing a best case analysis instead? (Getting things exactly right isn't realistic, do you think otherwise?). I'd argue that confidence is less important than actual physical measures that are ready when needed.

For the case at hand, limiting population density near the runway will not in any way address the terrorist case. They will go wherever the density is anyway. It would address the case of short landings and failures on takeoff. The question is, just how often do those happen a mile away.

Well, at around 150mph it would take about 25 seconds to reach a mile. If the airplane takes off and has a fatal failure around 12 seconds into the climb, then by symmetry a rough estimate is that the crash will occur a mile from the takeoff point. This page has data on accidents during the initial climb phase. Clearly this is not a negligible probability, even though it is aggregated over many airports.

Re:Okay, fine

[sjames]

The two types of error aren't equally important.

Exactly, so they can't be lumped together. They require separate analysis. You then take the summation of the risks. In the case of density near the airport, terrorism isn't much of a factor because it will apply to density anywhere (that is, the airport isn't a special case). Short landing DOES apply to density near the airport and may well be a factor.

You don't fairly lump in the risk of stroke due to meth abuse in air travel, even though a passenger may indeed suffer that death while flying.

Re:Okay, fine

[martin-boundary]

No, you're not computing full failure probabilities by ignoring the terrorist risk. What you're computing in your example is conditional probability, ie probability of a failure conditional on a nonterrorist event. That's not a probability, and can't be used to make decisions on its own. At best, it may be an intermediate result, but if you're doing that, you've now got two sources of modelling error, the error in the conditional probability and the error in the estimate of the probability of a terrorist event that is needed to complete the calculation.

You don't fairly lump in the risk of stroke due to meth abuse in air travel, even though a passenger may indeed suffer that death while flying.

You do. It's still a death in flight, and will show up in casualty statistics(*). If you deliberately ignore that risk, your safety probabilities (which are really conditionals) will be too rosy, and you won't be able to reconcile them with other data. And if your calculations get passed to someone else who uses them in another calculation, they may well not realize that the omission skews their own results as well.

(*) Even if it seems obvious that it shouldn't in this case, an actual determination of the cause of death might be delayed, and not taken into account when the statistics are compiled.

Re:Okay, fine

[Anonymous Coward]

Since you're obviously not going to care about other people's lives, well, the government has to go and fix that for you. That's the way a good government works: protect the general populus from evil, such as you.

Re:Okay, fine

[sjames]

No, I'm understanding that the risk from the terrorist plane crash exists anywhere there is population density and so the proximity to the runway has nothing to do with it.

Do you also want me to add in the terrorist plane crash risk to a surgery? They MIGHT hit a hospital! Is it a risk for high fat foods? Indeed, they might crash into me while I eat a fat laden lunch.

Both of those seem to be what you're claiming.

Re:Okay, fine

[martin-boundary]

Yes! You add in everything that the data you have represents. If your data is deaths, then you don't make a distinction between deaths. You can only make a distinction when the data makes that distinction for you (ie you're not imputing a classification yourself, after the data is collected). Anything else is mixing assumptions with facts in ways that are hard to unravel, if not by you, then certainly by others.

Re:Okay, fine

[sjames]

You're confusing data analysis and risk analysis.

Re:Okay, fine

[martin-boundary]

You're right, but I'm not doing so disingenuously. I don't believe you can separate the two: If you're going to perform any risk calculations, you have to sooner or later calculate an expectation. The probabilities you'll put into that will depend on collected data, and will be quite unreliable if the events being assessed are rare, which the interesting ones often are. I'm suggesting it's (numerically speaking) better to lump risks together than try to model individual causes too finely.

Re:Okay, fine

[slashmydots]

Actually they were going to live there because they're the owner of a single parent and pregnant teen charity organization and this building was going to be rotating temporary housing for them for maximum of 1 year while the staff helps them get education and employment. "Apartment" was shorter. So fuck you, asshole.

Re:Okay, fine

[slashmydots]

I didn't mention this, because it was sort of implied, but this is a commercial airport. We don't get a lot of fighter jets around here lol. I think it's a 1-runway too and mostly flies to O'Haire, Minneapolis, and that one in Michigan.

Re:Okay, fine

[slashmydots]

Oh, that sort of reminds me. This wasn't in the "noisy" path area or whatever they call it. I live right down the street and we very rarely hear planes landing. They come from almost 90 degrees different from this area.

Re:Okay, fine

[sjames]

Risk assessment is used to decide between actions. It is never valid to ibnclude a uniform risk in those calculations. It's like claiming that to solve y=2x+1 you must be sure to add w^2+23w/i +176 to both sides of the equation. In other words, you'll just end up obscuring the differential risk.

Re:Okay, fine

[Pieroxy]

You just proved once more that "garbage in" == "garbage out"

Sorry about the misunderstanding.

Re:Okay, fine

[martin-boundary]

Risk assessment is used to decide between actions.

Yes, and to do so, you minimize, over the possible actions A, the expected loss E(Loss(A)). Where do your probability weights that enter into E come from? Or do you leave that part aside?

Re:Okay, fine

[sjames]

They come form risks that have some sort of differential between action A and action B. It would actually be IMPOSSIBLE to include every single undifferentiated risk. You'd have to include genetic diseases, ebola outbreak, monkey pox, zombie attack, genetically reconstituted velociraptors, poisons, old age, cancer (not repated to A or B), stubbed toes, choking on an olive pit, burst appendix, sleeping sickness, etc. etc. etc. etc. ad nauseum (oh yeah, nausea!)

So no, I would not, under any circumstances try to include all of that. Instead I would stick to the risks that have a known differential between the actions under consideration (and before you claim otherwise, if the differential is unknown, throwing in the known values won't reveal it).

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.

Re:Really?

[Daetrin]

You see, normally i agree with you when someone complains about other people on Slashdot making light of death. But see this? That's funny. so is this. And i'm sure there will be more funny posts later. Humor is an important part of dealing with tragedy.

However "Oooohhh! People have been hurt! And there are shiny pictures of it! Wanna see?!?" isn't being sensitive and it isn't funny either.

Re:Really?

[Nidi62]

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.

From the linked CNN article:

The two pilots, a police officer and three other people were treated and released at a hospital, except for one of the pilots, who was admitted, according to Sentara Virginia Beach General Hospital. Both pilots, who live in Virginia Beach, are 'doing well and they suffered minor injuries,"

So, hardly "lots of people", and hospitals usually don't treat and release people who "may die". I think you can lighten up a bit. You'd think it was your apartment they crashed into or something.

Re:Really?

[Zapotek]

So you're saying that it either was or wasn't a joke but if it was it'd be funny but since it may not be it's not funny. Do I even need a punchline here?

Re:Really?

[Daetrin]

No, i'm saying if it were a joke it would be funny, but it definitely wasn't a joke. I've already pointed out in a previous response some comments where people _did_ make jokes and they _are_ funny, but the simple statement "there are shiny pictures" is not a joke.

Re:Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

Lets not speak so soon, shall we? Not all the people who live in these apartment buildings have been accounted for. For all we know, theres a dead family in there. Let the unknown dead rest in peace.

Re:Really?

[Frank T. Lofaro Jr.]

hospitals usually don't treat and release people who "may die".

Unless they don't have enough insurance.

Luckily Obamacare will fix this, if the Supreme Court doesn't meddle with it!

Re:Really?

[Daetrin]

Why would i have cared if the pictures showed any of the casualties? As i already stated, my objection was to the adjective used to describe pictures of a disaster (albeit a very small scale disaster) not the existence or sharing of the pictures themselves.

Things break, even multi million dollar equipment.

[dclozier]

I really don't think our well trained pilots would ditch into a populated area so my guess is mechanical failure. (along with gravity and the pilot struggling to keep civilians out of harms way)

similarities with 9/11

[gygy]

Too bad for the people living at number 7. Their building is next to collapse !

Re:Eisenhower warned us.

[geekoid]

You mean the speech where he says we must have a ready military?

Only 25 crashes in 40 years?

[Ranzear]

From TFA:

There have been more than 25 crashes involving Navy aircraft on or near the base over the past four decades.

Only 25 crashes of high-performance military hardware in four decades is a staggeringly low number to me if even the B2 can have a glitch caused by a little water on takeoff and crash,

Re:Only 25 crashes in 40 years?

[Richard_at_work]

You overlook "at the base"... The USN has lost more than 25 planes in total over the past 5 years alone.

Dumped fuel?

[MichaelSmith]

The article I saw said that the aircraft dumped fuel before the pilots ejected, so that must have happed bloody fast. Commercial aircraft can't dump fuel that fast. My initial thought was to wonder why they didn't get back to a runway, if they had time to dump fuel like that.

Re:Dumped fuel?

[Anonymous Coward]

No one said they dumped 100%. "Had time" just means they hit the switch before ejecting.

Also, the articles specifically say they ejected late, suggesting they were spending as much time as possible trying to avoid disaster, not that they bailed immediately without trying anything

Re:Dumped fuel?

[nschubach]

It's probably trained to instinct. If they have some catastrophic failure, all you have is instinct to go on... you need to be trained to "do this, this, this, and that." without thinking about it.

Re:Dumped fuel?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just because they dumped fuel doesn't mean they dumped all of it. If it was a Super Hornet (media reports concerning aviation are always suspect), then it has the extra ability to refuel other aircraft in flight, which means they could probably dump fuel pretty quickly.

The article also lauds them for dumping fuel to make the fire upon impact much less severe. I guarantee they were dumping fuel to reduce weight. This was (99% probability) an engine malfunction. In one of the picture you can see the left nozzle closed and the right nozzle wide open. They probably had a lot less thrust than they needed and were dumping fuel reduce the amount of thrust required for flight.

Last, circling back to the runway that you took off almost never works. And it definitely isn't going to work in a thrust deficient situation in a fighter-type aircraft. You just don't have enough energy. I don't know how the Super Hornet works, but it may have also lost flight controls depending on the malfunction. I've never flown the F-18, but I have flown the T-38 (the Mig-28 in Top Gun, btw) which was a pig if you lost an engine and lost all flight controls if both motors died.

Source: I am a USAF pilot.

Re:Dumped fuel?

[Kneo24]

Re-read your comment. Commercial aircraft can't dump fuel that fast. So why would this indicate that military aircraft couldn't?

Re:Dumped fuel?

[MichaelSmith]

Yeah but how fast can that aircraft pump fuel out of its tanks? Very fast, apparently, like, in a couple of seconds.

Re:Dumped fuel?

[MichaelSmith]

Not saying it couldn't. Just saying that you would need a hellishly efficient fuel dump mechanism to make a difference in less than a minute. No doubt that is what they have.

Re:Dumped fuel?

[MichaelSmith]

Just because they dumped fuel doesn't mean they dumped all of it.

But if it prevented a more serious fire they must have dumped most of their fuel. The aircraft would be fueled up on takeoff surely. Nobody wants air in their tanks.

circling back to the runway that you took off almost never works. And it definitely isn't going to work in a thrust deficient situation in a fighter-type aircraft

Maybe I am too accustomed seeing FA/18s climb out at 45 degrees from the runway. I suppose they don't do that routinely.

Re:Dumped fuel?

[DerekLyons]

If it was a Super Hornet (media reports concerning aviation are always suspect), then it has the extra ability to refuel other aircraft in flight, which means they could probably dump fuel pretty quickly.

The Super Hornet can only refuel other aircraft when it's carrying the centerline buddy store - and no, they can't dump fuel via that route. (The valve at the end of the drogue is operated by the probe of the receiving aircraft. It cannot be operated remotely.)

Re:Dumped fuel?

[sunderland56]

why they didn't get back to a runway, if they had time to dump fuel like that.

You can dump fuel from an aircraft with dead engines, or one that is otherwise unable to fly.

Re:Dumped fuel?

[Anonymous Coward]

Navy pilot, I have flown the Hornet.

Dumping was definitely to reduce gross weight. Just because some random guy on the street says "It would have been worse if he hadn't dumped his fuel" does not mean it's true. You can start dumping immediately, but it would take several minutes to dump enough to make a difference.

The nozzles (Variable Exhaust Nozzles or VENs on the FA-18) change based on throttle setting. Actually it's a complex formula done by the engines control system to regulate things like EGT, EPR, and a bunch of other parameters. For simplicity an engine has the VEN near full open at idle, off, or max afterburner. The VEN is near closed at or near military power (full power without afterburner).

Circling back to the runway you took off of works well if you have the thrust to get there. If you don't, it just doesn't matter. A normal sequence of events in case of loss of engine shortly after takeoff would be to go to max power, jettison stores and attempt to fly away straight ahead. Once you successfully get the airplane flying you have all sorts of options. The FA-18 flies pretty well on one engine as long as that engine is fully functional and you don't get yourself slow.

Re:Dumped fuel?

[Daniel Phillips]

My initial thought was to wonder why they didn't get back to a runway, if they had time to dump fuel like that.

Maybe the glide angle of an unpowered F18 is roughly 45 degrees?

Re:Dumped fuel?

[csirac]

The aircraft would be fueled up on takeoff surely. Nobody wants air in their tanks.

Maybe it's different for military aircraft, but in commercial aircraft nobody wants to fly around with full tanks unless you actually need it. Unless you're utilising the maximum range of the aircraft (or your alternate(s) would result in doing so), full fuel is just dead weight killing your profits.

In fact in many aircraft, it's not even possible to have both maximum useful payload (cargo/passengers) on board AND maximum fuel at the same time - you'll completely exceed MTOW.

Re:Dumped fuel?

[MichaelSmith]

Yeah thats true. I was thinking more about the non-commercial civil aviation environment where you always fill your tanks after you land because otherwise condensation can form inside your fuel tank and contaminate the fuel with water.

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.

Re:6 people, pilots stopped it from being more.

[pbjones]

why do people link my mention of fuel dumping to the fire? I clearly said that they May have known that something was wrong and started dumping fuel to lessen the chance of a major fuel fire.

Re:Slashdot-worthy?

[Black Parrot]

How exactly is this News for Nerds? First it's politics, then it's this:"EA Defends Itself Against Thousands of Anti-Gay Letters", and now this story?

I someone threatening to crash a jet into your house if you don't read Slashdot?

Yeah, we're seeing some change in focus. But what's the point in complaining? It's not like there aren't a billion other sites you could visit.

Cue the conspiracy theories

[Black Parrot]

Any wagers on which conspiracy theories will have legs this time?

Re:Cue the conspiracy theories

[murphyje]

My money is on the military having spotted some Daleks in the building and not taking any chances. Silly, humans! A fighter jet won't get through their shields!

Re:Cue the conspiracy theories

[Apothem]

I'll make a wager on the "The government did it on purpose" theory please.

Re:Cue the conspiracy theories

[Xtifr]

Time-travelling rabbits.

Re:Slashdot-worthy?

[lightknight]

Catastrophic mechanical errors do fall under the jurisdiction of News for Nerds, as a fair number of site visitors have some understanding of mechanics (if not outright degrees in Mechanical Engineering), as do F-18 Hornets (which is more Aeronautical Engineering, but whatever).

And the politics thing has been a part of the site since 2000 or 2001.

There should be a law...

[interval1066]

Early reports indicate the pilot was tweeting while coming in for a landing...

Re:There should be a law...

[Gumby]

I wish I had some karma to reward this comment :D

Re:There should be a law...

[electrosoccertux]

Early reports indicate the pilot was tweeting while coming in for a landing...

just because it sounds like a bird doesn't mean it....

Right wing on fire

[GodfatherofSoul]

I heard this in an interview from a VERY credible sounding woman on CNN. She must have been some sort of engineer the way she was meticulously recalling details without embellishment or the personal feelings commentary track.

Re:Things break, even multi million dollar equipme

[zammer990]

I don't know, maybe he thought he'd play angry birds with people.

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:Grim Factoid?

[Anonymous Coward]

Indeed. A few months ago I was reading about the Royal Air Force in the 1950s, and some years they lost close to a thousand aircraft of various types; modern jets are so expensive that you can't afford to crash them at the rate we used to a few decades ago.

Re:Grim Factoid?

[sunderland56]

The RAF during the 1950's was involved in armed conflict around the globe: Egypt/Suez, what is now called Iraq, Malaya, Korea, and I'm sure there were others - as well as operations to support Berlin against the Russians. Most of those aircraft losses were in combat missions, not in training.

Re:Grim Factoid?

[Brian the Bold]

Well indeed some of these losses were in combat, but not that many.

In the early to mid 1950s, the RAF fighter squadrons mostly flew Gloster Meteor and DeHavilland Vampires, the newer aircraft had not yet made it to squadron service.

The Meteor in particular had some very nasty habits, if you opened the airbrakes when the undercarriage was extended then you would immediately lose control and from low altitude in the landing pattern a crash was inevitable as there was not enough engine power to recover even if the airbrakes were retracted before impact.

There were also many collisions during training, and quite a few crashes due to bad weather and fog where fuel exhaustion led to ejection and loss of the aircraft. THe RAF had many more pilots and aircraft, training was less comprehensive and many fatalities were young, average pilots who did not have sufficient skill and time in the air to be competent enough to survive.

Re:Grim Factoid?

[the_raptor]

>Most of those aircraft losses were in combat missions, not in training.

There is a difference between crashing an aircraft on a combat missions because it is a piece of shit death trap (like all early jets) and losing one to actual combat.

Re:Grim Factoid?

[dbIII]

There must have been a lot of those Meteors - I've seen quite a few engines from them being used as generators or sectioned and in plastic cases as display pieces in Universities.

Re:Grim Factoid?

[bemymonkey]

You might consider it more grim if you lived there...

as part of standard

[nimbius]

United States military protocol, a press conference was announced later on in the day at which an amorphous "surge strategy" was announced and a commitment to peace in the region was renewed. Many analysts in the media blamed weather or mechanical failure, while fox news attributed the terrorist mechanical failure to Obamacare death panels.

In response to media-fueled concerns and United States foreign policy
the country then promptly invaded the neighboring state of North Carolina.

Re:as part of standard

[cosm]

Hey! We have Fort Bragg, Camp Lejeune, and what was Pope AFB. We can hold our own :)

Re:as part of standard

[steelfood]

Actually, Fox said it was because those death panels got installed on the wrong side of the wing.

Re:Eisenhower warned us.

[poormanjoe]

2 boarders. There are 2 boarders. Defending those two cost less than operating bases in how many countries?
You tell me!
Not having this conv.......

Re:Slashdot-worthy?

[Anne_Nonymous]

>> How exactly is this News for Nerds?

Slashdot always reports on things that crash windows.

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.

It's a hoax!

[Anonymous Coward]

Looking at the pictures, this is obviously a hoax!

There are engines and tail sections clearly visible from the crash. Planes that crash into buildings don't leave wreckage or debris.

We learned this at the Pentagon on 9/11.

Perspective

[Anonymous Coward]

Just to quell some of the more off-base but understandable conjecture. Disclaimer- I have no insider information on this particular mishap, but I am a retired Navy pilot.

A Hornet can fly on one operating engine assuming the "good" one is not having a problem also.

The engines are isolated from a control and fuel standpoint. There are relatively few malfunctions that could affect both. Most likely would be foreign object damage (FOD) most likely birds. There are some other possibilities I can think of, such as the pilot shutting down the wrong (good) engine. It has happened before. Maybe it wasn't shortly after takeoff and they were limping back on one engine and it failed. Maybe it was a massive fuel leak (he wasn't dumping).

Dumping fuel would be normal to reduce gross weight following loss of an engine, particularly if it was shortly after takeoff (leads me to my speculation above). It wasn't done to reduce the amount of fuel for the fireball.

The plane hit at relatively low energy (slow) probably 150kts or less (approach speed). If it was cruise speed (300-350) the wreckage would be much less intact. Witnesses reported the gear down.

Looking at the pictures, the exhaust nozzle is open on one engine, closed on the other. Assuming that didn't happen on impact it means the engines were not doing the same thing. One was in afterburner or at idle, while the other was at or near mil.

VFA-106 is the Fleet Replacement Squadron (FRS). This is where new pilots transition from trainers to fleet aircraft (the FA-18). They are "replacement pilots" not "student pilots" in the traditional sense. They have wings, but are training in a new type aircraft.

Encroachment around Oceana is horrible (or was, I assume it has not gotten better).

Re:Perspective

[sunderland56]

Maybe you can answer the one big question the press hasn't asked: why are military training missions being flown over densely populated civilian areas?

Virginia is extremely close to the Atlantic Ocean - train all you want, the noise won't bother anyone, and malfunctions don't make news headlines.

Isn't that why the largest US Navy base in the world is in Nevada?

Re:Perspective

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, maybe because the press already knows that they already do fly 90%+ of the training over the Atlantic Ocean. Most of the training there is done in VACAPES which is out over the water where the noise doesn't bother anyone.

There is of course a certain amount of takeoff and landing practice that is necessarily done at an airfield, not to mention taking off and landing.

Oh, and I guarantee you that in 1943 when the Navy established Apollo Souek field it was not a densely populated civilian area.

Re:Perspective

[Anonymous Coward]

Most likely, they were in transit to their training area when the the chain of events started. They were not actively involved in any training like you see in movies, merely commuting into a training area set aside specifically for that purpose (away from populated areas, other air traffic, etc.)

Encroachment is the reason this is such a big story. In the 1940's when Oceana was built (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_Air_Station_Oceana), it was surrounded by 'farmland prone to flooding'. The continual progress of building nearby the base has really increased the population density. People don't understand how bad encroachment can be a problem. The just worry about the noise, not the rare, but potentially catastrophic chances that the airplane falls out of the sky.

Re:Perspective

[sunderland56]

The question is "Why do people want live near a Active Military Air Base???"

Because they're active military personnel? Or because they're civilian contractors? Or because they run a store/restaurant that serves the base?

If the military base had been built large enough in the first place - in this case, expropriate all of the then-unused land between it and the ocean - then the apartments would have been several miles further away, and the incident would have been on an uninhabited section of a military base, and not news.

Re:Perspective

[Mark of THE CITY]

At nearby Langley AFB, local land purchases are adding to the safety buffer.

sounds like uncontained engine failure

[r00t]

Turbine blades go shooting out all over, ripping apart anything nearby. Often this takes out hydraulic systems and rips open fuel tanks. Note that the F/A-18 engines are unusually close together. (compare with F-14 for example) I think one could easily wipe out the other. Metal fatigue is a likely cause, as well as the commonly mentioned bird strike. Wikipedia has a great list of uncontained engine failures: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncontained_engine_failure

Re:sounds like uncontained engine failure

[M1FCJ]

It's the other way around, F-14 engines are unusually apart. Usually (i.e. F-15, F-4, F-5 etc.) all have their engines side by side. F-14 designers were, for some reason, weren't that afraid of the asymmetric thrust issue which arises with a dead engine.

Re:sounds like uncontained engine failure

[mister_playboy]

I believe the intentions behind the wide engine spacing on the F-14 were to add lifting surface and make room to carry a full load of 6 Phoenix missiles.

The Su-27/30/33/34/35 family use engines similarly spread far apart.

Re:Things break, even multi million dollar equipme

[Apothem]

I wish I had mod points just simply because you really did put it best. Everyone keeps saying you could totally coast, but if you actually READ TFA, you'll see how close the crash is and just simply how obvious it is that the situation occurred shortly after takeoff.

Re:Shortly after take off...

[Beeftopia]

What it may have looked like from inside the cockpit.

Miramar and Oceana, similar hazards

[Mark of THE CITY]

I used to live in Poway (1969-1982), under the approach pattern for Miramar Marine Corps, formerly Naval, Air Station. I also went to university at [[UCSD]] on the west end of the station. There were accidents over the years, this one especially bad as a single-engine [[F-8 Crusader]] lost power on approach, hit a hangar full of aircraft caught fire. I bet this tragedy and others figured into all subsequent Navy/Marines fighters having two engines. More recently, a [[2008 San Diego F/A-18 crash]] caused four civilian fatalities, following a (relatively rare) double-engine flameout. Most crashes were far less spectacular (ejections over open water or empty fields). Both Miramar and Oceana have more development now, adding to the danger.

Root Cause

[ChrisMaple]

Michael Savage is claiming the root cause is military budget cutbacks and bad judgement within the pentagon leading to maintenance inadequacy.

Re:Slashdot-worthy?

[ikedasquid]

Just for the record, there's a fair amount of software and electronics onboard those things as well. The EEs and Comp E's want our chance to be responsible for the engine failure!

Budget cuts

[NetNinja]

They will find it was lack of proper maintenance.

Power Plants is being investigated

The pilot not being seperated from his chair upon ejecting is also troublesome.
MOS 6087 is in trouble

They are going over the maintenance records of this aircraft.
Maintenance has stopped at this squadron as normal operating procedures.
They call it a safety standown.

It will take 6 months or more before we know anything else. You can all go back to your so called normal lives.

Jedi Business

Re:Budget cuts

[Brian the Bold]

I don't believe that either of the pilots had not separated from their seats at impact, the main parachute is stowed in the headbox and is pulled out by the pilot's body mass as the seat separates after the drogue parachute has stabilised the trajectory.

The reason the seats are close to the aircraft wreckage is that the pilots left it very late to eject, they knew the likelihood of hitting houses was high and were trying to dump the aircraft in the ocean, when they realised they couldn't make it and that there was no point dying while unable to get there they banged out in short order. The seats are very capable, but it is entirely possible that the canopy only fully inflates as the pilot's legs reach the ground if ejection is at a low height.

"The Pornography of Grief"

[bdwoolman]

That is how George Will labeled this kind reporting. The bottom feeders have even gotten worse since he issued his indictment of this vile practice. Mr Will and I share few political ideas. But he was spot on with this characterization. I think of it every time I see one of these savage reports.

"So, your son died in a friendly fire incident in Kabul this morning. How does this make you feel, Mrs ________?"

safe landing

[fishingmachine]

"No word on what caused the plane, which costs tens of millions of dollars to go down, but it somehow managed to avoid hitting a minigolf course and water park, though nearby residences may not have been spared." thank god the plane instead crashed into an apartment complex, there could have been a whole 8 people playing minigolf that day!

quantity and quality

[G3ckoG33k]

Don''t be silly. The US Army is superior becuase it has both quantity and quality.

No army in the EU has both quantity and quality. And even if you combine the armies in the EU (or NATO) to get quantity you lose in quality, because of coordination issues due to different languages; like the French want to have a saying in all (even if no-one cares, really). Look at Libya. There are several reasons why there where no ground troops.

Soviet, had quantity and overkill power. A bit rusty perhaps, but it worked. Russia is gradually returning. Slowly but steadily. Watch the news, monthly.

China, had 2 billion armed bicycles but have replaced them with ultra-high technology at a pace which makes them a serious contender in the near to short long run. Watch the news, weekly.

Mexico? They're disorganized when it comes to the army. But their organised crime syndicates are fucking well organised, and probably rank among the best paid suppliers to the troops. Watch the local news, daily.

So, don''t be silly. The US Army still is superior becuase it has both quantity and quality.

Donnie Darko

[masmullin]

This article made me watch Donnie Darko

witnesses and what they may have seen

[steve.cri]

According to CNN, witnesses described (1) a nose-up attitude prior to impact, (2) the plane "falling from the sky" in a steep path (3) fire on the plane prior to impact (4) loud engine noise. However, (3) seems rather unlikely: In a photograph showing the plane at approximately 50 ft above ground, there is no fire or smoke visible, so the flame the witness saw may well have been the launching of the ejection seats. But the report of engine noise is somewhat of a puzzle. So we have the plane in an unsustainable attitude, stalling, and falling. If there was a loss of engine power, this may have only been the last desperate attempt of the pilot to pull the plane over the residential area, and not the initial cause of the accident. That there was time to dump fuel - if this was intentional - may corroborate the engine failure theory, because I would think that a crew would only take such a measure after it became clear that an engine restart was not feasible. It looks pretty much like a last resort, and there are probably other things they would try first. Unfortunately, the military is not so cooperative in releasing their accident investigation reports as are civilian authorities, so we may never know for sure what happened there.

gear down

[steve.cri]

... the photo also shows the plane has gear down http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/17irqmqejkpq3jpg/original.jpg

well

[Garybaldy]

now I know why my scanner app alerted me to 2700 listeners in Virginia beach yesterday.

Kudos to the pilots

[rocket rancher]

I watched an A7D Corsair II narrowly miss a junior high school and crash into an intersection in Tucson back in 1978. The plane developed engine trouble just before final approach to Davis-Monthan AFB. The pilot wrestled with the plane for nearly two and a half minutes, trying to nurse enough out of the stalling engine to get it to the runway, but it flamed out on him for the last time well short of the DM runway. He aimed for an empty football practice field, and then ejected at 200 feet of altitude, less than five seconds before the plane impacted. Unfortunately, the plane banked sharply after he ejected, and instead of hitting the practice field, it impacted in the street between the school and the practice field. It landed practically on top of a small car, instantly killing the two passengers. I was waiting for a bus less than half a block away from the impact point, and I felt the heat from the explosion when it hit. That pilot rode that beast down as far as he could, and punched out at the edge of the safe envelope for his ejector seat. Two people died, but a school full of kids didn't. Kudos to him, and to the F18 pilots for staying with the plane until the last possible moment before ejecting.

Re:Things break, even multi million dollar equipme

[dclozier]

I guess I should have been a bit clearer on the ditching - I took it for granted that everyone understood fighter jets wont glide like a cessna when they lose power. The pilots did what they could to minimise the damage that was about to happen. They didn't eject right away and care less about what the jet does next. Good points made!