F-18 Crashes in San Deigo Residential Neighborhood

[pika1000]

No story yet, just a link to live video on www.foxnews.com


http://www.foxnews.com/video2/live.html?chanId=1

[tyketto]

A little bit more on it:

http://www.10news.com/news/18229447/detail.html

http://www.cbs8.com/

Genessee and I-805 is about 3 - 4 miles south of KMYF, and about 8 miles south of KNKX. The KSAN LiveATC.net feed is down, so there isn't a feed on anything in the area that I can find.

BL.

[pika1000]

Military jet crashes in Calif. residential area
Pilot reportedly ejected before plane crashed into neighborhood
BREAKING NEWS
msnbc.com staff and news service reports
updated 2:35 p.m. CT, Mon., Dec. 8, 2008

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

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

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

The pilot ejected, Gregor said.

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

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

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

[pthomas745]

The San Diego Union paper puts the accident in University City, so the accident site is just west of NKX, not south of MYF.........

[robbreid]

CNN Video

Google map end of runway, and University City suburb.

[wazzu90]

How do you see a bang?

[robbreid]

Crashed on Cather Avenue at Huggins Street Google Map.

Two Dead; Military Jet Crashes into House in University City

SAN DIEGO, CA - Sources tell San Diego 6 News three people on the ground died Monday when a military jet crashed in a University City-area neighborhood after the pilot ejected from the aircraft, causing an intense fire that engulfed several homes.

The F/A-18D Hornet was heading to Marine Corps Air Station Miramar shortly before noon when it plunged to the ground near Cather Avenue and Huggins Street, about a mile west of the military base, according to police and the Federal Aviation Administration. The jet was reportedly flying from the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln when one of the two engines went out on the aircraft. The pilot was attempting to land at Miramar when the crash happened.

The jet crashed into a residential area of University City near Cather Avenue and Huggins Street shortly before noon.

Mayor Jerry Sanders confirmed two deaths with two people missing during a news briefing at 2:45 p.m. Four people were believed to be in one of the destroyed homes, a grandmother, a mother and two children.

Two houses were destroyed with others damaged by the fiery crash.

Nearby University City High School was placed on lockdown as a precaution to protect students and staff from smoke and fumes. The smoke plume from the crash could be seen over a wide area of San Diego County.

As many as three homes have been destroyed in the fire. It took firefighters about a half-hour to get the blaze under control.
Several witnesses reported hearing several loud popping sounds -- apparently the ejection mechanisms of the pilot's seat and the unoccupied second seat -- just before the jet went down.

Steve Diamond, a former military flier who witnessed the crash, says he went to the spot where he saw the pilot parachute to the ground after ejecting to see if the serviceman needed any assistance.

"And turns out that after he extracted himself from the tree, he was OK," Diamond said. "He was in good shape."

Medics took him to Balboa Naval Hospital for an evaluation. No one else was aboard the jet, according to military officials.

The pilot was flying quite low in the moments before he ejected, Diamond said.

"Other than that, there was no overt indication of any kind of catastrophic failure," he added.

Police shut down several streets in the area as crews doused the blaze and investigators began cataloguing evidence at the crash scene. Traffic in the area is congested.

[robbreid]

Click Here for Google Earth street view of impacted homes.

[robbreid]

The Crash at Farrell's Ice Cream Parlor
In Sacramento, CA - September 24, 1972

Don't know if anyone recalls the private F-86 that crashed into Farrell's Ice Cream Parlor back in 1972, but here is the link;

Link One details of the 1972 crash.

Link Two crash site today.

[QuickBurn]

Latest on the TV news says 3 dead, 1 missing, 3 homes destroyed.

The pilot must have been trying to land on 6L then. University City is just on the west side of the base, but the 24's are active about 98% of the time.

Genesee and I-805 don't intersect, btw..., It may have been referring to between Genesee and 805

[flyboy97222]

[wazzu90]

[WeatherWise]

What's really sad is to read all the after the fact finger pointing in local blogs.
Much blame is being placed on the military and the pilot and why he didn't "stay with his plane" until the bitter end. I lived near Miramar for many years and it's no different than any of the other airports in the area.
Accidents happen and planes can and have fallen into residential neighborhoods, no more than PSA 182 was "deliberately" nosedived into a San Diego neighborhood back in 1978. This F-18 pilot has to shoulder the burden of knowing what his disabled aircraft did. That's bad enough.

[robbreid]

PSA 182 photos


Two photos super imposed to show angle at impact.

ASN Crash Report PSA 182

===============================================

Back to F-18D crash.

In daylight, two houses destroyed, two heavily damaged, one light damage.

One destroyed house was vacant, 2nd house, South Korean family - Grandmother, mother, 1 child fatal, 1 child missing and believed fatal.

[pthomas745]

Mr. WeatherWise, those posts were reader comments to the blog post, not the blog itself. I read through a couple of them yesterday, and it was just the idiotic internet braying.

[WeatherWise]

That's exactly what I was referring to. All the back and forth finger pointing, comments within the blogs, not the thread itself.

[robbreid]

20/20 hindsight!!!

Makes a great hero story to ride your jet out of harms way, killing yourself but saving others!!!! However I say point it out of harms way and get the heck outta there. That's what the ejection seat is for.

I also recall, a fighter losing power over Indianapolis, (USAF A-7D Corsair). The pilot brought it to a relatively safe area, the airport!, and bailed. Only the jet ended up flying into the lobby of an airport hotel (Ramada).

All accidents are tragic, some worse than others, hopefully we can all learn something from each of these very tragic events.

Though an accident and subsequent crash could occur anywhere!, living under the flight path of a major military airport may not be the house you want to live in.

However I'd love it!!!

[robbreid]

1988 CORSAIR CRASH IN INDIANAPOLIS

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: January 13, 1988

LEAD: An Air Force fighter jet that crashed into an Indianapolis hotel last October lost power because of the failure of a part that connects the plane's jet turbine to its driveshaft, according to an Air Force report issued yesterday.

An Air Force fighter jet that crashed into an Indianapolis hotel last October lost power because of the failure of a part that connects the plane's jet turbine to its driveshaft, according to an Air Force report issued yesterday.

The engine of the A-7D Corsair went out several miles from Indianapolis on Oct. 20 and the plane crashed into the Airport Ramada Inn, killing 10 people, after the pilot was unable to land at the Indianapolis airport. The pilot ejected safely.

The report also said that there was confusion between air traffic controllers and the pilot, whose initial distress call was blocked by other radio calls.

''To make it simple, it was a driveshaft that attached to a turbine that failed,'' said Maj. Victor Andrijauskas, a spokesman at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada, where the plane and its pilot were based. ''When it failed, it precluded the engine from getting fuel, air and ignition.''

Air Force mechanics had noticed excessive wear on the driveshafts of three jets similiar to the one that crashed, the Air Force report said. The engine was made in Indianapolis by the Allison Gas Turbine Division of General Motors. Directive Was Issued

The wear prompted a directive to check driveshaft splines - teethlike parts that fit into grooves on the turbine to drive various parts of the engine - during compressor work on Corsairs. But the directive was not issued until four months after compressor maintenance was last done on the jet that crashed, in June 1986, the report said.

The report said problems with the driveshaft splines were first noticed by Air Force mechanics in November 1984. The report said a procedure implemented to stop the wear did not work and excessive wear was found on two jets in March 1986 and May 1986.

The pilot of the plane, Maj. Bruce Teagarden, remains grounded until a flight evaluation board determines whether he acted properly during the incident, Major Andrijauskas said.

Yesterday's report, compiled by a seven-member Air Force panel, also said the major's first distress call was blocked out by other calls and he received no response from controllers. Three other times Major Teagarden did not hear or did not recall hearing responses from the tower on runway and altitude information.

After he bailed out, the jet veered to the right and hit a bank building before bouncing into the street then slamming into the Ramada Inn and exploding.

[WeatherWise]

Robb, I agree. I lived under the final approach course to LAX's 24L-24R back in the 70's and it was great! At the risk of speculation, based on where the F-18 was in respect to the runway threshold, the pilot may have indeed thought he was clear of the residential area. A couple blocks away from the point of impact is wide open base land.

[robbreid]

This was the Ramada after it was hit by the Corsair, happened on Oct 20/1988 and killed nine people in the hotel, and six injured, one who later passed away.

Air Force officials also said they had determined that Major Teagarden had ejected when the plane was within 300 feet of the ground, 1,700 feet below the minimum approved height for bailing out.

Part of the outcome of the investigation, was at the time, USAF regulations were (now?) that at the point of loss of power/control, the pilot MUST eject immediately. In this case, the pilot disregarded the regs, and flew 15 miles over the city of Indianapolis with no power, and ejected over the airport.

The F-18D, the pilot landed in the school yard West of the homes, so clearly, he was not over homes during the ejection, and unfortunately the jet barely made it into the subdivision.

I was in El Centro CA and watched a USM F-18B fly overhead at about 900 feet, with a huge flame coming out the exhaust starboard engine. Another F-18 was slightly higher and in front of him. There was a big roar of power, and the flame only crew.

It was also a very windy day, and both jets were flying directly into the wind. The F-18 on fire, both crew ejected, one straight up, the second on an angle, the jet turned on a dime, facing back the way it came. However it fell flat, like a rock, to the ground.

In the Sunny Eggo (thats how Canadians spell it!!) crash, the pilot was clearly attempting to land, so he would have been low, and on approach - so I'll 'assume' the aircraft had some momentum that carried it a little further than anticipated. The entire decision making process/action/reaction probably happened in two seconds.

Thus 20/20 hindsight.

Note; the Corsair above, after flying the 15 miles with no power, looking for a place to bail - after bailing, and from the parachute watched in horror as the aircraft flew directly into the hotel.

[WeatherWise]

My first thought upon hearing of the crash was that he went down on takeoff.
Runways 6 are rarely used for landings at Miramar. Runways 24 departure traffic is at a much higher altitude with a mandatory northwesterly procedure turn for noise abatement. No doubt this will bring another chorus of "Close Miramar" from the local activists, certainly nothing new.

[JHEM]

[WeatherWise]

Amen to that, JHEM!

[EatSleepJeep]

[WeatherWise]

I can't even begin to put myself in his place under those split second circumstances. It just frustrates me to hear the negative comments and those who speak the loudest are of course those who are farthest removed from a cockpit.