F-A18 Hornet went down here in Virginia Beach around noon. Pilots scrammed... so far no one hurt other than the pilot. Crashed in the courtyard of an apartment complex.

 

Pilot and weps both hospitalize. One in good condition, one in fair condition. 3 others also hospitalized, but no details. Mixed reports on the posibilty of any fatalities.

 

Latest update is that approximately 50% of the destroyed unit has been searched and 9 people are hospitalized in addition to the crew of the F/A-18, so far no fatalities, hope it stays that way.

 

Was a training run. Witness stated the left the runway going vertical but there was no sound from the engines. Approx 3 miles from wheels up to burn in. Flight time was approx 20 seconds. Quick reaction to pop canopy and pop silk.

 

That's training kicking in, too bad they didn't have time to direct the aircraft away from a populated area before punching out, wonder if it was a bird strike or FOD that brought it down.

 

They were headed toward the bay, but hard to go-go with no power plant.

"Catastrophic Mechanical Failure"... we'll never know for sure... NTSB wont be handling this one.

 

Eventually there will be some sort of report made to the public in general terms as to the cause, but right now the best guess is some sort of FOD ingestion causing a catastrophic failure.

Unlike the turbines on commercial aircraft, fighter jet engines are easily damaged by debris or bird ingestion. It doesn't take much in any case to render a turbine engine useless, I've done my share of FOD walks down runways before a really "hot" aircraft takes off.

 

I do those checks in fields looking for sharps that can rip the nylon fabric of the envelope. I don't even trust my crew to do that... My flight my fault... you know the PIC is always the bottom line.

 

Exactly, I have a little plaque on the Queen's instrument panel, "The Buck Stops Here". Its my aircraft, I'm the PIC, anything that happens is my responsibility short of being hit by another aircraft that comes in from somewhere I can't see.

 

Looking at a plaque on my wall here...

"Flying is the second greatest thrill known to man. Landing is the First"