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F/A-18 down Not much information yet but a Marine fighter is down in a residential area on the approach to Miramar. No fatalities reported so far: the pilot ejected and there are no reports of deaths on the ground.
That might well change but I hope the worst result is only a destroyed home.
Unless things have changed since 1978 when I was doing a building automation system for them, the County of San Diego has its main building complex just off the end of one of the runways at Miramar, so one would presume services were quite rapidly on the scene.
It’s definite. No casualties.
Later reports indicate the early good news was wrong, sadly. There may have been three casualties on the ground.
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MSNBC reports 3 dead on the ground, as does CNN.
Where are you getting no deaths from?
Earl.
Yes, unfortunately, there are confirmed 3 dead on the ground, here’s from AP:
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hukCDXicy0DS1K2Rva8_VdP1d2hgD94V4B480
Well, I definitely have some mixed feelings here. For one, people shouldn’t be building residential areas at the ends of runways. The airfield was built there precisely because of its remote location, and flight paths are inherently dangerous (to say nothing of noisy). So there’s a certain element of “assumption of risk” here.
On the other hand, I’m also troubled by a pilot who would eject to save his own skin while leaving the aircraft to crash wherever luck happens to take it. The reason pilots have those expensive toys to fly is to protect us civilians. In these cases their first duty should be to prevent ground casualties.
Early reports said no casualties and were talking about how lucky that everyone was out. Sadly, it sounds like that changed.
Also, the pilot rode the aircraft down to almost the ground and only punched out at the last moment. There will be multiple investigations of it (for different purposes) so details will come out in a couple months.
Sounds to me like he did everything he could and punched out at the last possible moment. Don’t ask someone to die heroically unless they can actually do something… apparently a previous case some years back the pilot went into the baseball field… and died.
When I was out in that area working in the late 70’s, it was mostly empty. I agree with the commenter about people knowingly buying property in the area, and in fact a person I heard interviewed from the area said just that. They support the military and know the risk they are living with.
This is not to say that a ‘good journalist’ won’t be able to find *someone* who hates the military and thinks they should have closed the Top Gun school when they bought their property under the approach.
Caveat Emptor.
I spent a lot of time looking at the area in Google Earth yesterday. An MSNBC interview with a resident said that the homes there were 30-40 years old. They’ve been there a while. You can have a look by locating the base, and projecting a line of approach to Runway 06L. Look for the high school. The airplane piled-up about two hundred yards west.
Very curious to hear what happened.
“The airplane piled-up about two hundred yards west.”
No; east of the high school.
I still remember being 14, and living off Mira Mesa on the hill (Scripps’ Ranch, lord knows how we afforded to rent up there, but the house was a shambles, so…) and watching the Tomcat pilots fly overhead upside-down so low you could see the air intake mask on their helmets.
Tons of fun. Real sad to hear that folks got killed/hurt.
A cousin (once removed) of mine had to die heroically because of someone else’s screwups (Battle of Midway, etc.); the screwups left no honorable or successful alternative, and the fate of the world was at stake. If the houses were erected in harm’s way, the burden is on the owners, and the pilot has no mortal obligation, IMHO.
Michele Malkin talks aboout this sad tragedy that hit a American-Korean family.
http://michellemalkin.com/2008/12/09/this-is-what-patriotism-looks-like/
As I said before, I have mixed feelings here, and that hasn’t changed. Bad things happen and perfectly innocent people are harmed through no fault of their own, and sometimes it’s through no fault of anybody (although the tort bar would have you believe otherwise). I certainly don’t know the cause of this crash (probably no one does yet), and it’s entirely possible that the jet was completely uncontrollable at the point where the pilot ejected. If that was the case there would have been nothing to be gained from his death along with those unfortunates on the ground. Still, deep down I harbor the suspicion that if he was high enough to eject safely, and come down completely unharmed, then there was still more he could have done to ensure that the plane was directed away from populated areas, perhaps toward the ocean or at least the airbase. If there was still any chance of that he had a duty to do so, even at the cost of his own life.