F-18 Fighter Jet Crashes Into Virginia Apartment Complex 295
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.
Re:Hmm (Score:5, Informative)
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 (Score:5, Informative)
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:Dumped fuel? (Score:5, Informative)
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:Hmm (Score:4, Informative)
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.
Perspective (Score:5, Informative)
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:Hmm (Score:4, Informative)
> 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 [doi.org]
http://www.pprune.org/archive/index.php/t-58841.html [pprune.org]
In summary - in theory you can always save the day. In reality -- one mistake, and you're going down hard.
Re:Dumped fuel? (Score:5, Informative)
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:Hmm (Score:5, Informative)
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 (Score:5, Informative)
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)