Arent pilots sposed to guide the plane out of unpopulated areas before crashin?

[NeufUnSix]

I've heard about this up here in Canada, it's a tragedy but I agree that the pilot did the best he could.

Believe it or not we have similar dipshits in Canada who oppose military action of any kind, specifically in Afghanistan. When someone dies, it's a time to give support to the family and friends - to these people, those dead are statistical ammunition to argue for an immediate pull out. I walk around Montreal and see "Canada out of Afghanistan" signs all the time (Quebec and French Canada has it's own political motivations against military involvement, that's a whole other history). This pisses me off because I have a good friend who is serving over there (on bomb clearing detail, no less), and this lack of respect for their position is sad. The far-lefties keep calling for a pie-in-the-sky negotiated exit and provisional government run with the Taliban. Can you see the error in that reasoning?

Whatever, I kind of got off topic a bit there. Ignorance pisses me off.

[swampduc]

Have ya'll really been hearing a lot of negative comments about this pilot? I haven't, but if that is going on, it's shocking and disgusting!
This courageous man did everything humanly possible to limit the risk of loss of life. A kamikaze mission wouldn't have made this situation better.
Personally I think the pilot's actions were heroic. I'm also in awe of the response of the man who lost his family.

[optiato]

I've heard about this up here in Canada, it's a tragedy but I agree that the pilot did the best he could.

Believe it or not we have similar dipshits in Canada who oppose military action of any kind, specifically in Afghanistan. When someone dies, it's a time to give support to the family and friends - to these people, those dead are statistical ammunition to argue for an immediate pull out. I walk around Montreal and see "Canada out of Afghanistan" signs all the time (Quebec and French Canada has it's own political motivations against military involvement, that's a whole other history). This pisses me off because I have a good friend who is serving over there (on bomb clearing detail, no less), and this lack of respect for their position is sad. The far-lefties keep calling for a pie-in-the-sky negotiated exit and provisional government run with the Taliban. Can you see the error in that reasoning?

Whatever, I kind of got off topic a bit there. Ignorance pisses me off.

Now imagine being the soldier coming home and seeing this.  People just don't think...

[TiAvenger]

Have ya'll really been hearing a lot of negative comments about this pilot? I haven't, but if that is going on, it's shocking and disgusting!
This courageous man did everything humanly possible to limit the risk of loss of life. A kamikaze mission wouldn't have made this situation better.
Personally I think the pilot's actions were heroic. I'm also in awe of the response of the man who lost his family.

a couple of the more mild ones....

There is no excuse for this, ejecting over a populated area. The pilot should have gotten enough altitude over water to dead-stick it into Miramar if it came to it. But the pilot should have never ejected over a populated area, regardless. How one can bring them self to do so is beyond me, and utterly dishonorable.

If the pilot knew the plane was having trouble when he was flying over/near the ocean, whcih reports said, why not crash the plane in the ocean and be rescued by the aircraft carrier? Was this to save an expensive plane? Be a hero?

As a pilot, I can tell you a million pilots have done the same thing. "

Sir, don't lie on this forum. You are NOT a pilot...it is obvious with your diction. A trajedy has just happened and you want to grandstand. That's sickening.

BTW...if pilots, like you say, have such bravado...then why parachuts? why ejection hatches? what's the protocal?

It looks like some of the more callous ones have been edited by the various newspapers.

[DY]

I saw an interview with the Husband/Father/Son-in-law of the family who died in the crash.  I thought it was a great testament to him and a real gut check for native born Americans.  In one breath saying how he didn't know what to do now and in the next that he felt no ill will at all toward the pilot - that he understood his situation - all while more F18's were thundering overhead.  I can't even imagine.

I saw him make that same statement to the media last night.  Now there's a man with genuine character.  I will never understand why such bad things happen to good people, but there must be a reason somewhere for all the hell that he's being put through.

Word around the block is that the family had just moved into that home a month ago. 

[TiAvenger]

[mitt]

The pilot did everything he could.  It does seem strange that one engine would die, then the other.  The odds of independent engine failure seems unlikely. Maybe a system the controls both of them went out, but they didn't die simultaneously.  What about running out of fuel?

mitt

[Triple J]

What about running out of fuel?

That was my initial thought.  I agree, the chances of two engine mechanicals like that are pretty remote. It'll be interetsing to see what is discovered. For his sake, I hope he didn't just run out of fuel. 

[DY]

What about running out of fuel?

mitt

That was also my first thought.  But then I saw the footage and all the flames with black smoke.  A plane with no fuel would not burn like that. 

[TiAvenger]

Do they have separated fuel for each engine, to avoid both engines flaming out in the case of bad fuel?  Because if that were the case, he could have a fuel weight reading in for his previously shut down engine, and the other could have ran dry.

[optiato]

There could have been a problem in the fuel delivery systems.  Running out of fuel is very, very unlikely.  Could have been birds, but not likely in this case.

[optiato]

Do they have separated fuel for each engine, to avoid both engines flaming out in the case of bad fuel?  Because if that were the case, he could have a fuel weight reading in for his previously shut down engine, and the other could have ran dry.

There are several different fuel cells....

[optiato]

Not that it lessens how tragic this event is, but if you consider the amount of hours that these (and all other military planes) spend in the air, there are bound to be accidents... and consider they ARE flown over populated areas, statistically, it was bound to happen and is bound to happen again.

In one article, they listed that 10 planes were grounded for stress fractures to the flight control surfaces.  Why would they even put that in there?  It has nothing to do with engine failure.  And unless the wing falls off, it can be compensated for.  I hate the media.

[TiAvenger]

Not that it lessens how tragic this event is, but if you consider the amount of hours that these (and all other military planes) spend in the air, there are bound to be accidents... and consider they ARE flown over populated areas, statistically, it was bound to happen and is bound to happen again.

In one article, they listed that 10 planes were grounded for stress fractures to the flight control surfaces.  Why would they even put that in there?  It has nothing to do with engine failure.  And unless the wing falls off, it can be compensated for.  I hate the media.

That and officials demanding answers NOW!  This will take time.

U.S. Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-San Diego), the senior Republican on the House Armed Services Committee, has asked the Marine Corps to release all maintenance records of its F/A-18D Hornet fighter jets after one crashed into a San Diego neighborhood Monday, killing four members of a young family.

The crash was apparently caused by "power failure" and was likely unrelated to last month's discovery of cracks on the wings of more than a dozen aircraft at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar.

Nevertheless, Hunter wants to see all the maintenance records to determine what really caused the tragedy.

"It is important that we gain a complete understanding of what went wrong," Hunter said in a statement."

I'm sure Hunter is a trained crash investigator, and will have this case wrapped up by the end of the week. 

[Speeddog]

From the chart, first engine failed over the water, and the decision was made to go for a landing.
If the second engine had stayed operational, I'm sure he would have made it.
Unfortunately, it was the wrong decision, but given the information available at the time, and the certainly very short time window to make a decision... they went for it.
Tragic that folks on the ground died, but that's one of the risks when you live under the approach.

I don't think there's separate tanks for each engine.
I suspect that the engines and fuel systems are fundamentally separate, as much as possible, to try to avoid this scenario.

Perhaps the first engine failed mechanically, and shrapnel got the second engine.

A birdstrike is a possibility.

Interesting how the chart says that more than half of the planes are past their original service life.
I wager that there's B-52s that are 10x past, maybe 20x.