Navy jet crashes into Virginia apartments

Amazing that no one was killed in this incident.

Agreed.

Dumping of fuel - I think done of purpose - def limited the damage here and probably saved lives. Well done pilot!

tmarie: It's not clear whether the fuel dump was intentional on the part of the pilots or was a mechanical error, though indications seem to point to the former. And if so, then yes, good on the pilots. Of course having everything covered in jet fuel can't be too safe either, but it beats the fireball the scene would have been if the fuel had NOT been dumped.

It also seems there are a few people in the apartment block unaccounted for (three, I think). Hopefully they were indeed out on vacation.

I've read that it was done on purpose. Regardless, it certainly would have made a huge difference. Hope those three are found okay.

"flee-representative".....love that typo!

johninnaha: "U.S.A. please give up!"

Keep your Okinawa issues out of this one, my friend. This didn't happen in Okinawa, and where's the 'huge waste in life' that you speak of in this incident? Waste of a jet and apartment building, yes, but are you going to ask the nations of the world to stop commercial aviation as well because accidents happen and people die? How about asking everyone to stop driving?

Scary stuff with this one...can't imagine being harmed or injured by a plane literally falling out of the sky and onto an apartment. Good luck to all of those involved.

It is surely going to be a bigger issue in Okinawa again as Futenma is the most dangerous base of all. It will happen sooner or later.

nahaman: "It didn't happen in Okinawa but it's just a matter of time until it does (again)."

It's just a matter of time until someone steps out their door and gets hit by a car, too. What of it?

kwatt: "It is surely going to be a bigger issue in Okinawa again as Futenma is the most dangerous base of all."

Perhaps Okinawans shouldn't have built their towns AROUND US bases in order to profit and then later complain, that doesn't change the fact that this is NOT about Okinawa. Next time JAL has a near miss or technical difficulty, are you going to blame all of Japanese aviation? no! Because they are not related, same as Okinawa is not related to this simply because it was a US military incident.

Guys, this was a horrible incident, but could have been MUCH worse if not for the sudden actions of those involved. Instead of berating the US military for non-related grudges you hold, see it for what it was -- an accident in the US.

I wonder why the pilots ejected allowing the plane to fly alone in a straight course? If they had time to dump fuel, they had time to change course. Yes extremely dangerous but what comes first, your live or the civilians? What if it would of hit hospital or school?

Yuri- on fighter jets, once the engines blow out the pilot loses complete control. They are not built to glide.

Jared, so true but something really bothers me about the official story. Never flew a F-18 any model but in order to dump enough fuel to make a difference it takes time. Looking at the numbers oh call it 12,500 lbs and I know a 747-400 can dump 4000 lbs a minute including fuel burn. They had how long? 30 to 60 seconds perhaps, the fuel story is malarkey.

yuri- when a jet has to dump fuel its already too late

I wonder why the pilots ejected allowing the plane to fly alone in a straight course? If they had time to dump fuel, they had time to change course. Yes extremely dangerous but what comes first, your live or the civilians? What if it would of hit hospital or school?

Ala the ending to "The Great Santini", huh? Unlike those F-4's of the Vietnam era, the F-18's rely much more on hydraulics to move the control surfaces. If your hydraulics are out, the plane isn't going to be responding much (if at all) to your control inputs. Oceana NAS is right on the coast, so if they had any control of the plane they would have pointed it out to sea before ejecting. As it was, the plane didn't "fly alone" for very long. The pilots waited so long before ejecting that one of the pilots got his parachute caught on one of the buildings damaged by the crash and had to be cut down by a bystander.

Re: the crash

Amazingly, all people have been accounted for and all the people injured have been treated and released from the hospital. I'm not a religious man, but this was nothing short of a miracle. The navy is temporarily doling out something like up to $2200 per day for the people whose apartments were damaged or outright destroyed.

As for the malfunction that caused the crash, there exists the best possible set of conditions to accurately isolate the cause of the malfunction: the flight data recorder was recovered intact, and both pilots survived. Between them, a very accurate picture of what went wrong should become clear.

Why would you have a training exercise piloted by a less experience student and a skilled trainer in a densely populated neighborhoods? Some residents said they've known for some time that such a crash was a possibility. Jets frequently zoom overhead on training missions. Maybe the student pilot made a error?