Posted on 12/10/2008 12:05:41 PM PST by Virginia Ridgerunner
OMG, God bless this man.
ping
The Great Santini?
However, the San Diego Union-Tribune raises a question mark over why Neubauer “chose to land at Miramar, which involves an approach over heavily populated La Jolla and University City, instead of North Island Naval Air Station, which could be approached entirely over water”.
If the Hornet lost both engines the hydraulic boosted flight controls are done working. Therefore there is nothing to do and nothing the pilot could have done. He was out of airspeed, altitude and ideas.
Should he have ridden it in just because in the old days they did, or should he let his self-preservation instinct override the way things were done back in the day?
What an unfortunate accident, and let the investigation board determine cause and fault. As far as I and everyone else knows there was probalby nothing the aviator could have done. Sacrificing himself in the name of tradition just seems silly if there was nothing he could have done.
Those days ended when heavy jets became so technologically advanced and powerful. The wings continue to get smaller and smaller while the engines get more powerful and the airplane gets heavier.
The planes fly themselves much more today.
I think the pilot most likely did all he could, and would be shocked if he didn’t, but I can’t imagine he didn’t do anything purposefully wrong.
Aside from the man’s family this pilot feels worse about this than anyone else.
Maybe. It depends on what he's prepared to live with.
Well said.
It’s funny but when I was in Korea, the people there were great, and they of all people know what kind of world they and every body else would live in if not for the U.S. military.
In many respects I’d rather live next to a Korean than most Americans!
Echoing bboops point — it depends on the nature of the malfunction. Modern jets use fly-by-wire technology. If their flight control computers cut-out (as would be the case with a general power failure) these aircraft literally stop flying. Staying in the aircraft under that kind of emergency just increases the death toll by 1.
I had an A4 Skyhawk crash a couple blocks from my house near Willow Grove NAS (some 22 years ago). That is a much earlier generation aircraft that was suffering a major hydraulic leak. The pilot tried to nurse it back to base. When he realized he’d come up about a mile short of the runway he lined it up on a secondary street & punched out just before bellying in. He survived with some back & neck injuries due to the ejection. Luckily only some parked cars were destroyed by the fireball. Nobody else was injured.
Do you think this pilot didn't?
He's a student pilot in a mechanically crippled jet. He's going to fly the pattern and try and land at the airfield he's most familiar with. Also when he first declared the emergency he had only one engine out. Under those circumstances trying for his home field wasn't a dangerous decision. There was no reason to believe the second engine would crap out on him as well. I really don't see any reason to second guess him. I hope he continues on to a long and distinguished career as a Marine aviator.
You could be correct. I will wait until the investigation is concluded prior to jumping to any conclusions. My heart goes out to the man who lost his children.
I think there was even a similar incident (later, when i was away at college) involving an F-14 in which the pilot intentionally put the plane into the ocean (he did not survise) bacause he knew he was not going to make the runway and there was pretty much nothing but resort area and houses between the beach and the Air Station.
Okay TorpedoEight, FIRE away; tell me how full of sh!t I am!
Seems to me you’re implying that Nieubauer should have committed suicide for no purpose other than looking good. When a low-altitude, low-airspeed Hornet loses its last engine, the pilot effectively becomes cargo, as he doesn’t have any maneuverability (or perhaps controls as well) to guide the aircraft. So “riding it in” would be purposeless. The jets have fairly good low/slow ejection seats after the party is over and the crash spot written in stone.
TC
I’m not IMPLYING anything.
I’m not even second-guessing the pilot. Maybe it flew further than he thought it was going to after he ejected.
I simply made a statement about how things used to be when I was growing up near a Naval Air Station.
The investigators have no idea what a pilot was thinking in their final moments. I’ll grant that there may be rare exceptions but for most the instinct of self-preservation takes over.
How much stick time do you have by the way?
I had this conversation with a retired Air Force Colonel who flew fighters during the Korean and Vietnam War when discussing the Blue Angels crash a couple years back. Here’s what his thoughts were on the notion of last minute heroics proclaimed in the press.
“I’ve lost a couple of close friends who went in with their bird, later acclaimed by the press as Heros for staying with the airplane to guide it away from a school, residences, hospital, and other manmade objects. To which I say, “Not bloody likely!” One of those who went in with the bird was classmate 2/Lt Dick Borshel, about whom I have written here, and he stayed with the bird because he COULDN’T eject or bail out: Engine flamed out, canopy wouldn’t separate, ejection seat wouldn’t fire, and he couldn’t even roll the canopy back manually and crawl over the side. I don’t think Dick was trying to miss civilian housing because he was North of Sinuiju, in North Korean territory. Human Survival exceeds all other instincts.”
“Frankly, that (ejecting without undue concern for residential buildings) may NOT always be the case, and I am sure there have been those who rode it in, keeping the aircraft under control and steering away from ground structures. But even in this one, the FA-18 managed to wipe out one house and damage 7 others. Nobody knows where the aircraft will go once you part company, but parting company is the better part of valor in almost every situation. The idea - time permitting - is to aim it at the least populated area and then pull the trigger. 200’ (the altitude at which some say Davis’ FA-18 was flying) is a pretty low altitude for ejection and only scant seconds remain before aircraft and ground come together.
I’ve been on too many accident investigation boards to ignore detail and ultimate situations. I know of a couple of cases where we were absolutely certain the pilot had his head down in the cockpit, still fighting to get a restart and/or correct the problem when their bird impacted. Such impacts are usually very flat, so wreckage and fuel are sprayed forward over a very large area .... just as it was in the Davis accident. Unless he was fully stalled out, the F-18 probably had a ground speed close to 180-200 knots. If a belly landing is attempted it is SOP to put the gear down and let the landing gear take the brunt of the impact and shear off when airplane meets ground; Davis hadn’t done that, so I’m assuming he still expected to get the engines going and regain altitude. Davis also severed a fairly large tree, quite high up the trunk - before impact, leading me to think he might have been busy down among the switches and circuit breakers, not looking up and ahead to select an impact point. It would appear he didn’t see the tree coming up or make an attempt to miss it. Which brings up another point: while without power, he still had control of the aircraft; so, instead of riding it down to hit trees and vertical structures, why didn’t he pick one of those open fields (clearly shown in the overhead photos) and try to belly-in his FA-18? Could it be he thought he could still regain power? There are too many unanswered questions at this point to come up with definitive answers.
One of my instructors in Advanced Pilot Training, Capt. Alois G. Brown, was 3 years later promoted to Major and assigned to one of the first USAF F-104 squadrons. He was landing at Wright-Patterson AFB at night when the F-104 flamed out on final approach and headed for the ground. Al ruddered the nose away from the main base area and pulled the handles ... forgetting the ejection seats of the early versions of the 104 fired downward, not upward. He was still strapped to the ejection seat when it slammed into the ground, killing him instantly. The F-104 contined forward and wiped out two barracks buildings and the base PX. Al’s father, an ex-Air Corps Colonel, and my father served together in WW-I and both came back to work for Eastman Kodak Company. I suppose the point is, we tend to forget little details and concentrate on survival when it is time to react to extreme emergencies.
The media often dramatizes such accidents, depicting the pilot as a dying hero trying to save civilian lives by steering his staggering steed away from populated areas, but analysis of almost every one of those accidents shows the pilot fighting right down to the moment of impact to save the bird and himself/herself — especially if they somehow screwed up and might have to face an accident investigation board. The hero ploy is good PR for the military and makes for a much more dramatic and readable story; it helps the family believe their lost loved one died a hero, hastens closure, gives the airshow authorities a little wiggle room, and demonstrates the military is safety-conscious and has the audience in mind. We’ve all seen film clips of pilots ejecting at low altitudes during aerial demonstrations, the ‘chute opening split-seconds before they slam into the ground. Do you think they aimed their F-16 or Sukoi or Mig away from anything on the ground? Farnsborough, England remembers a flight demonstration aircraft coming apart and scattering itself into the audience, aimed directly at it. Not all situations are the same, not all accidents are the same. LCdr Davis was obviously headed somewhere, but we will probably never know where “somewhere” is. “
We can only pray for this man. He is being so honorable towards the pilot and deserves all our prayers.
It’s just so very sad.
Nope, you’re exactly right. And F-4’s and F-14’s have been retired.
Not necessarily.
I'm crying as I type this because I cannot comprehend the sorrow this man is experiencing. Stuff like this isn't supposed to happen to good people but it does and if one believes in God, one has to ask why him?
It just doesn't make sense............
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