Have you ever witnessed a aircraft accident?

MarineNav · May 27th, 2003, 14:50

Hello Everyone,

Just curious if anyone else has witnessed an aircraft accident in person. While I was stationed in SoCal, I pulled static display duty one weekend and witnessed this:

MCAS El Toro - SNJ Stall/Spin

JR

EricT · May 27th, 2003, 15:09

While on my long student cross country several years ago, I saw an accident on roll out. An RV3 had one of its brakes seize. As it swerved off the runway, it went airborne again as it hit a burm. It then nosed over fairly hard. I was the first to run over and check on the guy. Good news was that no damage was done to him other than his ego. Plane took a good beating though. It really made me think as I was streaking across the Texas sky in by C152.

E_Dawg · May 27th, 2003, 15:13

Saw an accidental gear up landing on the parallel as I was in the flare. That's about it...

Doug Taylor · May 27th, 2003, 15:18

I, and half of the school, saw a Seminole land gear up in PRC (The famous "Ted Sled"), I had a Cessna 340 crash behind me during an ice storm from fuel starvation, a C-172 ground loop and roll over.

EatSleepFly · May 27th, 2003, 15:23

Saw a Seminole land gear up at DAB. Also saw a Bell (206 I think) crash during autorotation (I guess) at DAB...that one was bad. Also saw an experimental biplane ground loop and roll over. The pilot wasnt hurt until he unbuckled his harness and fell out onto his head- then they had to rush him to the hospital. Other than that, nothing too serious. And thankfully, I've never seen one from the first person point of view.

jdflight · May 27th, 2003, 15:40

Conquest with failed nose gear, Seminole with failed right main, and an R22 helicopter crashed just 200 feet from me on the ramp during a mechanic's runup when the collective came up on him. That one was totaled. He jumped out about three feet off the ground.

MarineNav · May 27th, 2003, 15:42

Hello Everyone,

Thanks for your input. Seems as though you've jostled a few memory cells in my old noggin. I once saw a US Navy LC-130 (has skis which it uses to land in Antartica). It was making a very early morning landing at NAS Barbers Pt. and couldn't raise the skis. It made one very short landing and was the Mother of all Sparklers! Everyone got out fine and thankfully no fire started.

Then there was the SeaBee that ran out of fuel and tried to make it to a golf course near my childhood home in Santa Barbara. I witnessed that one with my ears as it "landed" in someone's driveway a few hundred yards away from my house. My mother and I heard it and ran outside to see what made the noise. Bumps, bruises & lacerations in that one, but everyone walked away!

JR

MikeD · May 27th, 2003, 15:46

-Was standing with Doug on our apartment baclony watching the PA-44 Ted Sled land.

-Saw a Bonanza crash at Holbrook, AZ when it's prop separated on takeoff, the plane swerved off the runway, and flipped over.

-Saw a Marine Harrier lose it's engine on takeoff at Yuma, Az and the pilot punch out. Harrier went into a grapefruit field

-An A-10 land gear up after it's gun blew up while firing, blowing the nosegear from the plane as well as most of the underside.

-An F-4 crash onto the runway on takeoff from Holloman AFB

-A Dutch F-16 land in Afghanistan, lose it's brakes, drop it's tailhook (but no arrestor cable), pilot ejects, and the jet rolls off the departure end of the runway into the minefield.

ready2fly · May 27th, 2003, 16:03

Nope.

Hope to never see one.

Cav · May 27th, 2003, 16:12

Saw a C210 have a nose gear failure on landing at MQY...the FAA van was already at the airport and they were on him like a fly on s$#t. Poor guy didn't even have time to get out of the plane. Also saw a Bonanza land gear up b/c the pilot was too busy looking at the B-17 that landed in front of him at ROA...forgot to lower the gear. Thankfully I've never seen anyone injured. I pray I never do.

Eagle · May 27th, 2003, 16:18

yep too many.

a cpl of gliders, a cpl of cessnas, my wife running off the runway (if that counts), a waco lost it's engine.. landed in the field the people on the ride were pissed. Is the ride over already? had some others who were in the same race as we were, missed clearing the top of a mountain by about 10 feet, pine trees don't bend that much. and another friend took an unlit radio tower at night, 12 inches inside of the wing strut, the c-206 landed 15 feet away from the base of the tower ( think about that, it fell strait down) and I have seen a few at the reno air races as well.

Including when Bob Hurricane Hanna's trim tab broke at 400mph, the P-51 pointed strait up, he passed out, almost didn't make it.

Tbone · May 27th, 2003, 16:21

Saw a 737 engine fire on rollout one night at SFO. Flames shot from #1 all the way to the tail of the a/c for about 10 seconds before they shut it down. We were #1 for dep. behind them, and we were delayed about 1/2 hour as 30 or so emergency vehicles swarmed the field!

aloft · May 27th, 2003, 16:21

Two; both attempting a low-level loop (judging by the number of airshow accidents, this is not a high probability of success maneuver). Craig Hosking (the helicopter pilot in Mission Impossible 2), in the biplane he used to take off and land upside down (it had landing gear installed on the top). Didn't quite make it back to nose level on the back side of the loop; biffed it once, almost recovered, then cartwheeled into a fence. He made it out fine.

The second was Wayne Handley (whom I've met twice and is a very nice guy in addition to being one hell of a pilot) in the Oracle Turbo Raven at the '99 Salinas airshow; he was attempting to land out of a loop, the "landing" was very hard and he seriously messed up his back. I think that was the last airshow Wayne flew. The NTSB report.

I was also at the '81 Hill AFB airshow where Thunderbird 5 crashed following a high-speed stall (they were in T-38s then), though I didn't actually see it happen. He was out of the ejection envelope, rode it in.

zombie5225 · May 27th, 2003, 16:34

I saw the F-117 Stealth Bomber go down a few years ago at an airshow. The pilot ejected safely, but there was one hell of a fireball.

flyindrumminpilot · May 27th, 2003, 17:03

On my first flying lesson an old byplane came down landing on the wrong side of the runway at an uncontrolled airport. He alomost collided with a cessna on final and hit the grass while spewing off a landing gear. Turns out he was having engine trouble but everyone was ok.

JDMcFly · May 27th, 2003, 17:43

Only in dreams.

flyitup · May 27th, 2003, 18:25

[ QUOTE ]
I saw the F-117 Stealth Bomber go down a few years ago at an airshow. The pilot ejected safely, but there was one hell of a fireball.

[/ QUOTE ]

That's interesting...

Don't those things run around 2 billion a piece? Do you know what caused it to go down?

I_Money · May 27th, 2003, 18:30

The wing fell of.

DanTheMan · May 27th, 2003, 19:16

saw an F-4 crash at the 2002 Pt. Mugu airshow. engine was on fire, must have lost flight controls also. both the pilot and guy in back ejected, but they were too low and the plane was almost inverted, so neither made it.

JJay · May 27th, 2003, 21:21

I saw this King Air crash at ISP in 2001.

http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/brief.asp?e...01X01050&key=1

The two crewmembers survived but with some serious injuries. I was number 2 cleared to land behind them. A fuel problem caused the crash. I'll never forget the sight of that King Air going into the trees a half mile short of the runway.

vipermcg · May 27th, 2003, 21:23

Back in July of 1996, I was at a friends beach house in the Hamptons. I was swimming in his pool, when all of a sudden we saw this strange flash of light to our South. We walked a block down to the beach, and we could just make out smoke in the distance. We then heard alot of C-130's from the ANG fly overhead. Later that night, we turned on the news, only to learn that a 747, TWA flight 800, had crashed off the coast of Long Island. That was a really strange summer, to say the least.

MikeD · May 27th, 2003, 21:29

[ QUOTE ]
Back in July of 1996, I was at a friends beach house in the Hamptons. I was swimming in his pool, when all of a sudden we saw this strange flash of light to our South. We walked a block down to the beach, and we could just make out smoke in the distance. We then heard alot of C-130's from the ANG fly overhead. Later that night, we turned on the news, only to learn that a 747, TWA flight 800, had crashed off the coast of Long Island. That was a really strange summer, to say the least.

[/ QUOTE ]

Did you see the missile streak that other witnesses claimed to see? Or was it after the fact?

vipermcg · May 27th, 2003, 21:45

[ QUOTE ]
Did you see the missile streak that other witnesses claimed to see? Or was it after the fact?

[/ QUOTE ]

I never saw any streak that some people talked about. But then again, I didnt have a good view of the sky, and I wasn't watching the plane from the beach or anything. I looked up from over my friends house, and I saw some sort of dull flash in the distance. I am sure it was flight 800, becuase about 5 minutes later, I could see smoke in roughly the same spot I saw the flash.

CapnJim · May 27th, 2003, 22:05

Sheesh! You folks have seen some stuff!
Mine is just an incident, and boring compared to ya'lls, but it wasn't to me at the time!
During my PPL training a thunderstorm was chasing us back to the field. We landed safely, but as soon as we taxied off 45 knot gusts blew over the airfield. My instructor wisely took the aircraft and swung it around into the wind, but as he did, we saw an untied Aeronica Champ lift up, climb about 30 feet, and nose back over into the ground. We were the only other untied aircraft on the field, so we pulled the mixture, jumped out, and grabbed the wings so that the plane wouldn't take off and possibly nose over on us! The folks at the FBO saw our predicament and came over with a tug to get us to a tiedown spot. My instructor, with typical calm, looked over at me and said "Well, I guess we should go over weather next time."

BlueStreak · May 27th, 2003, 22:43

I guess the only major one I have seen was the Corsair that collided with a Bearcat on takeoff role at Oshkosh a couple years ago. It was pretty nasty, clipped a wing and proceeded to flip over. Pretty nasty fireball and the pilot was trapped in the fire for a couple minutes but I guess he survived, although last I knew he was in a colma. Anybody have any updates?

May 27th, 2003, 15:09	#2
EricT Junior Member Join Date: Feb 2003 Location: Austin, TX Posts: 37	Re: Have you ever witnessed a aircraft accident? While on my long student cross country several years ago, I saw an accident on roll out. An RV3 had one of its brakes seize. As it swerved off the runway, it went airborne again as it hit a burm. It then nosed over fairly hard. I was the first to run over and check on the guy. Good news was that no damage was done to him other than his ego. Plane took a good beating though. It really made me think as I was streaking across the Texas sky in by C152.

May 27th, 2003, 15:13	#3
E_Dawg Moderator Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: chicago Posts: 4,311	Re: Have you ever witnessed a aircraft accident? Saw an accidental gear up landing on the parallel as I was in the flare. That's about it...

May 27th, 2003, 15:18	#4
Doug Taylor Agent Smith Join Date: Dec 1969 Location: KSDL Posts: 41,926 Blog Entries: 1	Re: Have you ever witnessed a aircraft accident? I, and half of the school, saw a Seminole land gear up in PRC (The famous "Ted Sled"), I had a Cessna 340 crash behind me during an ice storm from fuel starvation, a C-172 ground loop and roll over.

May 27th, 2003, 15:23	#5
EatSleepFly Old Skool Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: ?? Posts: 4,600	Re: Have you ever witnessed a aircraft accident? Saw a Seminole land gear up at DAB. Also saw a Bell (206 I think) crash during autorotation (I guess) at DAB...that one was bad. Also saw an experimental biplane ground loop and roll over. The pilot wasnt hurt until he unbuckled his harness and fell out onto his head- then they had to rush him to the hospital. Other than that, nothing too serious. And thankfully, I've never seen one from the first person point of view.

May 27th, 2003, 15:40	#6
jdflight Senior Member Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: Boulder, CO (anywhere but Fresno) Posts: 1,495	Re: Have you ever witnessed a aircraft accident? Conquest with failed nose gear, Seminole with failed right main, and an R22 helicopter crashed just 200 feet from me on the ramp during a mechanic's runup when the collective came up on him. That one was totaled. He jumped out about three feet off the ground.

May 27th, 2003, 14:50	#1
MarineNav Senior Member Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: Santa Clara, CA Posts: 301	Have you ever witnessed a aircraft accident? Hello Everyone, Just curious if anyone else has witnessed an aircraft accident in person. While I was stationed in SoCal, I pulled static display duty one weekend and witnessed this: MCAS El Toro - SNJ Stall/Spin JR

May 27th, 2003, 15:42	#7
MarineNav Senior Member Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: Santa Clara, CA Posts: 301	Re: Have you ever witnessed a aircraft accident? Hello Everyone, Thanks for your input. Seems as though you've jostled a few memory cells in my old noggin. I once saw a US Navy LC-130 (has skis which it uses to land in Antartica). It was making a very early morning landing at NAS Barbers Pt. and couldn't raise the skis. It made one very short landing and was the Mother of all Sparklers! Everyone got out fine and thankfully no fire started. Then there was the SeaBee that ran out of fuel and tried to make it to a golf course near my childhood home in Santa Barbara. I witnessed that one with my ears as it "landed" in someone's driveway a few hundred yards away from my house. My mother and I heard it and ran outside to see what made the noise. Bumps, bruises & lacerations in that one, but everyone walked away! JR

May 27th, 2003, 15:46	#8
MikeD Administrator Join Date: Feb 2003 Location: Pinal Airpark Posts: 6,897	Re: Have you ever witnessed a aircraft accident? -Was standing with Doug on our apartment baclony watching the PA-44 Ted Sled land. -Saw a Bonanza crash at Holbrook, AZ when it's prop separated on takeoff, the plane swerved off the runway, and flipped over. -Saw a Marine Harrier lose it's engine on takeoff at Yuma, Az and the pilot punch out. Harrier went into a grapefruit field -An A-10 land gear up after it's gun blew up while firing, blowing the nosegear from the plane as well as most of the underside. -An F-4 crash onto the runway on takeoff from Holloman AFB -A Dutch F-16 land in Afghanistan, lose it's brakes, drop it's tailhook (but no arrestor cable), pilot ejects, and the jet rolls off the departure end of the runway into the minefield.

May 27th, 2003, 16:03	#9
ready2fly Old Skool Join Date: Nov 2001 Location: DFW Posts: 7,373	Re: Have you ever witnessed a aircraft accident? Nope. Hope to never see one.

May 27th, 2003, 16:12	#10
Cav Senior Member Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Let me look, I forgot. Posts: 703	Re: Have you ever witnessed a aircraft accident? Saw a C210 have a nose gear failure on landing at MQY...the FAA van was already at the airport and they were on him like a fly on s$#t. Poor guy didn't even have time to get out of the plane. Also saw a Bonanza land gear up b/c the pilot was too busy looking at the B-17 that landed in front of him at ROA...forgot to lower the gear. Thankfully I've never seen anyone injured. I pray I never do.

May 27th, 2003, 16:18	#11
Eagle Banned Join Date: Oct 2000 Posts: 1,272	Re: Have you ever witnessed a aircraft accident? yep too many. a cpl of gliders, a cpl of cessnas, my wife running off the runway (if that counts), a waco lost it's engine.. landed in the field the people on the ride were pissed. Is the ride over already? had some others who were in the same race as we were, missed clearing the top of a mountain by about 10 feet, pine trees don't bend that much. and another friend took an unlit radio tower at night, 12 inches inside of the wing strut, the c-206 landed 15 feet away from the base of the tower ( think about that, it fell strait down) and I have seen a few at the reno air races as well. Including when Bob Hurricane Hanna's trim tab broke at 400mph, the P-51 pointed strait up, he passed out, almost didn't make it.

May 27th, 2003, 16:21	#12
Tbone Junior Member Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: Anchorage, AK Posts: 76	Re: Have you ever witnessed a aircraft accident? Saw a 737 engine fire on rollout one night at SFO. Flames shot from #1 all the way to the tail of the a/c for about 10 seconds before they shut it down. We were #1 for dep. behind them, and we were delayed about 1/2 hour as 30 or so emergency vehicles swarmed the field!

May 27th, 2003, 16:21	#13
aloft Old Skool Join Date: Sep 2001 Location: Inside your OODA loop Posts: 7,149	Re: Have you ever witnessed a aircraft accident? Two; both attempting a low-level loop (judging by the number of airshow accidents, this is not a high probability of success maneuver). Craig Hosking (the helicopter pilot in Mission Impossible 2), in the biplane he used to take off and land upside down (it had landing gear installed on the top). Didn't quite make it back to nose level on the back side of the loop; biffed it once, almost recovered, then cartwheeled into a fence. He made it out fine. The second was Wayne Handley (whom I've met twice and is a very nice guy in addition to being one hell of a pilot) in the Oracle Turbo Raven at the '99 Salinas airshow; he was attempting to land out of a loop, the "landing" was very hard and he seriously messed up his back. I think that was the last airshow Wayne flew. The NTSB report. I was also at the '81 Hill AFB airshow where Thunderbird 5 crashed following a high-speed stall (they were in T-38s then), though I didn't actually see it happen. He was out of the ejection envelope, rode it in.

May 27th, 2003, 16:34	#14
zombie5225 Junior Member Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: Baltimore MD Posts: 117	Re: Have you ever witnessed a aircraft accident? I saw the F-117 Stealth Bomber go down a few years ago at an airshow. The pilot ejected safely, but there was one hell of a fireball.

May 27th, 2003, 17:03	#15
flyindrumminpilot Junior Member Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: cincinnati, the delta hub Posts: 59	Re: Have you ever witnessed a aircraft accident? On my first flying lesson an old byplane came down landing on the wrong side of the runway at an uncontrolled airport. He alomost collided with a cessna on final and hit the grass while spewing off a landing gear. Turns out he was having engine trouble but everyone was ok.

May 27th, 2003, 17:43	#16
JDMcFly Old Skool Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: New York Posts: 1,694	Re: Have you ever witnessed a aircraft accident? Only in dreams.

May 27th, 2003, 18:25	#17
flyitup Senior Member Join Date: Sep 2002 Location: Denver, CO Posts: 620	Re: Have you ever witnessed a aircraft accident? [ QUOTE ] I saw the F-117 Stealth Bomber go down a few years ago at an airshow. The pilot ejected safely, but there was one hell of a fireball. [/ QUOTE ] That's interesting... Don't those things run around 2 billion a piece? Do you know what caused it to go down?

May 27th, 2003, 18:30	#18
I_Money Moderator Join Date: Jul 2000 Location: Socal Posts: 5,691	Re: Have you ever witnessed a aircraft accident? The wing fell of.

May 27th, 2003, 19:16	#19
DanTheMan Junior Member Join Date: May 2003 Location: SoCal Posts: 184	Re: Have you ever witnessed a aircraft accident? saw an F-4 crash at the 2002 Pt. Mugu airshow. engine was on fire, must have lost flight controls also. both the pilot and guy in back ejected, but they were too low and the plane was almost inverted, so neither made it.

May 27th, 2003, 21:21	#20
JJay Newbie Join Date: Feb 2003 Location: NY Posts: 11	Re: Have you ever witnessed a aircraft accident? I saw this King Air crash at ISP in 2001. http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/brief.asp?e...01X01050&key=1 The two crewmembers survived but with some serious injuries. I was number 2 cleared to land behind them. A fuel problem caused the crash. I'll never forget the sight of that King Air going into the trees a half mile short of the runway.

May 27th, 2003, 21:23	#21
vipermcg Senior Member Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: New York/ West Lafayette, IN Posts: 393	Re: Have you ever witnessed a aircraft accident? Back in July of 1996, I was at a friends beach house in the Hamptons. I was swimming in his pool, when all of a sudden we saw this strange flash of light to our South. We walked a block down to the beach, and we could just make out smoke in the distance. We then heard alot of C-130's from the ANG fly overhead. Later that night, we turned on the news, only to learn that a 747, TWA flight 800, had crashed off the coast of Long Island. That was a really strange summer, to say the least.

May 27th, 2003, 21:29	#22
MikeD Administrator Join Date: Feb 2003 Location: Pinal Airpark Posts: 6,897	Re: Have you ever witnessed a aircraft accident? [ QUOTE ] Back in July of 1996, I was at a friends beach house in the Hamptons. I was swimming in his pool, when all of a sudden we saw this strange flash of light to our South. We walked a block down to the beach, and we could just make out smoke in the distance. We then heard alot of C-130's from the ANG fly overhead. Later that night, we turned on the news, only to learn that a 747, TWA flight 800, had crashed off the coast of Long Island. That was a really strange summer, to say the least. [/ QUOTE ] Did you see the missile streak that other witnesses claimed to see? Or was it after the fact?

May 27th, 2003, 21:45	#23
vipermcg Senior Member Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: New York/ West Lafayette, IN Posts: 393	Re: Have you ever witnessed a aircraft accident? [ QUOTE ] Did you see the missile streak that other witnesses claimed to see? Or was it after the fact? [/ QUOTE ] I never saw any streak that some people talked about. But then again, I didnt have a good view of the sky, and I wasn't watching the plane from the beach or anything. I looked up from over my friends house, and I saw some sort of dull flash in the distance. I am sure it was flight 800, becuase about 5 minutes later, I could see smoke in roughly the same spot I saw the flash.

May 27th, 2003, 22:05	#24
CapnJim Old Skool Join Date: Feb 2003 Location: G-town, Near D-town. In T-state... er... whatever Posts: 4,499	Re: Have you ever witnessed a aircraft accident? Sheesh! You folks have seen some stuff! Mine is just an incident, and boring compared to ya'lls, but it wasn't to me at the time! During my PPL training a thunderstorm was chasing us back to the field. We landed safely, but as soon as we taxied off 45 knot gusts blew over the airfield. My instructor wisely took the aircraft and swung it around into the wind, but as he did, we saw an untied Aeronica Champ lift up, climb about 30 feet, and nose back over into the ground. We were the only other untied aircraft on the field, so we pulled the mixture, jumped out, and grabbed the wings so that the plane wouldn't take off and possibly nose over on us! The folks at the FBO saw our predicament and came over with a tug to get us to a tiedown spot. My instructor, with typical calm, looked over at me and said "Well, I guess we should go over weather next time."

May 27th, 2003, 22:43	#25
BlueStreak Junior Member Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: MI Posts: 197	Re: Have you ever witnessed a aircraft accident? I guess the only major one I have seen was the Corsair that collided with a Bearcat on takeoff role at Oshkosh a couple years ago. It was pretty nasty, clipped a wing and proceeded to flip over. Pretty nasty fireball and the pilot was trapped in the fire for a couple minutes but I guess he survived, although last I knew he was in a colma. Anybody have any updates?

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