While details of the F/A-18 crash in Virginia Beach, Virginia are still murky, as always there is something to learn from an accident. In this case, we should all think about how current we are with emergency procedures. Military pilots spend countless hours training in simulators and airplanes for events that likely will never happen to them. We should do the same.
Last week, a very unlikely event did occur in Virginia. An F/A-18 that had just departed from the Oceana Naval Station appears to have had a major malfunction. Reports state there was a fire after takeoff, so the pilots shut down at least one engine and began dumping fuel to minimize the fire. It appears that they kept flying the airplane as long as they could to bring the airplane down in an unpopulated area. Unfortunately they were unable to control the airplane and had to eject. But despite the fact that the airplane crashed right into the Mayfair Mews apartment building, no one died as a result of the crash. And while it was mostly luck that nobody perished, several reports indicate that the pilots did all they could to avoid a major tragedy prior to ejecting from the airplane.
