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http://www.foxnews.com/us/2016/06/02/us-navy-blue-angels-jet-crashes-in-tennessee.html?intcmp=hpbt4

http://www.wsmv.com/story/32126574/1-killed-in-blue-angels-jet-crash-smyrna-tn

http://www.kktv.com/content/news/Reports-of-plane-crash-south-of-Colorado-Springs-airport-381683861.html

Wow this sucks... I'm guessing we're about to see a full scale halt to our aerial demonstration teams. Word is one death from the Blue Angel crash, though no one has said if it was the pilot or a bystander.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Word is starting to leak that the Blue Angel pilot is dead...

The Thunderbirds happened about 5 miles from my work. No one was hurt and it sounds like the jet was relatively undamaged.

Two jets? On the same day? How big of a chance is that?
Conspiracy time!

But really, that is a huge coincidence. Luckily they did not crash into any people. It seems that the Thunderbird crashed just after overflying for an airforce graduation ceremony. Maybe some of those cadets suddenly got second thoughts

A real shame about the Blue Angels pilot though. Blue Angels have always been my favourite air demonstration team ever since I was a kid. I even used to have a Blue Angels toy aircraft.

Man... a real gakky day for us today.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/3-soldiers-dead-6-missing-from-flooded-fort-hood-vehicle/

3 dead, 3 injured, 6 missing...

Lord... prayers for the families...

 djones520 wrote:

Word is starting to leak that the Blue Angel pilot is dead...

Word I'm seeing is that he rode it in, because if he had ejected, the aircraft could/would have hit either an apartment complex, or some other civilian populated area.


I may bash on the Navy (and AF for that matter), but this just, IMHO, shows the character of some of the people we have in the US military.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

A real shame about the Blue Angels pilot though. Blue Angels have always been my favourite air demonstration team ever since I was a kid. I even used to have a Blue Angels toy aircraft.

Some of the same things I'm reading about the BA pilot, also point out that this is the 3rd or 4th crash with jets of that same type.. Not conspiracy theory time, but perhaps time to look at what is causing, or why these events are suddenly happening.

I've enjoyed the hell out of a few of both Blue Angels and Thunderbirds shows, but is there really a point to them besides inspiring an awe of American military might and patriotism?

Being 6" from wingtip to wingtip at 600mph is insanely awesome, but would it really be so bad if the programs were canceled? Last time I checked, we're not exactly getting in many dogfights with ISIS, or any dogfights ever really.

If it's strictly a recruiting drive, why not use that money on new drive-ins across the country playing only Top Gun on repeat.

DutchWinsAll wrote:
If it's strictly a recruiting drive, why not use that money on new drive-ins across the country playing only Top Gun on repeat.

Because both branches have (fairly successfully) argued that the air show appearances are better for recruitment than the out of shape, slightly tubby guy that gets sent into local high schools (seriously, the naval recruiters in my hometown were chunky as feth)

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

DutchWinsAll wrote:
If it's strictly a recruiting drive, why not use that money on new drive-ins across the country playing only Top Gun on repeat.

Because both branches have (fairly successfully) argued that the air show appearances are better for recruitment than the out of shape, slightly tubby guy that gets sent into local high schools (seriously, the naval recruiters in my hometown were chunky as feth)

Which I understand, and agree with honestly. Gotta get those kids interested in something .01% joining will ever get to do. But 30' tall shirtless Cruise and still-hot Kilmer pounding volleyballs on the beach would definitely get some of those kids amped up too. Just replace flipping the bird 3 meters above a MiG with 3 meters above a Toyota with a cannon bolted on it.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

DutchWinsAll wrote:
If it's strictly a recruiting drive, why not use that money on new drive-ins across the country playing only Top Gun on repeat.

Because both branches have (fairly successfully) argued that the air show appearances are better for recruitment than the out of shape, slightly tubby guy that gets sent into local high schools (seriously, the naval recruiters in my hometown were chunky as feth)

Military recruiting is....weird....when it comes to high schools.
I was skipping gym because my teacher was a total ass , so I was sleeping on a metal bench, the navy came up and said "You already proved you can sleep anywhere. why not join the navy"

Honestly, that's pretty bad ass and makes me want to join the navy

The Blue Angels pilot who was killed is a Marine.

F-18s don't just drop out of the sky for no reason. I worked on those pigs for years. Must have been a catastrophic failure. The Blue Angels got all their parts as wartime high priority when I was in. Supposedly the squadrons can't get the money they need for parts due to cuts. What this means is that they'll cannibalize the parts from a bird that's down for something else to get as many aircraft in the air as possible. It doubles the work for the mechanics.

 Monkey Tamer wrote:
F-18s don't just drop out of the sky for no reason. I worked on those pigs for years. Must have been a catastrophic failure. The Blue Angels got all their parts as wartime high priority when I was in. Supposedly the squadrons can't get the money they need for parts due to cuts. What this means is that they'll cannibalize the parts from a bird that's down for something else to get as many aircraft in the air as possible. It doubles the work for the mechanics.

Thunderbirds are kept to same operational capacity as the rest of the fleet, I imagine the Blue Angels are no different. Granted, the F-18 fleet is in shambles right now, so maybe they were affected as well.

There will be a big investigation behind this, and I'm going to bet money is going to be a large part of it.

Seriously, what is happening to demonstration teams all of a sudden?
Now less than a week after the Thunderbirds and Blue Angels crashes, A SU-27 of the Russian Knights team also crashed today. The pilot was killed.
https://www.rt.com/news/345945-fighter-jet-crash-moscow/

Two ANG F-16's collided in mid-air yesterday over Georgia. Both pilots are alive.

This is just... irregular.

I don't think people truly understand what happens to a force that has to do so much, more than any other business or civilian work force is asked to do, with so little.

That Marine did what he knew was right. Unfortunately when most of us go down swinging doing what we know to be right, we are forgotten after long. This Marine officer lived the life he loved, and died keeping Americans safe from what could have been a bigger tragedy, and black eye for the Blue Angels.

My theory on the first two crashes is maintenance/operational budget constraints, and a commander who assumed risk.

On the roll over, it was cadets, mixed in with a Section of active duty, and the total death toll was 6. Training accidents happen, but risk was not mitigated by leadership in this instance, crossing a stream on fort sill takes general level permission if its after a rain(in other words, you don't do it)

The mid air collision was tragic but the pilots survived to attend the hearing that just might ruin their lives and careers. That is unfortunate.

Okay, and this one just happened not very far from my home.
An aircraft from Patrouille Suisse, the Swiss demonstration team just crashed in the Netherlands. Pilot is reported to have ejected.
It happened just now, so I could not yet find an English-language article about it. Here is one in Dutch:
http://www.lc.nl/friesland/Straaljager-neergestort-bij-vliegbasis-21414532.html?utm_content=bufferdcfb9&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

But really, this is starting to get frightening. Again two demonstation team crashes on the same day? I might reconsider going to the open days of the air force base here... There is probably going to be multiple accidents there at this rate.

 redleger wrote:


On the roll over, it was cadets, mixed in with a Section of active duty, and the total death toll was 6. Training accidents happen, but risk was not mitigated by leadership in this instance, crossing a stream on fort sill takes general level permission if its after a rain(in other words, you don't do it)

Not sure where you're getting your info from. Nine dead from that accident.

:(

How do losses from accidents like these compare in numbers to losses outside the home country? I know very little about how often they happen.

And now also in the Netherlands
http://www.airlive.net/breaking-swiss-f-5-fighter-jet-just-crashed-near-leeuwarden-air-base-in-the-netherlands/

ninja'd

 Buttery Commissar wrote:
:(

How do losses from accidents like these compare in numbers to losses outside the home country? I know very little about how often they happen.

Are you talking about training casualties vs combat casualties? As I understand it, training casualties are more likely.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

 djones520 wrote:

Word is starting to leak that the Blue Angel pilot is dead...

Word I'm seeing is that he rode it in, because if he had ejected, the aircraft could/would have hit either an apartment complex, or some other civilian populated area.

That's unlikely.

Seaward wrote:

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

 djones520 wrote:

Word is starting to leak that the Blue Angel pilot is dead...

Word I'm seeing is that he rode it in, because if he had ejected, the aircraft could/would have hit either an apartment complex, or some other civilian populated area.

That's unlikely.

Plane does seem to have gone down in a field pretty much surrounded by populated areas/buildings. We know the Thunderbird pilot deliberately flew away from buildings/neighborhoods and ensured his plane would not hurt anyone before he ejected. Not sure why it is a stretch to think the Navy pilot did not do the same.

 CptJake wrote:
Plane does seem to have gone down in a field pretty much surrounded by populated areas/buildings. We know the Thunderbird pilot deliberately flew away from buildings/neighborhoods and ensured his plane would not hurt anyone before he ejected. Not sure why it is a stretch to think the Navy pilot did not do the same.

Well, largely because "riding it in" isn't something we're taught to do, and the plane was going to pancake where it pancaked if he'd punched out or not.

From the video I've seen, it's either GLOC or a misreading of how badly he fethed up his split-S and the mistaken belief that it was recoverable. My money's on the latter, just because I've seen that plenty of times before. Nose above horizon, pilot thinks he's okay, vector's actually straight into the ground/canyon wall/whatever.

Seaward wrote:
Nose above horizon, pilot thinks he's okay, vector's actually straight into the ground/canyon wall/whatever.

And this, kids, is why low-level aerobatics is on the "do not try this at home" list.

Hopefully the F-5 crash will light the fire under Switzerland's ass to get new jets. Gripens seem like a good bet for them.

Strangely that recent Su-27 aerial demonstrator crash resulted in the immediate grounding of the entire Flanker fleet.

 Monkey Tamer wrote:
F-18s don't just drop out of the sky for no reason. I worked on those pigs for years. Must have been a catastrophic failure. The Blue Angels got all their parts as wartime high priority when I was in. Supposedly the squadrons can't get the money they need for parts due to cuts. What this means is that they'll cannibalize the parts from a bird that's down for something else to get as many aircraft in the air as possible. It doubles the work for the mechanics.

Yeah we did that while I was in the army, we called it "controlled exchange"

We waited until a aircraft would be in phase maintenance and steal parts from it. Parts ordered under phase would be on a higher priority.