OK, so some of you jumped all over me yesterday after the horrible plane crash
because I had the temerity to state that in no time at all, the apologists for the military would be all over this story, changing facts and generally making shit up.
Well, guess what? I was not wrong...
Within minutes, Kyra Phillips on CNN stated that these two pilots were "heroes" because they tried to make it to the beach because, she added and I'm only slightly paraphrasing, all fighter pilots know that they must ditch over water or open territory so as not to hit areas which contain people and property (and oh yes, pets - musn't forget those). She apparrently has flown planes out of this "exact same runway" herself, and because the tail of the plane was horizontal, then blah blah blah, pilots doing an amazing job of not hitting a school.
First, how the Hell would she know what was going through their minds during the incident? She didn't interview them, she was just busy making excuses before she knew anything.
Second, the whole area is densely populated so if you crash on takeoff, you're gonna hit something civilian almost fer sure. Fair enough...I grew up near the Willow Grove Naval Air Station and we had some near misses and a couple incidents over the decades. It happens...but I have no recollection of the local news people making up stories a priori. what they USED to say was "The FAA and military investigators will have to investigate this incident." and leave it at that. They didn't make up plausible scenarios and state them as fact.
Third, and damn it, I KNOW I'm right about this: the lying-ass military-industrial complex is given a big pass even by those on Progressive Websites by those who think that they're all gung-ho-military such that you went after me when all I stated was that they were going to concoct a story, if they could, which would absolve the pilots if at all possible, reiterate that they do everything as safely as possible, and that if the pilots happened to be Republicans, then all the better - OK, that was a cynical remark, but not far off the center of truth. Those who have any kind of memory will recall the young lady who was the POW in Iraq rescued by a team whose exploits could have been portrayed in Marvel Comics. Turned out of course, that it was almost all BS. But that's OK...we need our stories of heroism and valor and since Audie Murphy's dead, and John Wayne was only a movie actor, then we have to come up with new ones for the new generation.
Fourth and finally, to those who typed out a knee-jerk response to my post: you might consider the bigger picture once in a while. It would do you some good - the fact of the matter was that all I really said was that I was awaiting the usual gabble-degook from the PR folk at the military and for that I was excoriated.
= new reply since forum marked as read
Yet you're jumping to conclusions already, and have been since this news came in yesterday.
Perhaps you've become that which you hate, a person who jumps to conclusions without all the facts
Witnesses state that their were flames coming out of at least one engine. Fire starts to mess with various controls, rather quickly. Which means that in a matter of seconds the plane can be unresponsive.
So what do you want the pilots to do, stay in the plane?
Drives me up the wall when people with little or no knowledge of a situation, speculate on it on national TV.
Or anywhere else, for that matter.
"COULD have been this..."
"COULD have been that..."
"POSSIBLY it was..."
I'm a pilot and I've flown fighters, but I have very little knowledge of the FA-18 and would never speculate on what happened. The military accident investigators are generally very good at what they do.
It's in their best interest and those of other pilots flying that type of aircraft to do everything they can to find out exactly what happened.
Most accurate information will probably come from debriefing the two pilots involved.
And what about this headline I found this morning of various news headlines websites: "Massive (or 'Catastrophic') Mechanical Failure resulted in crash"...?
Attributed to someone (not identified) at Norfolk NAS.
How could they possibly know that right now?
(It was the NY Daily News 
), but other papers picked it up.
Are they just making this crap up?
jeez
I wasn't there and don't know, but that's a possible explanation of flames.
And 2. The headline I read made no mention of "engine" failure.
It said "Mechanical failure".
Granted, engine failure could, by definition, also be called a mechanical failure.
But pilots would usually differentiate between a mechanical failure (airframe, control surfaces, etc.) and an engine failure.
Also, if the failure involved electrical, hydraulics, fuel, whatever, it would normally be referred to as a 'systems' failure.
I mean no disrespect, but I place little faith in any non-pilot civilian's description of what happened.
Here's a good example:
A friend punched out of an F-84 (single engine fighter) following total engine failure shortly after take-off. No fire, the engine just started throwing turbine blades and came apart.
The plane crashed in a river in a wooded area.
My friend survived with a few bruises.
A local TV station interviewed an eyewitness.
"I seen it. The airplane was on fire. Two guys bailed out, and one of 'em was hangin' on to the other one by a rope. He had an orange outfit on."
There was never any fire. The pilot said there was no fire.
The plane was recovered from the river and there was no evidence at all of fire.
The 'second guy' in orange hanging on by a rope was, in fact, the orange raft attached by a long nylon lanyard to the pilot's survival seat pack.
And I have to wonder if anyone at the NAS actually gave the quote the paper claimed.
to consider a massive mechanical failure. So that's where they got that from, probably.
And that seems reasonable. If the jet just crashed -- up in the air one minute, down on the ground the next -- I'm assuming they would have said 'we won't know until we investigate', but that that the fuel was an indication to them.
Give them a break, they HAVE to report the news and they're doing the best they can with constantly changing information. I think they do a good job in always adding "this has not been confirmed" or "this is not official" or whatever.
shuttle if it landed at an alternate site. If you were flying that a/c with the shuttle on it, you were, in effect, flying both craft. Never mind all that popsicle stick and coat hanger stuff, mind you...
Read all about it...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuttle_Carrier_Aircraft
That is fairly obvious when you look at the pattern over years. And most people will believe it, because we are taught that any military man is some kind of hero and should be implicitly respected and trusted, and because of the strong patriotism bullshit every person is indoctrinated in from within our schools from day one.
It always reminds me of that super sappy public service commercial, of course there are many others but this one stands out to me, where the uniformed military soldiers are walking through an airport, and all of a sudden spontaneously one person, who is some Joe Blow average citizen of the general public, starts clapping and then another citizen joins in and another until everyone in the airport in the immediate vicinity of the soldiers is clapping for them in some kind of spontaneous expression of celebration for these "heroes". 
They usually play this commercial near Christmas time...
