Hornet landing rattles nerves in San Diego

[unhappycamper]

Hornet landing rattles nerves in San Diego
By Gidget Fuentes - Staff writer
Posted : Thursday Feb 26, 2009 20:46:50 EST

A Navy F/A-18C Hornet fighter jet was on “bingo” fuel when it was diverted Tuesday to Miramar Marine Corps Air Station in San Diego.

Navy officials said the jet, flying from the aircraft carrier Nimitz training off the Southern California coast, did not make an emergency landing because it was low on fuel, contrary to local news reports. “It was not an emergency landing. It was not low on fuel. It was at ‘bingo’ fuel,” Lt. Cmdr. Charlie Brown, a Naval Air Forces spokesman in Coronado, Calif., said Thursday. “This was a routine landing.”

The pilot, assigned to the Beaufort, S.C.-based Strike Fighter Squadron 86, would have been diverted to North Island Naval Air Station in Coronado, but low cloud cover forced him to land instead at Miramar, about 16 miles north. North Island was the “primary” divert field ashore, Brown said.

Aircrews establish “bingo” fuel levels at a certain point that allows them to safely reach their primary and second divert fields, he said. “While diverts are not common, they are routine,” he added. “The whole point is not to get into an emergency landing situation.”

Some San Diego residents and officials have raised questions about the military’s divert plans following the Dec. 8 crash of a Marine Corps F/A-18D Hornet that plummeted into a neighborhood two miles from the Miramar flight line. The twin-engine jet had reported problems with one engine when it was diverted from the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln. The pilot was attempting a landing at Miramar when it crashed into two homes, killing a woman, her two young daughters and her mother in one of the houses. The pilot ejected and escaped serious injury.


Rest of article at: http://navytimes.com/news/2009/02/navy_hornetlanding_022609w/%2e