USMC Harrier crash

[highsea]

The USMC lost a Harrier from the Yuma Air Station today. The pilot safely ejected and no one was hurt on the ground. The plane landed in a residential neighborhood (a backyard), and did some minor damage to a couple houses.

This is the 4th Harrier lost from Yuma in 3 years, all without loss of life, thankfully. No details as to the cause of the crash as yet.

 

[EnigmaNZ]

Flame out I prosume, lucky homeowners, could have been a lot worst. Surprised the pilot wasn't able to clear the urban area. Large city? Low flight?

 

[highsea]

He was on short final. Yuma's not a large town, under 100K population. But it's right next to the base and the Mexican border.

 

[umair_cres93]

Harrier is a difficult jet to fly.

 

[USAF32093]

The pilot suffered no injuries right?

 

[highsea]

He was walking around right after the crash, so he was fine.

No cause yet, but there was obviously some kind of malfunction, or he wouldn't have been RTB'ing with live ordnance. Not that that necessarily has any bearing on the cause of the crash, but it indicates that there was a problem with the flight.

 

[SABRE]

I thought AFs around the world ask their pilots to be careful over towns n cities specialy over ppl's home. & if for some reason the plan starts to crash atleast try & take it out side the populus area. Its one of the major codes of PAF as far as I know. I thought same applies for USAF, Navy & Marines since PAF got modernized by USAF & got its major codes/rules from there after dumping the British style.

BTW this reminds of a F-117 crash over a house..it was flying in some AirShow. Dont knw which city it was. The pilot had to collect money to give to the owners (who were out of the town at the time of the crash) I was amazed that USAF did not pay those ppl for the house.

 

[highsea]

I thought AFs around the world ask their pilots to be careful over towns n cities specialy over ppl's home. & if for some reason the plan starts to crash atleast try & take it out side the populus area. Its one of the major codes of PAF as far as I know. I thought same applies for USAF, Navy & Marines since PAF got modernized by USAF & got its major codes/rules from there after dumping the British style.

Well of course the pilot tries to avoid crashing in residential areas. The crash was only a mile from the runway, so he was clearly trying to get the AC back to base. We don't know what went wrong yet.

BTW this reminds of a F-117 crash over a house..it was flying in some AirShow. Dont knw which city it was. The pilot had to collect money to give to the owners (who were out of the town at the time of the crash) I was amazed that USAF did not pay those ppl for the house.

That crash happened at the Chesapeake Airshow in Essex Maryland in 1997. The plane was leaving the airshow, when it had problems with the flight control surfaces, and lost part of a wing. It turned out the cause of the crash was some missing wing stiffening bolts.

The pilot was not held liable, the Air Force pays the bills in that kind of an incident. They ended up paying over $1 Million in compensation to residents of the neighborhood.

 

[gf0012-aust]

BTW this reminds of a F-117 crash over a house..it was flying in some AirShow. Dont knw which city it was. The pilot had to collect money to give to the owners (who were out of the town at the time of the crash) I was amazed that USAF did not pay those ppl for the house.

matey that is absolute baloney. there are formal processes for compensation in these incidents. the system doesn't work like that.