Have you ever witnessed a aircraft accident?

[vipermcg]

Back in July of 1996, I was at a friends beach house in the Hamptons. I was swimming in his pool, when all of a sudden we saw this strange flash of light to our South. We walked a block down to the beach, and we could just make out smoke in the distance. We then heard alot of C-130's from the ANG fly overhead. Later that night, we turned on the news, only to learn that a 747, TWA flight 800, had crashed off the coast of Long Island. That was a really strange summer, to say the least.

 

[MikeD]

[ QUOTE ]
Back in July of 1996, I was at a friends beach house in the Hamptons. I was swimming in his pool, when all of a sudden we saw this strange flash of light to our South. We walked a block down to the beach, and we could just make out smoke in the distance. We then heard alot of C-130's from the ANG fly overhead. Later that night, we turned on the news, only to learn that a 747, TWA flight 800, had crashed off the coast of Long Island. That was a really strange summer, to say the least.

[/ QUOTE ]

Did you see the missile streak that other witnesses claimed to see? Or was it after the fact?

 

[vipermcg]

[ QUOTE ]
Did you see the missile streak that other witnesses claimed to see? Or was it after the fact?

[/ QUOTE ]

I never saw any streak that some people talked about. But then again, I didnt have a good view of the sky, and I wasn't watching the plane from the beach or anything. I looked up from over my friends house, and I saw some sort of dull flash in the distance. I am sure it was flight 800, becuase about 5 minutes later, I could see smoke in roughly the same spot I saw the flash.

 

[CapnJim]

Sheesh! You folks have seen some stuff!
Mine is just an incident, and boring compared to ya'lls, but it wasn't to me at the time!
During my PPL training a thunderstorm was chasing us back to the field. We landed safely, but as soon as we taxied off 45 knot gusts blew over the airfield. My instructor wisely took the aircraft and swung it around into the wind, but as he did, we saw an untied Aeronica Champ lift up, climb about 30 feet, and nose back over into the ground. We were the only other untied aircraft on the field, so we pulled the mixture, jumped out, and grabbed the wings so that the plane wouldn't take off and possibly nose over on us! The folks at the FBO saw our predicament and came over with a tug to get us to a tiedown spot. My instructor, with typical calm, looked over at me and said "Well, I guess we should go over weather next time."

 

[BlueStreak]

I guess the only major one I have seen was the Corsair that collided with a Bearcat on takeoff role at Oshkosh a couple years ago. It was pretty nasty, clipped a wing and proceeded to flip over. Pretty nasty fireball and the pilot was trapped in the fire for a couple minutes but I guess he survived, although last I knew he was in a colma. Anybody have any updates?

 

[zombie5225]

[ QUOTE ]
Don't those things run around 2 billion a piece? Do you know what caused it to go down?



[/ QUOTE ]

Like Eagle said, the wing fell off. That was the day that I decided that I wanted to fly planes. That morning I went on my first flight in a small plane. Then the Red Barons came on and I was hooked. The next act was the F-117, it did two fly-bys and everybody was pretty excited, at that time most people hadnt seen a stealth bomber. Then aftr the third pass it pulled up and on its way out the wing "fell off." The pilot did the best that he could to keep the plane away from the boats and the end of the runway and ejected. He made it out fine, but the plane hit a house.

 

[MissedApproach]

Here's the video of that F-117 crash for those that haven't seen it:

Video

Video

 

[A320_DUDE]

Never seen a actual accident,just a couple of minor incidents:

-A JBlu A320 landed with the nose gear cocked sideways a couple months ago

-A Northwest DC-9 engine fire about 2 years ago

-A CoEx ATR engine fire around the same time as the Northwest one

-A chartered 727 that overshot the runway at BDL a couple years ago


BTW does anyone of the Texas folks know what the hell happened in Amarllio earlier this week? Some SW 737 ended up blown off the runway collapsing the nose gear....that all I got.

 

[Mahesh]

I saw an airliner.

Many years ago when I was visiting India, I saw an Indian Airlines Airbus A320 about a minute after it crashed. The pilots landed in a golf course (about 1/2 mile from the runway), hit a little bunker and then came to a stop in a little pond. I think close to 100 people died in the fire.

It was very sad. I heard the crash but by the time I saw it, it was in flames and fire and rescue were pulling up to the scene. Obviously, they cleared the area and everyone was made to leave.

I think there was some confusion with the auto-pilot or the throttles and the pilots were trying to get control back when they realized that they wouldn't make the runway.

I found a couple of images
Indian Airlines crash
Mahesh

 

[aloft]

[ QUOTE ]
The next act was the F-117 ... at that time most people hadnt seen a stealth bomber. Then aftr the third pass it pulled up and on its way out the wing "fell off."

[/ QUOTE ]
The F stands for fighter, even tho it's pretty worthless in the air-to-air sense and is more a fighter-bomber (FB-117?

). The F-117 is the stealth fighter, the B-2 (B stands for bomber) is the Stealth Bomber. The B-2 is the one with the Really Big pricetag, not the F-117.

 

[Soonermurph]

I saw a Russian aerobatic plane crash after the pilot blacked out. It was at the Okahoma City air show in 1989 or 1990 I think. Awful.

 

[Visceral]

We landed in Guam after evacuating our aircraft from Kadena AB, Japan back in 97 or 98...I forget which one. Weather was dog crap near Guam, with gusts and poor visibility. After landing, we went to the hotel to start drinking since we were going to be there a while. After returning to the hotel, we saw what looked like a big bonfire on the mountains near the hotel. Nobody could figure out why anyone would have a bonfire in that miserable weather. We found out the next morning it was a Korean Airlines flight crew that had just plowed their 747 and a load of vacationing passengers into the mountains. I think 2 or 3 survived.

 

[farwellbooth]

Witnessed a prop strike. A Cub landed hot, laid on the brakes nosed over. Nobody was hurt.

It was during my second ppl lesson and I was thinking holy sh*t what am I getting myself into?

 

[H46Bubba]

I've seen a harrier go into the drink. We pulled the pilot out of the drink! I also saw a helo taxi into another parked helo. It wasn't a pretty site. Bits and pieces of blades, flying everywhere. Luckily no one was injured.

 

[MikeD]

[ QUOTE ]
I've seen a harrier go into the drink. We pulled the pilot out of the drink! I also saw a helo taxi into another parked helo. It wasn't a pretty site. Bits and pieces of blades, flying everywhere. Luckily no one was injured.

[/ QUOTE ]

Reminded me..also saw a Marine H-46 catch fire and burn up on takeoff at Yuma MCAS in 1996

 

[av8rguy2003]

i saw this one happen in tampa before a cross country flight one sunday morning
Here's the ntsb prelim on it.


This is preliminary information, subject to change, and may contain errors. Any errors in this report will be corrected when the final report has been completed.

On August 18, 2002, about 0936 eastern daylight time, a homebuilt Reviere Vans RV6A, N747ES, operated and registered to an individual, impacted with a concrete wall of a dry dock at the Port of Tampa, Tampa, Florida. Visual meteorological conditions prevailed at the time, and no flight plan was filed. The local personal flight was conducted under 14 CFR Part 91. The airplane was destroyed. The two commercial-rated pilots were fatally injured. There were no injuries to anyone on the ground. The flight had originated from the Peter O'Knight Airport, Tampa, Florida, about 5 minutes before the accident.

According to witnesses at the airport, the airplane departed to the south, and then turned back towards the airport. The airplane then flew northbound over the runway, about 50 feet above ground level. The pilot added full power to the engine and the airplane started to climb. The airplane was then seen in a steep climb, turned left, and spiraled nose low until impact.

 

[ready2fly]

av8rguy2003: Check your PM's! (private messages - little flashing flag at the top left hand corner of your Jetcareers screen.)

R2F

 

[JediNein]

I watched a T210 cartwheel down the runway at VGT, then flames everywhere. VGT Tower had already hit the crash button and the rescuers were the way. The firemen got out of their trucks just as gunshots were heard. Then hundreds of shots. The firemen got the h*ck out of there and so did we. After a few minutes the shots stopped.

I later found out that the back of the aircraft was full of ammunition which went off in the post-impact fire. VGT evacuated the cab and all runway-side facing businesses. There was no chance of survival.

Fly SAFE!
Jedi Nein

 

[kerosene]

In the 1981-1984 timeframe, I was heading out toward Sunrise Mountain, near Las Vegas, Nevada, when I saw a black mushroom cloud forming over Nellis AFB. I knew something crashed, and my cousin, who was stationed at Nellis, later told me that an A-10 crashed during airshow practice. The pilot died.

In late 1984, I was stationed at Sheppard AFB, Wichita Falls, Texas, when a T-38 crashed on final. A bunch of my fellow airmen were tasked with finding all the tiny bits of the airplane. The head usher of one of the chapels was tasked with x-raying the remains of the crew. The student pilot was a Brit, and the instructor was USAF; both were part of the Euro-NATO Joint Jet Pilot Training Program.