Marine Harrier Jet Crashes in Arizona

[deminks]

YUMA, Ariz. - A Marine Harrier jet carrying four 500-pound bombs crashed Wednesday in a residential neighborhood, forcing the evacuation of 1,300 people. There were no reports of injuries and the pilot ejected safely, authorities said.

The jet was coming in for a landing at Marine Corps Air Station-Yuma when it crashed in the backyard of a home about a mile from the base, said Marine Cpl. Michael Nease. It was also carrying 300 rounds of 20-milimeter ammunition, he said.

Police said the house where the jet landed had been set on fire, but they didn't have further details. A one-mile radius around the crash site was evacuated while a military explosives disposal team was brought on the scene.

About 1,300 people were being evacuated, including a trailer park that is less than a block from the crash site, said Betty Conner, a training consultant for the Red Cross. A shelter was set up at a nearby middle school.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050616/ap_on_re_us/harrier_crash;_ylt=AozS4IGFkNTzwAZ4bqmB0S.s0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA2MTQ3MTFjBHNlYwN0cw--

[dqueue]

1. oh...

just about 12 hours early to be a diversion from Rep. Conyers' hearing tomorrow on Downing Street minutes...

Crazy. What's an armed Harrier doing flying around residential neighborhoods?

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

5. Yuma is an operational base,

there are ranges there for live-fire

[expatriot]

10. Yep, Barry Goldwater....

[expatriot]

9. They fly over us ALL the time... all kinds of choppers, etc.

they use Yuma as a mock Iraqi urban area for training. You drive down the main drag in town and they just come up from over the horizon and surround you and start circling. It's very intimidating and you realize how choppers actually do have half a chance in urban combat. Our trailer gets buzzed by choppers all the time. and the harriers are crashing all the time, mostly in fields and in the desert... this is the first time in a residential area fully armed.

I was at work, around 2:30-3 the cell phones started going off.... of course there was tons of misinformation and rumors. Somebody said that their wife said it was in the middle of 24 and Arizona and the autocannons were firing automatically with the backfire causing the plane to spin around on its belly so the arc of fire being 360. I had no reason to NOT believe it because we knew there was a crash so I imagined all these automobiles and homes being shredded with flying body parts and all that. And then like an hour and a half AFTER we first heard of the crash, our work gets notified to send everyone who lived in between Pacific and Arizona Avenue and 24th and 32nd home to evacuate. like 2 hours later they tell everyone to go INTO the danger zone to pack up to evacuate. real smart. I am thinking we might have a DU problem too or just a simple case of over-reaction.

[Massacure]

2. I wonder if crashed military jets is a disaster covered by home insurance?

[realFedUp]

3. "the most dangerous plane in the U.S. military..."

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-na-harrier8jan08-hp,1,5866176.story

January 8, 2003 latimes.com :

Congressional Hearings Will Focus on Marine Harrier Jet
Rep. Hunter cites a recent Times series that reported on the plane's shortcomings. He vows to call for additional spending.

The report detailed the Harrier's history as the most dangerous plane in the U.S. military. It has been involved in 143 major noncombat accidents during its 31 years of service, killing 45 Marines and destroying a third of the jump jet fleet.

The Harrier is unique among active military jets for its ability to lift straight off the ground like a helicopter, hover in midair, and then blast off into conventional flight.

But that innovative technology has placed a tremendous strain on the plane. Recurrent failures of the engine, wing flaps and ejection system have led to fatalities, as have mistakes by inexperienced and undertrained mechanics. Inadequate flight time for pilots has also contributed to the plane's high accident rate.

continued

[Nihil]

15. The dipsticks can't read can they?

> Rep. Hunter cites a recent Times series that reported on the plane's
> shortcomings. He vows to call for additional spending.
> ...
> ... mistakes by inexperienced and undertrained mechanics.
> Inadequate flight time for pilots has also contributed to the
> plane's high accident rate.

What's the betting that this "additional spending" will go into
"studies" by GD (or whoever got the US manufacturing licence for
the Harrier) rather than on improving the ability of spanner-pilots
to train or fly-boys to cross-train properly?

Seem to recall that most of the "143 major noncombat accidents during
its 31 years of service" were concerning the VTOL/STOL aspect of the
plane, the one thing that has NOTHING in common with other USAF fixed
wing craft. (No link: this came from a colleague who helped write the
simulator for the Harrier ... he knew what he was talking about.)

If something goes wrong when you have little or no forward speed, you
are basically sat in a heavy metal box (armed or not) a little too
high above the ground for comfort.

[gratuitous]

16. Not only dangerous, but expensive

I presume the Harrier is equipped the way it is for things like emergency extraction of trapped soldiers. I know that I wouldn't want to be the commander who orders a Harrier into action, knowing that the instrumentality of my men's rescue could be more lethal than whatever situation they were facing on the ground.

[Nihil]

18. If by "equipped" you mean the VTOL/STOL capability ...

... then the reason is that it was originally designed to be capable
of operating from small forest clearings in Germany (and throughout
Western Europe) against Soviet bloc ground forces after the latter's
initial attack destroyed primary airstrip facilities.

[gratuitous]

20. Okay, expensive, lethal and obsolete

Picky, picky. Although I suppose the Harrier's vertical landing capabilities would be useful anytime there isn't sufficient landing space for a conventional fixed-wing aircraft. I also wouldn't want to be the commander to order a rescue operation where the Harrier would have to descend vertically slowly to bring out a bunch of guys who were surrounded in the desert, as it would make an inviting target for the besiegers.

There's no disputing the very cool nature of the Harrier's ideal capabilities. But is it a practical aircraft that will withstand the rigors of wartime operation?

[Ilsa]

4. I would rather have seen an ending like The Great Santini...

but I guess the pilots don't really know exactly where they are and where the jet is headed. I hope everyone is okay.

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

6. Hmmmm. 1 mile radius? 20mm ammo? can you say

DU?
I thought you could.

[blackhorse]

7. 25mm ... (Yahoo story edited)

Might have been DU ... following from GlobalSecurity.Org

"PGU-20 25mm ammunition

In the past, the Navy used the 25 mm PGU-20 round but has phased it out of use. The U.S. Marines developed the GAU-12 air-to-surface gun system for the AV-8B Harrier Close Air Support System. This six-barreled 25mm gun pod was designed to be centerline mounted. The AV-8B Harrier aircraft deployed to the Gulf flew 3,342 sorties. A typical combat load would include 300 rounds of 25mm with an equal mix of DU and high expolsive rounds. The average turnaround time for flight operations during the ground war was 23 minutes.

The U.S. Marines fired 25mm PGU-20 munitions, each having a 150-gram DU penetrator slug from the GAU-12 Gatling gun center mounted on the AV-8B. The Marines fired 67,436 (PGU-20) 25mm DU in the Gulf War. This relates to about 20 DU rounds per sortie. Therefore, it is estimated that the U.S. Marines expended about 11 tons of DU during the Gulf War. The PGU-20 round has about 3 percent of the mass of an M829A1 120mm round. Therefore, it would take about 31 PGU-20 25mm rounds to equal the mass of DU in an M829A1 round."

Even if the rounds were standard high explosive, those are awful things to have cooking off in a neighborhood -- and, IMO, a mile's evacuation radius is small for the range of a 20mm shell.

Cheers

BlackHorse

[MrPrax]

8. Bomb-laden plane crashes in Arizona city

Much better headline...

A Marine Harrier jet carrying four 225-kilogram bombs crashed in a residential neighborhood in this city near the Mexican border. There were no reports of injuries and the pilot ejected safely, authorities said.

The jet was coming in for a landing Wednesday at Marine Corps Air Station-Yuma when it crashed in the backyard of a home about 1.6 kilometers from the base, said Marine Cpl. Michael Nease. It was also carrying 300 rounds of 20-milimeter ammunition, he said.

There was no immediate word on the cause of the crash.

Police said the house where the jet landed had been set on fire, but they didn't have further details. A 1.6-kilometer radius around the crash site was evacuated while a military explosives disposal team was brought on the scene.

Another Spin Here

[burrowowl]

11. I hope the bombs were

inert target practice types
Good thing a fire didn't set of the ammo. Why didn't he spend his stores at the range!?!
I remember when El Paso still had Biggs Field during the Korean War, a bomber crashed with full stores and it was quite a fireworks show.

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

12. most likely had just been up to Tustin

or somesuch to get the ord and was coming back to refuel before the run

[bennywhale]

13. Are the Harriers those Vertical lift off British planes?

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

14. yes

[DemoTex]

17. AV-8B Harrier = "Widow Maker"

Aka "The Converter" (converts fuel into noise).

http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ac/av-8.htm

[Nihil]

19. I thought the "Widow Maker" was the F104

There again, it is a nice tag to associate with whichever plane du jour
has a bad run. The combination of under-trained pilots & ground-crew
with a complex, unique flight platform doesn't make for a forgiving
record.

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

25. But one of the funniest things I have ever seen

was a Harrier pilot in a dogfight with F14's... they would chase him, he would dive to the deck and hide and as they sped by... he would pop up and put two right up their poop shoots!

[midnight armadillo]

21. They have a design flaw

When doing the VTOL/STOL stuff the engine can injest its own exhaust gases from the downward firing nozzles - no oxygen, no combustion, engine goes out at the most vulnerable moment. The JSF design avoids this by using a vertical fan driven by a shaft off of the engine. I have no idea if this problem reared its head in this crash.

And holy crap are Harriers loud. The loudest thing I ever heard in my life was a harrier hovering 200 yards off of a carrier deck when I was 12 or so. The sound just cuts you in two.

[DemoTex]

22. I saw a flight of 8 Harriers hovering at the Farnborough Air Show.

There is no way to describe the noise level.

[midnight armadillo]

23. Are your ears still bleeding?

You have my sympathy!!!

[Sabriel]

24. Worse than the Concorde?

Now THAT is the loudest sound I've ever heard... taking off 100 ft. over my house. The waves actually made my skin shake.