A U.S. Navy EA-18G “Growler” electronic warfare aircraft crashed this morning (February 12) in San Diego Bay near Shelter Island. Both crew members ejected and were picked up within minutes by a fishing boat, transferred to a Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) vessel, and taken to a hospital. They are reported in stable condition.
Cannot have a nice quiet crash in private anywhere these days without some clever clogs filming it and letting the whole world see…
Note to captain in charge of board. Maybe look to see if training in fog is a good idea…
It looks like the pilot did a good job of putting the aircraft in the water. As you can see from the video, the crash location is very near a high-density populated area right on San Diego Harbor. Glad that the ejection worked!
So, not train in bad weather, because all wars happen in “good” weather?
I’m waiting to hear how big a part DEI played in this.
North Island and Miramar may be on borrowed time. The present government in San Diego is not friendly to the military.
Well something is certainly amiss within our military aviation community lately. An Army UH-60, an Air Force F35, and now a Navy EA-18, all within the last 30 days.
The F18 is a robust aircraft… for it to be lost in normal ops (a conventional land vs carrier)… that approach is offset because of the del Coronado Hotel… disorientation? birds?
…gear still down is odd. Flown that approach several times.
Video in slo mo shows the flaps and leading edges are up, but the gear is down. Likely stall as soon flaps disappeared. I’d think a missed approach would dictate best climb performance. Partial flaps might be ok, but gear should definitely be up. Perhaps the pilot forgot to stow the gear due to real IMC nerves. Only John McCain could have gotten away with this.
Crazy, glad to hear their safe!
Really? REALLY!!! Note to johnbpatson: do you think a global Navy flying over the ocean stays home when there’s fog?
But you do raise a great point. Just how does someone record a split second event at the exact time and pinpoint location when something like this happens…WITHOUT CGI?
The federal government has owned and trained at North Island and Miramar for generations. I don’t see why you think San Diego has anything to say about it.
But then where will they film “Top Gun: Geriaverick”?
…and most likely not. What’s your best guess?
Spent some time in SD on a sailboat moored near the crash site. I felt 100% more comfortable with the extensive military fixed-wing & helo traffic than I did watching the landings coming in over the top of the buildings downtown.
At first I had a similar thought. Then I followed that with, is there data? If there was an increase in military aviation incidents then thinking something is amiss is not wrong.
On the other hand, if military accidents statistically match or are less then public/private accidents in terms of population or miles flown then it could be just that like anything with media these days, any hiccup becomes fodder and especially with attached video.
Somewhere I read that real training time for military pilots was reduced to budget constraints. Flying ain’t cheap whether it is training or actual missions so if you had to cut…
As a taxpayer, when these accidents happened it is hard to not realize that was my tax dollars stuffed into the sea floor and that plane weren’t cheap either so maybe spending a bit more on training would make sense…or we can just blame DEI and brush it under the carpet like our current leaders are want to do…with no data either.
I think there are more incidents that aren’t being covered in the news. These don’t result in the loss of the airframe, but are costing the taxpayers.
Olympic Diving judges would not give high marks…too much splash.