Military Jet Crash
 

I am saddened at this tragedy.

I find it shocking that this man is able to forgive the pilot. He is sad and grieving, but he knows the pilot did all he could to avoid the disaster. I am impressed.

What do you know about this incident, or about the type of jet that crashed?
Is it an older jet that should be retired?
Are military jets not held to the same standards as civilian airplanes - ie: no annual?
While Yoon states that he does not see the pilot at fault, do you think the pilot is responsible?
Do you view this incident as military negligence?

I was in San Diego a few days before this happened, so it was something I followed pretty closely. You have most of the basic facts.

The jet is one of the newer models that replaced the F-14, A-6 and a few others. It's not the cutting edge anymore, but it's one of the newer models.

Military jets are held to higher standards and receive more maintenance than civilian planes. I'm sure we have some former military that can give us the exact ins and outs of fighter maintenance, but I do know that these things get are expected to perform better and more reliably than civilian planes.

I don't see how the pilot could be responsible. NO miliatry pilot would ever do something like this deliberately. If he did, he'd probably stay on board.

Negligence? No, not really. Negligence requires someone to deliberately fail. The fault for the crash probably lies with either the maintenance personnel or (more likely) the part manufacturer. No maintenance person is ever going to shortchange a pilot of a fighter jet - they're in that job for a reason. My guess, without having read anything about a cause of the crash, is that a part failed because it wasn't built to spec. That can be incredibly hard to detect since flaws in metal aren't exactly easily visible to the naked eye.

Thank you, Jazz!
Wonderful information.

As a former Air Traffic Controller in the marines, I knew dozens of military pilots. Every single one of them would rather ride the plane in to the ground if only to avoid what happened to this unfortunate pilot.

His reaction reminds me of the pilot of the F117 that crashed in 2006. He stayed with it until the last possible second, ejected, and landed hard. He stumbled toward the nearest people, and managed to ask "did I make it away from the crowd?" before collapsing, I believe from a concussion. Similarly, safety officials say that the pilot of the Concorde that crashed realized he couldn't save the plane and passengers, but did his best to steer away from people on the ground rather than try a near-impossible crash landing. The impression I get from seeing incidents like these over the years is that pilots know how catastrophic a crash is and take every effort to save as many people from harm as possible, even at the cost of their own safety.