Two US Navy F/A-18C Hornets crash in Western Pacific.

a reply to: Zaphod58
Some people's children .... our closest call was probably when two guys stepped over the foul line at night and almost had their heads taken off by the jet wing and legs taken off by the arresting cable. It was played on ship tv for weeks straight for safety awareness. You should have seen the athleticism these guys demonstrated by hitting the deck and immediately jumping up (I wonder if that is youtube somewhere). We also had propellers from an E-2C take a chomp out of another aircraft when it was in taxi.

Another time some kid walked backwards right off the deck.

a reply to: AllSourceIntel

We were lucky, at both Pease and Hickam we didn't have any major ramp accidents. We had some in flight accidents, but that was it. Between Pease and Plattsburgh we lost three FB-111s to flight control problems, along with one crew. The Plattsburgh aircraft was out over the water low level, the crew pulled the handles as the aircraft hit the water.

The DC-8 was a guy with gohomeitis. It was a night arrival, he had been working most of the day and was ready to go home. They parked, put the chocks in place, and he went to plug the cord in before they shut down. It took that big metal clip with the pins down the engine, and sucked the cord through with it. They ended up doing a three engine departure, and flight back to California to change the engine. They barely made it too.

Could this be associated with the solar flare that was supposed to hit today? Some of the warnings I read said it would mess with navigation equipment so I'm wondering....

a reply to: diggindirt

Navigation problems wouldn't cause a crash like this. If it was related to that, then there would have been a lot more than just two F-18s.

a reply to: diggindirt

Geomagnetic storms occur on Earth all the time. While this one is supposed to be a good one, we've been hit by far larger CME's in the past. These F18 were near Wake Island so pretty far from the poles.

a reply to: Zaphod58
Thanks for the speedy reply. It made me wonder as I was reading the warnings put out by various agencies.
Just out of curiosity, how many are in the air at any one time in these exercises?

a reply to: diggindirt

It depends on what type of training it is. If it's a unit level exercise it could be 2, it could be 8, or anywhere in between. If it's a major exercise, you might see a few dozen planes in the air from different units.

originally posted by: Sammamishman
a reply to: diggindirt

Geomagnetic storms occur on Earth all the time. While this one is supposed to be a good one, we've been hit by far larger CME's in the past. These F18 were near Wake Island so pretty far from the poles.

Not to mention that the geomagnetic conditions were relatively calm at the time.

a reply to: Zaphod58
Thanks. I'm abysmally ignorant of Navy stuff and how they operate. My guys were Air Force. My knowledge of the Navy fliers is limited to having seen the Blue Angels and met the pilots when they did a show at Whiteman AFB several years ago.

a reply to: diggindirt

They're pretty similar, except for taking off and landing on a moving postage stamp. The slang is a lot different, but overall they're not that different when it comes to training and the like.

originally posted by: Araqiel

originally posted by: Sammamishman
a reply to: diggindirt

Geomagnetic storms occur on Earth all the time. While this one is supposed to be a good one, we've been hit by far larger CME's in the past. These F18 were near Wake Island so pretty far from the poles.

Not to mention that the geomagnetic conditions were relatively calm at the time.

Thanks. I knew someone smarter than me could find the information needed to make that call.
My question came from the warning put out by the various agencies that said the storms could interfere with satellite navigation instruments. Now if you're driving down the road depending on your navigation system to get you where you need to be, a drop-off of the satellite of a few seconds probably wouldn't ruin your day. In a plane going 1000 mph a few seconds of loss of data could ruin your day.

a reply to: diggindirt

You can find these graphs at www.swpc.noaa.gov... for future reference. Kp actually hit 7 around the new day UTC, classed as a severe storm and a bit higher than predicted there, but it was only 3 or so at the time of this incident which is relatively stable.

The search has been called off for the missing pilot. Both pilots were from NAS Lemoore.

a reply to: Zaphod58

I take it you haven't heard any detail floating around as to what might have happened beyond the presumed collision?

a reply to: Araqiel

No, I haven't heard anything yet, just that they hit, although it sounds like they hit pretty hard.

The pilot that was killed is 26 year old Nathan Poloski, from Lake Arrowhead, California. He graduated from the Naval Academy in 2009. The search for him covered 3,000 square miles using the carrier Carl Vinson, the destroyers Gridley, Sterett, and Dewey, the cruiser Bunker Hill, multiple helicopter squadrons, P-8 Poseidon aircraft from Guam, and satellites.