A Navy F-18 fighter just went down smack in the middle of a Virginia Beach apartment complex, demolishing buildings and leaving others ablaze after multiple explosions—the jet itself is an enormous flaming heap of jet wreckage.
WAVY-TV reports “the Navy told WAVY.com the plane was an F18 Strike fighter squadron 106,” and is clearly still ablaze from on the ground images. No word on whether any pilot was injured (or dead), but there are already reports of injured pedestrians. No word on what caused the plane, which costs tens of millions of dollars to go down, but it somehow managed to avoid hitting a minigolf course and water park, though nearby residences may not have been spared. CNN relays one particularly awful detail:
Another witness, Zack Zapatero, said the plane crashed into a building occupied by senior citizens. He took photos of the scene. “There’s these large fire balls coming up,” Zapatero said. “I was told there was a bunch of senior citizens that live in that building, which worries me a lot. “Buildings were starting to collapse,” he said of the wreckage scene.
[WAVY-TV]
*insert 9/11 theory here*
If you read the comments on the linked site it's a pretty disturbing insight into the mind of a portion of the USA.
Things like: "The sound of those planes is the sound of Freedom!"
Or: "people better not start callin for the closure of that airbase! They knew the danger when they moved there!"
Or the ever present: "My prayers are with them" Or "My prayers go out to them", Or "I'm praying for them"
Oh kaaaay... Back away slowly, don't make eye contact.
Anyway, seems like a nasty disaster but from what I've read there are no deaths so far, which seems pretty amazing.
No one died it's not even a "Nasty Disaster". It was a non-fatal accident. No more interesting really than a car crash other than that there was a cool jet fighter involved....I would call this a "Splendid Miracle" because nobody died, rather than a nasty disaster. Plus the old people will probably get nice new homes paid for by the airforce/navy whoever.....everyone wins here!!!!
If you live in magic babyland where lollies grow on trees and houses are made from fairyfloss maybe...
Unfortunately this is the cold hard world of reality where people with the last means were all suddenly made homeless and had lifetimes worth of personal possessions destroyed in this "splendid miracle" of a nasty disaster.
The US navy doesn't gift people with new homes either I'm afraid. People have to put claims in, in writing, and often wait years for them to get around to giving them a full reimbursement, if that ever happens, and maybe some of those people will die before it comes through anyway.
I won't belabour this, it'd be crass.
except for the $ ticket on the fighter and housing... it sounds like a non event. these things happen and the f-18 isnt a new fighter + cut backs? i bet it was a hardware failure