How many accidents have you seen?

simtech

simtech

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Simtech
I was told you have a slim chance of ever seeing one. I'm talking about plane crashes Well Since I've started flying in 2012 I have witnessed 2! One person I knew and it was not fun to watch. The other was at Oshkosh. I seem to have started strong. I saw an almost crash in Mesquite once that got my heart pumping and Im sure the pilot had to clean a load once he landed.
 
Let's see.

Thomasville circa 1995. Saw a Cabin Waco go over on its back.

SnF, circa 2002. In about a 2 hour period: Saw a Mooney land gear up. Saw a Baby Ace or similar go over on its nose. Saw an Extra chop a Navion in half on the runway when 3 (not 2) aircraft tried to occupy the same piece of runway at the same time on landing.

The Mooney guy at SnF was awesome. He sat on the wing of the aircraft and waved while they trucked it off the runway and by the crowd.

I was pretty good friends with the guy in the Navion. He was still shaky the next day. Said the prop from the Extra chopped a hole right by his left knee.
 
I was standing on the ramp (4-5 years ago) at Athens, GA talking to a lineman and was looking right at a King Air as it landed. Both rear gear collapsed and it skidded a bit to a stop with nose gear intact. UGLY and it made a grinding moaning sound not soon forgotten.
 
I've seen a Harrier catch on fire after landing and a student in a 172 run off the runway, but that's about it.

Seen quite a few near disasters though.

I've been very close to a couple fatal crashes (Lynx helo and S-2 Viking) but did not actually witness the incident.
 
Somber thing: my favorite guy behind the counter at the FBO (old pilot, I call him a plane-bartender, great to talk to) said he has seen too many people on their last flight over the years.

Not sure why I shared that.
 
simtech said:
I was told you have a slim chance of ever seeing one. I'm talking about plane crashes
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Saw one at at airshow.

Heard live on my scanner the comm between tower and a pilot leading up to a crash.
 
kyleb said:
SnF, circa 2002. In about a 2 hour period: Saw a Mooney land gear up. Saw a Baby Ace or similar go over on its nose. Saw an Extra chop a Navion in half on the runway when 3 (not 2) aircraft tried to occupy the same piece of runway at the same time on landing.

The Mooney guy at SnF was awesome. He sat on the wing of the aircraft and waved while they trucked it off the runway and by the crowd.
Click to expand...

That may be my plane! The PO did that, but I don't remember if it was 02 or 03. No idea how he reacted to the watching crowd. He was cutoff on the ground, started back to the Lake and tower switched him to the big runway then told him to keep his speed up for the P51 behind him . . .
 
Two and a 'half.'

A biplane's tail came apart during an airshow at Corona (AJO)--went straight in.

An F-4 departing Seymour Johnson AFB after one engine came apart and damaged the other one. Impressive orange fireball the went up at least 5,000 ft., but the crew got out without serious injury.

The 'half' was a taxi accident at LGB in a Stinson. One of the main gear went off the side of a bridge over a drainage culvert. I experienced that one from the inside, but it wasn't my fault--I was only three or four at the time.
 
The first time I had my wife up in our new to us Mooney, we watched a Technam attempt to execute a go around by attempting to pull up too aggressively and stall/cartwheel down the runway. Luckily, the only injury was due to the instructor not having his shoulder belt fastened.
 
1.5...
-Aftermath of a gear-up Bo this last year.

-about 50 feet from being one of the casualties at Reno 2011. That one left me not wanting to see, talk about or be in any way involved with airplanes for better than a week. Emerged from the other side realizing I still loved airplanes, and ultimately led to me getting my PPL after many years of wanting to.
 
About 10 or so. I may have forgotten some. I had lots of exposure to seeing them from years working in the Tower.
 
Yeah I figured Tower folks have seen way more then they ever wanted too.
 
I have seen 3 more than I ever wanted to see. No deaths though.
 
I've never seen one personally, but there's plenty of planes in my logbook that no longer exist, some fatal, some not. Over a relatively short flying career (7-8 years & 350 hrs)
 
Seen a navion dead stick in, gear up, no one hurt.

Seen way more car crashes.
 
One. Saw a Stearman go down at an airshow - likely due to vapor lock. Engine quit on takeoff, pilot tried to turn back, didn't quite make it - caught
a wingtip and cartwheeled. Fortunately, no fire, and the crew jumped out and ran away. Another I didn't see, but heard on the radio (was up flying) :
a student on his first solo made two approaches, both bad, followed by go arounds. The third was worse than the previous, and the go around attempt
failed (he went into the trees next to the runway-inverted). Again, no fire, and the pilot walked away with minor injuries.

Dave
 
None unless you count the woman hit while moving a plane. Drew blood, ambulance, and a trip to the hospital.
.
Missed one though. Took off from OWD. Landing airplane geared up.
 
simtech said:
Yeah I figured Tower folks have seen way more then they ever wanted too.
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Some of them were hardly really accidents. A couple intentional gear ups with the runway foamed. A couple unintentional gear ups, nothing hurt but pride and the plane. A couple losing it on the rollout and going off the side of the runway. Two porpoising Sundowners, one of them caught fire. Instructor and student got out okay. Those guys shoulda gone out for the track team. Some bozo decides he needs to drive a 6X6 along the edge of the runway when a C141 is landing. Wingtip takes off the top of the cab and the wing catches fire. The driver was lucky he was a short cake. F4 running on fumes, wet runway, gets a hook skip on a field arrestment, stands on the brakes, blows both main mounts and grinds em down. That was quite a light show.
 
September 12th, 1975: Gordon McCollom, 25, of Costa Mesa, California – Occurring fifteen minutes after the crash of Washburn's AT-6, McCollom, a professional gymnast and wing-walker, was hanging under a modified "Super" Stearman PT-17, registered as N121R and piloted by Joe Hughes, to cut a ribbon near the ground. Suddenly, the Super Stearman dropped too close to the runway in what one official called a “freakish downdraft,” and the plane's tail hit the ground, and causing McCollom to scrape the top of his head on the concrete runway during the finale of his performance, killing him instantly. The Stearman's rudder ripped off before Hughes could climb again, roll upright, and land the airplane. The NTSB found the probable cause of this accident to the pilot-in-command's misjudgment of clearance from the ground, but unfavorable wind conditions contributed to mishap.
 
Never saw an accident. In the air or on the road.
I saw one successful emergency landing in a corn field.
And I've seen dozens of car crashes. None of them accidental, though.
 
Just saw a guy change lanes into another car directly in front of me on I-37 yesterday. He wasn't even in a blind spot -- he just drove right into him, hard enough to make pieces fly.

As for airplanes, I witnessed a fatal "drunk pilot steals a Cub" routine gone bad... She augered straight in right in front of us. Her husband was the narrator.

Saw a P-51 land gear up at Davenport airshow. In front of thousands. When he slid to a stop, he just put his head down on the gunsight and sat there for a long time...

Saw the aftermath of the fatal Mustang crash at Oshkosh. And the Jack what's-his-name jet crash. And a few other minor mishaps. (Gear up, baggage door popping open, etc.)

Saw a guy turn left in front of a motorcyclist right in front of us at a stoplight. The guy did the most beautiful flip over the car, landing flat on his back on the pavement. Luckily he had a helmet on.
 
Thankfully I can say I have never witnessed an airplane crash.
 
Two. Both fatal. Don't really care to do it again.

Both were at the Dayton Airshow. First was Jim LeRoy's crash of his Pitts. Second was the Wicker/Schwenker wing walking crash. Both of them you could see coming. Not good.

It messed with me more than I thought it would.
 
Seen the burned twisted wreckage of a few after the fact. Only thing I recall seeing personally was a ground loop.
 
Haven't seen any aviation accidents. I have seen too many accidents in industry.
 
I thought the worst part was when I saw the stall/spin reach the imaginary altitude line where I knew there was no chance of recovery. But the worst part was the sound when it hit.
 
Hour 20 or so of my private training, saw a nose gear collapse on landing while waiting at the hold short line. My CFI had just commented that he was coming in kind of fast.
 
ive seen two fatal accidents, saw the P51 crash at Oshkosh a few years ago and a piper cherokee crash attempting to land in a gusty 30 kt wind.
 
Jay Honeck said:
As for airplanes, I witnessed a fatal "drunk pilot steals a Cub" routine gone bad...
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I saw one of these, only it was not fatal. The cub was going head to head with a convertible. The pilot misjudged her height, shattered the windshield of the convertible, and partially tore off the gear of the Piper. Luckily the people in the convertible ducked. I was a very new pilot at the time and thought it was a part of the act. I was wondering how they got the gear to hang like that...

I once thought I was going to see an accident, when the piston twin departing in front of us disappeared behind some buildings. Then they reappeared. We had to quickly get off the runway because the tower gave them, "cleared to land any runway".
 
Two gear ups, both done perfectly after gear failures so not a surprise in either case - but they both had BIG audiences in that circumstance.
One "missing gear" two-point landing in a Piper Tomahawk that was doing circuits and left one main gear leg/wheel/tire on the runway after a fastener failure.
Most spectacular was a McDonnell F101 Voodoo fighter that was part of a 4-plane demonstration and completely disintegrated at altitude while in a rolling vertical climb. Both pilots ejected safely before the plane came apart. The wreckage covered a pretty big area but nobody on the ground was injured.

But like many others here have lost some friends in accidents I didn't see, and some in planes that are in my logbook.
 
Never have seen an accident in person but investigated the sites of numerous USAF accidents.

Weirdest one was an F-16 that had an engine problem. The pilot pulled the handles and ejected successfully. The plane landed itself and was found siting on the gear.

Cheers
 
First one I saw was this, in 1965 after an engine-out after takeoff from Fullerton CA. No injury.

2526147.jpg

I watched this one from inside, May 1971, Compton CA (yours truly on the left, next to my CFI):

19710505-03.jpg

The 94th Aero Squadron restaurant ay KVNY has huge picture windows that look out close-up onto the approach end of runway 16L -- perfect for watching a C-177RG gear-up landing over lunch in 1993.

This one happened just down the street from where we were living in 1975. I didn't see it happen, but saw the aftermath every day until the wreckage (the first production DC-6) was removed.
 
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