It’s A Matter Of Zoning
The San Diego Union-Tribune reports on what happens when there are bad zoning decisions: Two dead, two missing in University City jet crash.
They allowed residential housing to be built at the end of a military runway, and when something goes wrong, people die. This is new housing, not an old, established neighborhood and MCAS Miramar was there for a very long time before the houses were built.
Apparently the engines failed [the FA-18 that crashed has two] and there were no options for the pilot other than ejecting. Without altitude or power you have very little control over an aircraft like the FA-18.
The remarkable thing is that these accidents are so rare, not that they happen.
4 comments
But… but… developers have a right, a RIGHT I say, to extract every bit of money they can from the paying public! Even if it requires putting a subdivision right where any jet crashing on takeoff will crash. You must be UN-AMERICAN or somethin’ to suggest that developers shouldn’t be allowed to build when, where, and whatever they want to build!
Look, you gotta have priorities here. What’s more important, dollars, or people’s lives? Hint: We got 9 billion friggin’ people on this planet. So who cares if a few die in the occasional jet fighter crash? Sheesh! Some people!
– Badtux the Snarky Penguin
If you look at the satellite you can see that there is open space all over the area except for a cluster of housing directly in line with the main runway.
The developer probably added 3 inches of insulation in the ceiling above normal code for “sound proofing” to show that he was thoughtful of living in a flight path.
A witness said it looked like the pilot was trying for the canyon when he ran out of altitude, and had already clipped trees when he punched out. He must have flamed out during final or he would have ditched it in the ocean, which is why there are so few crashes at Miramar.
There were rumors that they were going to shut down Miramar in a BRAC round, but they transferred it from the Navy to the Marines to provide for air-ground training at Camp Pendleton just up the road a bit.
My college son’s condo is just a few more miles to the west. I was on Google maps in a flash and checking info as it came in. Why oh why do developers build right up next to a military airport flight path? I know housing is tight around the University but that’s no excuse….
Because they are greedy and the politicians never met a bulldozer they didn’t love. The area was all part of a military base that was closed and the concept was that it would be used for open space and the University, which is North of the flight path.
At two miles out you are less than a minute from landing, so if anything goes wrong there is no time to correct. Without power the plane drops like a rock and there is no way of controlling it. It almost reached the open space, another two hundred feet, but it just didn’t have the altitude.
I have family in Del Mar and San Diego, and I was on Google as soon as I saw it, as well as checking the Union-Tribune.