FA-18 El Toro Airshow Crash

Okay, I don't know what you actually are, but I'm a pilot. You don't know what you're talking about. If he was going faster, he wouldn't have turned the corner as tight, and it would've been worse. He did not have enough altitude, plain and simple. You can plainly see that he leaves the vertical too quickly. Anyone that flies aerobatics can tell as soon as you can see the horizon when he's on top that he didn't have enough room to go to the downline and make it back out.

Are you an expert on ATC rights? If a pilot crashes an aircraft because of anything comming from his radio he shouldn't be in a cockpit. This routine was sloppy from the beginning to the end.

ATP rated pilot. 8000+ flight hours.
12.5 years as an air traffic controller. Yeah...I guess I lack experience. I'm not a kid.

The reason he could not complete that loop was that he started too slow. He had altitude to do it, not enough speed. Anyone could see the nose of the hornet was pointing at the sky at impact. If he had enough airspeed, his aircraft would be traveling in the same direction it was pointing. You said he over-stressed the aircraft. Now you're saying the slower you are going, the tighter you can turn. With your logic Va or manuvering speed would be a minimum speed, not a maximum!

Moron- there is no way he was even close to cornering velocity to generate an over-g condition. He had plenty of altitude- he didn't manage his airspeed through the maneuver and got too slow. All that crap about faulty equipment and partial blackout is what I would say if I had just C-FIT a $28m government asset. PILOT ERROR. Please go back to Flight Sim, (uhhm) gypsykingg!

So much for putting women in the cockpit in order to shut everyone up.

This crash occurred April 24, 1988

Wikipedia has a snippet on it..

Question: I thought this crash happened in 1989. I was stationed there and a F-18 crashed on the Friday show but I was there on Saturday. Can anyone back this up?
But I do remember that it was a Colonel that crashed.

..agreed. ATC has no right to be rushing the pilot on an exhibition...Seems he rushed it or got pissed right after that comment by ATC...Lucky!

Hey! Any landing you can walk away from is a good one!

uhhm no he did not black out. and it would be called G lock. but no he did not get g lock. bcs if he did the jet would not have continued its path on the loop. and you can tell that he over g the plane at the last second. and what caused the crash? well he did not have enough altitude to complete the loop

yeah the stall warning came on right b4 crash.

Looks like he stalled it, u can hear the engines struggle n doesn't get enough thrust to pull all way out

It is the 1987 El Toro Airshow, the pilot is Col. Caddick, CO MAG-11 - he survived.
One of two things, maybe both together, caused this crash. His flight equip. had an issue, and physically, he was not quite up to the rigors of the maneuvers. He partially blacks out towards the last 1/3 of the loop.

A designated show pilot was to make the flight, but Caddick trumped him for some reason.
I saw the A/C a few months later. It looked like someone had sawn the bottom 1/3 off of it.

What a morron telling the pilot half way through,"im just telling you that we are 5 min behind" what? we are 5 min behind!
oh ok shiiiittt...........

Jesus that could've been worse. He got lucky.

AND WHAT?

I saw a russian Mig crash at el toro don't remember what year late 80's early 90's

yea the pilot lived but sufferd 17g's doing that

Reminds me of Lt Col Jerry Cadicks crash in the early 80's at El Toro.

the shock looks really hard, is there a chance the pilot survived?

i think this is from 1987 airshow , i was station there from 1988/1992 with vmfa-323 DEATHRATTLERS, S-1, WESTPAC 90-91 fond memories with all those airshow

I was there as well. But a slight correction, the numbers for that show usually averaged about 50,000 per day. It was "little" compared to the Miramar show did about 100k per day. That is until the '91 El Toro show, that one was right after the Gulf War and the numbers were insane and definitely in the 100k+ per day range.

Back to the crash, I remember tracking him through my camera lens thinking how odd it was that he hadn't pulled up yet - then WHAM fireball.

What you dont know is that he was not supposed to be the one flying the aircraft, but he pulled rank to do the airshow.

that gotta hurt