E is for Emergency...or Easter Miracle

I ended up off work today due to a child care debacle--darn!  I missed a lot of unwanted excitement.

A little after noon, an F/A-18D Hornet from the squadron where I work crash-landed in Virginia Beach.  The area where the plane crashed was only a few miles from the runway where it took off.  The two pilots--one a student, one a veteran instructor--both ejected from the plane, landing just a short distance from where the jet crashed.  I watched news coverage for most of the afternoon.  You can see the local news coverage here, or you can just check any news station.  The crash was the top story on national news tonight.

There are a few things I find amazing about this.  As of right now, there were no fatalities.  Virginia Beach is the most populous city in the state.  This week is Spring Break.  The fact that this jet went down without taking a single life is a true miracle.  There were seven injured, none of them serious.  Wow.

Something one of the pilots said brought tears to my eyes.  When a resident of the apartment complex where the pilot's plane crashed came to the pilot's aid, the first thing he said was "I'm sorry I destroyed your home."  I don't know why that had such an impact on me, but it really hit me hard.  Such a strange and selfless first reaction.  And it was almost like he knew that no lives were lost when that plane hit the ground.  Additionally, the location where the pilots landed indicated that they stayed with the aircraft as long as they could to try to recover it.  The ejected moments before it hit the ground.  I believe they did their damnedest to minimize the impact.

Good Friday, indeed.