The San Diego F/A-18 crash was the crash of a United States Marine Corps (USMC) F/A-18 Hornet in a residential area of San Diego, California on December 8, 2008. The pilot, First Lieutenant Dan Neubauer (28) from VMFAT-101, was the only crewmember on board the two-seat aircraft; he ejected successfully, landing in a tree. The jet crashed into the University City residential area, destroying two houses and damaging a third. A total of four residents in one house, two adults and two children, were killed.
A USMC investigation concluded that poor maintenance caused the engine malfunction. Errors by the pilot and USMC personnel on the ground led to the aircraft crashing into the San Diego residential neighborhood. As a result, in early 2009 the pilot was temporarily grounded and thirteen other officers and enlisted personnel were relieved and/or disciplined. The Marine Corps notified other F/A-18 squadrons of the engine and fuel problems discovered during the investigation.
Crash
On December 8, 2008 Lt Neubauer was piloting an F/A-18D-30-MC Hornet (Lot 12), BuNo 164017, from VMFAT-101, based at MCAS Miramar. Along with several other VMFAT-101 aircraft, he was conducting day and night carrier qualifications (catapult launches and tailhook arrested carrier landings) aboard the aircraft carrier offshore 60 miles southwest of San Diego. Neubauer was the only crewmember on board the two-seat aircraft.
After taking off from the carrier at 11:11 a.m., Neubauer reported an oil caution light for the right engine, and shut it down after efforts to clear the problem failed. After declaring an emergency, he was first directed towards Naval Air Station North Island, but was redirected by superior officers to his home base of MCAS Miramar when about away from North Island. Neubauer attempted to make an arrested landing at Miramar but the jet lost power in its operating engine while on final approach. Eyewitnesses reported the jet flew slowly eastbound at a low altitude and was dumping fuel (which is not uncommon for an emergency landing). The pilot said that as he broke through the clouds at , his left engine's thrust slipped dangerously low, and he unsuccessfully tried to restart the right engine. The left engine lost more thrust, before its generator dropped offline and the jet lost electrical power.
The jet flew over University City High School and crashed into the residential area just past the school about two miles from the Miramar's runway 6L. Neubauer waited "until the last possible moment" to eject from the plane, bailing out at an altitude of just , having attempted to steer away from homes on the ground before the crash. He ejected successfully, landing in a tree in Rose Canyon, just behind a home. The jet crashed into the University City residential area at Cather Ave and Huggins St (between the high school and exit 24 of Interstate 805), destroying two houses and damaging three others. A total of four residents in one house, two adults and two children, were killed.
Neubauer was taken to Naval Medical Center San Diego, a military hospital and treated for unspecified mild injuries, and reported being "horrified" by the crash at that time. Killed on the ground in one home were Youngmi Yoon, 36; her 15-month-old baby, Grace; her 2-month-old newborn daughter, Rachel; and her mother, Suk Im Kim, 60, who had recently arrived from South Korea to help care for her daughter's newborn. The other house destroyed belonged to John and Sunny Wu, who lived there with their two daughters Susan Wu and Alice Wu. None of the family was home at the time of the crash but the home and everything in it were lost.
Aftermath
In the aftermath of the crash, University City residents renewed previous calls for the US military to relocate aircraft from the base to a more remote location. In a counterpoint, homeowners in University City signed disclosure forms saying they were aware of overflying jets and that this "...extraordinarily rare event...got enormous publicity [and] the risk of living in University City and having a plane fall on you is millions to one." Miramar was also the location of the Navy Fighter Weapons School before it was moved to the more remote Naval Air Station Fallon.
Marine commanders apologized for the crash and defended the decision to order Neubauer to land at Miramar instead of North Island, which isn't surrounded by residences, stating that double-engine failures are extremely rare. Said Colonel Christopher O'Connor, Miramar's commander, "We are not contemplating changing our emergency procedures at this time. We very seldom fly over the area. We take being good neighbors very seriously."