An airforce jet breaks the sound barrier and shortly afterwards blows up. Caught on video. It’s from 1995. Any thoughts?
Looks to me like an airplane blowing up.
What’s your question?
Sorry, wasn’t clear enough.
Why do you think the plane blew up?
At least the pilots didn’t die
Here’s a discussion re the incident just for fun
…note for all-some of the banner ads are NOT work-safe…
Oooh, sorry about the banners. Nuts. Insomnia does wonders for judgement calls.
Sorry.
Former USAF fighter pilot here.
“Breaking the sound barrier” had nothing to do with it. The airplane was probably supersonc throughout the part we see in the video. And to a modern fighter, the “sound barrier” is about as impervious as the “speed limit” is to your car.
One of the posters on that page suggests that an engine failed catastrophically. That term is a technical term he’s not likely to have come up with on his own (implying he probably read it in some semi-reputable source) and refers to an engine coming unglued, where the rotating parts don’t stay inside the tube and instead are flung throughout the airplane as shrapnel. If so, that’d create an accident about like we see.
Since there were no visible flightpath excursions before the explosion, and it got very large very fast, the causes are pretty well limited to fuel tank explosion, catatrophic engine failure, ordnance explosion, or enemy fire. Of those 4, engine failure is the most likely by 100x - 1000x. But that’s statistics, not a conclusion.
Other than googling for news articles, there’s not enough info in the video to conclude anything other than the plane exploded. In fact, until I read the news article post, my first reaction was that it was probably a Photoshop job.
Finally, reading all the crap commentary farther down that page produces a few useful links to news articles that support the idea it was real, but give no indication as to cause.
p.s.Reading the rest of the crap commentary on that page reminds me again just how special a place we have here in the SDMB. Gawd what a waste of bits that other place is.
I don’t think the aircraft actually went supersonic, but just ‘approached’ the speed of sound. We can see the condensation cone from time to time, but there is no shock wave to be heard. I’ve seen the ‘approaching the speed of sound’ demonstration (at NAS Pt. Mugu, by VX-4’s pretty black ‘Playboy’ Phantom – which I understand has now been retired), and it was explained that the aircraft went ‘just to the ‘barrier’’, but did not pass it. This is what it looks like to me in the video.
The video downloaded in fits and starts. One time it stopped, the aircraft had entered a right bank. I thought to myself (knowing an explosion was to come), ‘Hm. Looks like maybe the starboard engine failed.’
I am not a multi-engine pilot, and I certainly don’t know the effect of asymmetric thrust on an F-14. I am also not a Naval Aviator, but I’ve been to plenty of air shows in my life. It seemed to me that the right break was a bit too early. I would have expected a longer run-out, followed by a climbing turn to starboard (since there were surface vessels to port). In other words, I’m guessing. But it looks as if there might have been a catastrophic engine failure that resulted in a sudden right bank followed by an explosion. (Perhaps a turbine blade ruptured a fuel bladder?)
I didn’t read all of the responses on the page, but the third one said:
Aiyiyi. How uninformed can you get? First of all, it’s very easy to tell an F-14 from a MiG. Second, a net? Who ever heard of firing a net to shoot down fighters? (Maybe someone’s tried it, but I’ve never heard of it.) It occured to me after I posted the quote that the ‘net’ Baja sees in the video is just the condensation around the shock cone that was forming. Finally, why would Greek sailors shout ‘I got it! I got it!’? Wouldn’t they, oh, I dunno, say it in Greek?
Assymetric thrust can be severe in an F-14 because of the space between the engines. A flameout in one engine can easily cause a flat spin. We lost one in '82 IIRC for that reason in VF-24. The pilot recovered from the spin but the second engine flamed out in the spind and the pilot decided he didn’t have sufficient altitude to restart so the crew ejected.
I’m pretty sure that accident was after a supersonic pass for a weapons demonstration. It was shot for a discovery channel special. IIRC there was an afterburner blowout.