Mythbusters in action at Alameda NAS?

Factual Questions
1

So I was tooling around on Google Earth, and came across Alameda Naval Air Station, whose name I recognised from Mythbusters. I found this image on one of the runways. The copyright date is 2011. I’m not familiar with all the episodes of Mythbusters, but is this them in action? Can’t imagine anyone else who would do this to a plane, but who knows?

2

It almost looks like a movie set to me. There is a bunch of stuff strewn along the runway, and a number of emergency vehicles parked near the airplane. There doesn’t seem to be anyone on site when the photo was taken, but I could imagine a movie sceen where there is a plane crash and multiple emergency service vehicles swarming about. I don’t think Mythbusters would have all of what appears to be luggage, etc., strewn about for a myth, along with that many emergency service vehicles.

3

Yeah, it’s got to be a movie or TV show set. Alameda NAS is used for that kind of thing regularly.

4

I agree it looks like a film set. There’s plenty of emergency vehicles parked neatly nearby but not a soul around. I googled ‘Alameda Naval Air Station plane crash’ hoping for more info and found this on the Alemeda wiki page.

“As of November 2011 an aerial view on Google Maps shows one of the runways being used for a simulated airliner crash for an unidentified film or TV production.”

So at least we’re not the only ones who think that.

5

These folks may know, if they’re allowed to tell. http://www.filmalameda.com/

6

AFAIK the mythbusters never did any plane myths at Alameda.

When I load the link I get the runway first with nothing there, and the plane and vehicles appear afterwards, almost like it’s an overlay.

7

Or you start posting to to the nuttier boards that its all part of an elaborate coverup and that all the emergency personell and survivors had to be “disappeared” to protect the “secret”

8

If it’s not a film set, it may be a mass casualty emergency response training scenario.

9

There are two white propane tanks to the right for creating fire. See the black object next to the tanks? That is a jib mounted camera. The nose of the chopper has a camera mounted to it as well.

Definitely a movie set.

Chuck

10

This page says the filming was for an episode of a television series called Trauma, and includes YouTube video of the scene.

11

I noticed that too.

Also, if you zoom out a click at a time there’s a point where the plane etc. are there and then gone at the next click.

I have to assume that the images at the different resolutions must have been taken at different times, but I don’t understand why when it first loads it loads one image first and then loads the other.

12

Thank you, all. It was astonishing to see a plane crash, but I realised it couldn’t be real since Alameda is an unused airport, and there is a perfectly functioning one at the other end of the island where a plane likely to crash would have been directed because of the recovery resources, etc. Hence my guess that it was Mythbusters. I am surprised that lots of other people seem to have noticed it, to the point where people have gone to the trouble of creating sites explaining it.

13

Uh… where? Do you mean Oakland?