U-2 spy plane crashes in Northern California, ejecting 2 pilots

[TexasTowelie]

Source: SFGate

A U-2 plane crashed in Sutter County after two pilots ejected from the cockpit, the U.S. Air Force said Tuesday.

An official at Beale Air Force Base east of Marysville — where the plane was from — didn’t immediately have further information.

The crash happened near West Butte and Pass roads near the summit, according to KCRA.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Two-pilots-ejected-after-U-2-plane-crashes-in-9234594.php

---

Photo: DAVE NIELSEN, Associated Press
This is a 1988 file photo of a U-2 spy plane as it takes off from Beale Air Force Base near Marysville, Calif. A U-2 from the base crashed Tuesday morning in Sutter County, according to the U.S. Air Force.

[CBGLuthier]

1. Pretty sure they ejected BEFORE the crash.

Odd headline.

[Journeyman]

2. I pictured Wile E. Coyote ejecting himself from the rubble . . .

[scscholar]

3. More military lies?

I doubt they ejected after the crash.

[PJMcK]

4. The weird headline illustrates how poor most journalism has become (n/t)

[forest444]

9. Hear, hear.

Most of them these days are content with being glorified stenographers.

Can't say I blame them entirely; being anything more than that is liable to get you blackballed in today's corporate media world.

[citood]

26. On the local level

Any time I know the details of a story, I find mistakes in the news article about it. People's occupations or titles are wrong, the address is wrong, etc.

Lets just say that not a lot of editing and fact checking is happening these days, as news budgets get tighter.

[awoke_in_2003]

31. I saw something the other day...

that made me go "WTF". Seriously, what ever happened to editors?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/114217051

[PJMcK]

37. Oops

How could a writer not think about what they were writing?

Sloppy and unprofessional.

[Islandurp]

40. Well that was translated from spanish.

Maybe it made more sense in spanish.

[awoke_in_2003]

43. You're right

but I have seen some real doozies that are all English

[treestar]

48. +1 million

They don't even care any more.

[cstanleytech]

5. Now says "U-2 spy plane crashes in Northern California, ejecting 2 pilots"

Edit: Never knew a jet could eject its pilots lol

[Iggo]

6. They'll get it right. Give 'em time.

[William Seger]

8. Sheesh, if they were gonna edit it...

"U-2 plane crashes in Northern California after 2 pilots eject" would work.

[Quackers]

25. The spy plane was becoming self aware and ejected the pilots.

Unfortunately, it wasn't until after the ejection that the spy plane realized it didn't have autopilot. Who said that when machines became self aware they had to be smart?

[ffr]

7. KCRA.com Sacramento has more.

http://www.kcra.com/news/local-news/news-sacramento/plane-crashes-into-sutter-buttes-in-sutter-county/41746460



Edited to take out the misleading reference to a 1996 U-2 crash. Sutter Buttes is remote cattle country, but there are a few ranch style homes there.

[Historic NY]

10. That part was from the 1996 crash...they tried to confuse the story even more.

A U-2 plane from Beale Air Force Base crashed in August 1996

[ffr]

13. Corrected. Thank you for pointing that out.

It wasn't my intention to mislead. I scanned through the story. My error.

[vkkv]

11. Mapping pot fields perhaps? nt

[WHEN CRABS ROAR]

16. My first thought.

[LeftyMom]

32. No.

1. It's dry AF over there.

2. The county mounties use helicopters and small planes to look for pot grows, if they look at all.

3. You can grow pot in CA with a $45 weed card anyway. The only thing a grower might be in trouble for would be diverting a waterway for irrigation (huge problem) or something. But again, that would be an issue on the wet west side of the coast range, not in the bone dry north valley. Seriously look at a map.

4. The U-2 flies on the edge of space to do surveillance over states where flying at reasonable heights is dangerous. North Korea is involved in exciting new nuclear fuckery. It's not hard to guess what they were doing.

5. Jesus Fucking Christ not everything is about weed.

[vkkv]

33. Okaaaaay, easy mom.. geez.

[vkkv]

47. I live in Calif. and "farm", "fields" or "plantation" are appropriate terms for legal and illegal

growers that I know who live in the 'Gold Country' of North / central California.

I bet you're fun at parties.

[backscatter712]

12. The Dragon Lady is notoriously difficult to fly.

They have a very narrow flight envelope. If you're at altitude, it may be as small as five knots of airspeed. That's called the "coffin corner" of the flight envelope.

Fly too fast, and you hit the critical Mach limit, and you lose control of the aircraft as it tries to flip around, which will probably result in the wings being ripped off.

Fly too slow, and the aircraft stalls, and tries to flutter to the ground like a leaf, which also results in losing control, overstressing the airframe, and Bad Things.

Also, the Dragon Lady's a nightmare to land...

[ffr]

14. It would seem that a parachute will help right the landings

Stupid plane!

[backscatter712]

15. The big thing with the landings is that its giant wing creates a huge ground-effect.

So it's really difficult to land the bird gently. You have to glide it... glide it... glide it..., hope it settles that last six feet to the ground gently, then WHAM! Nearly break the landing gear and your back when it suddenly stalls.

That bicycle landing gear isn't much help either - you have to be constantly working to keep the U-2 level, so when it lands, it gently leans to one side, onto one of the skids on the wingtips. And as the video shows, the plane's constantly trying to yaw, so you're trying to correct with the rudder pedals. Overcorrect, and you spin out...

There's a reason why they have fellow pilots in those chase cars guiding the U-2 down during landings.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

21. Hey it is almost 80 years old.

What do you expect?

I am not surprised that the U2, F-16, F-18, and others still fly effectively. I don't see the F-35 doing that. Heck, the B-52 may outlive it.

[AngryAmish]

34. I was told the F 16 was a dream to fly.

F 14, that is a widow maker. Remember the first female F 14 jock? She stalled on approach iirc correctly. That thing was mean.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

38. Fast. Long legs. Maneuverable. Easy to fly.

And carries solid weapons.

Instead. We have a seriously underperforming, overpriced beast that required at least 3 serious downgrades of the original specs to allow it to "meet" specifications.

REminds me of the BP refinery in Gary Indiana. Their refining processes were adding so many poisons to Lake Michigan water (in violation of both state and federal law) that the state finally forced the issue. They changed the standards to benefit BP. The fact that kids had more chrome and lead in their drinking water didn't seem to matter much.

[jmowreader]

18. A parachute would rip the airframe to pieces

U-2s are made of very thin metal for weight reduction.

The U-2 may be a "stupid" plane, but it's good at its job.

[AngryAmish]

36. Question out of ignorance:

Does most airplanes have for lack of a better term a keel, a big steel girder down the the middle they hang the wings, etc from?

If the parachute is bolted hard to sead keel, at a low enough speed it could work, yes?

[backscatter712]

46. Every airplane has to be made light.

Aircraft do have a skeleton - in the wings and fuselage, under the skin, you've got a frame that's usually made of ribs and spars.

That frame's made out of aluminum, and is strong enough to hold the aircraft together, with a little extra for safety.

That main structure's not going to be nearly as stout as a steel I-beam.

Now, the U-2 is special. It was designed by taking an F-104 Starfighter, yes, that 50's jet with the little stubby wings. Stretch the fuselage a bit to make room for fuel and recon/intel cameras. Then replace that little tiny stubby wing with a great big huge sailplane wing.

Now you've got an aircraft that can soar to 80,000 feet, which at the time it was built, was high enough to be out of range of virtually all anti-aircraft weapons and missiles. Pretty cool, just as long as you don't mind spending hours flying the plane at the coffin-corner of the envelope, and you don't mind those hairy extreme-ground-effect landings.

The design compromises to make this design possible are borderline insane. If you watch the U-2 landing, on top of requiring the chase-car to help guide the pilot as he lands, notice that the wings flex quite a bit. Putting a drag chute on that plane could do things like causing the wings to be ripped off when the fuselage is yanked to a stop, or it could cause the speed to drop suddenly which would cause the nose to spike into the ground during one of those hairy landings.

The Air Force decided parachutes didn't work, and instead they have fast chase cars driven by fellow U-2 pilots, acting as guides.

[Warpy]

17. Everything about that plane is difficult to manage

[flying-skeleton]

19. Trump claimed to be the first one to call this

[truthisfreedom]

35. No, I did...

in fact I'm calling it right now before he does. A U2 crashed. You heard it here folks. It's huge. It's hUge-2.

On edit, I feel terrible for making light of this. One pilot dead. Tragic.

[OnlinePoker]

20. Am I the only one who didn't know the U.S. was still flying U-2s? n/t

[mahatmakanejeeves]

22. No. That was my first thought: "Those things are still flying?" NT

[hack89]

23. The AF built an upgraded version called the TR-1 in the early 80's

it is larger and more capable than the original U-2.

[olddad56]

27. I grew up in that area. They flew U2s out of Beale when I was a kid...

They were replaced in the late 60s by the SR-7!. Those flew out of Beale for years and when they stopped using the SR-71, they were replaced by the U2s.

[GummyBearz]

44. If it aint broke dont fix it

With one notable exception the U-2 has done an amazing job in the last 60 years

[Javaman]

24. trump says, "if I were president, I would throw them in jail for spying on us"

after all, he is friends with ex-kgb head putin.

[ffr]

28. Beale AFB Spokesperson: “One pilot confirmed dead in Sutter Butte U-2 crash”

One pilot is dead following a military plane crash near the Sutter Butte mountain range in Sutter County. There is no word on the condition of the other pilot at this time. The unidentified pilot died sometime after ejecting from the U-2 “Dragon Lady” reconnaissance plane, which sent a mayday call around 9 a.m.

http://www.actionnewsnow.com/news/beale-afb-spokesperson-one-pilot-confirmed-dead-in-sutter-butte-u-2-crash-/

[PersonNumber503602]

41. Bummer..

[Hassin Bin Sober]

45. Sucks.

[George the Retiree]

29. Is Bono Okay?

After all, that's all that matters!

[metalbot]

30. I get the joke

but it's rather tasteless.

[PersonNumber503602]

42. To be fair, the poster might not know that one of the pilots died...

The headline does say they ejected.