USMC aviation, but not F-35 related...

[Devildoc]

I was talking with a friend earlier about the F-35 thing, we started talking about the AV-8B Harrier, and how many crashes we could recall in NC. I found this list. 33 crashes in North Carolina, and of the US crashes/incidents around the world, about 70% of those were from Cherry Point MCAS (Havelock, NC) squadrons.

List of Harrier family losses - Wikipedia

 

[AWP]

11 overall were from the Corps' only training squadron, VMAT-203, with 7 of those in NC.

I don't feel like looking for squadrons at Cherry Point vs Yuma or wherever, but having the only training squadron will drive up your numbers.

 

[Devildoc]

11 overall were from the Corps' only training squadron, VMAT-203, with 7 of those in NC.

I don't feel like looking for squadrons at Cherry Point vs Yuma or wherever, but having the only training squadron will drive up your numbers.

Well, it will. It's cooking the books a bit; all of the east coast squadrons are in Cherry Point. Other info not contained: with VMFAT-203, were the pilots SPs or IPs?

My earliest memories of Cherry Point were also those of A-4s and A-6s, and I do not think they had remotely the crash rate as the Harrier.

 

[AWP]

My earliest memories of Cherry Point were also those of A-4s and A-6s, and I do not think they had remotely the crash rate as the Harrier.

Just a harder plane to fly all around. I think that article had half of Indian Harriers crashing. A number of older fighters had pretty high accident rates. 1 in 4 built crashing and stuff like that.

 

[DA SWO]

The F-35 was also from the training squadron.
The auto-eject on the F-35B is a lesson from those Harrier accidents where pilots didn't react quick enough. VTOL is hazardous, and we are only on the 3rd generation (1st gen pretty much stillborn).
As @AWP said, the safety rate for the Century Series (and Navy counterparts) was terrible by today's standards.
Accidents get much more attention these days because they are rare.

 

[Devildoc]

The F-35 was also from the training squadron.
The auto-eject on the F-35B is a lesson from those Harrier accidents where pilots didn't react quick enough. VTOL is hazardous, and we are only on the 3rd generation (1st gen pretty much stillborn).
As @AWP said, the safety rate for the Century Series (and Navy counterparts) was terrible by today's standards.
Accidents get much more attention these days because they are rare.

Except apparently Harriers lol. The joke-not-joke in NC TV news is "another Marine Corps Harrier crashed today..."

Now I am wondering about the numbers game. I'd like to find the data of how many A-4s and A-6s (and F-18s) crashed against the numbers built and number of squadrons.

Trivially, Cherry Point still has two (the only two) Harrier squadrons; one will go to the F-35B in 2026, the other in 2027. They have one F-35B squadron.