NVDL: Seems to me the pilot was worried about saving his own butt. Seventeen seconds after the second engine failed he bailed. 17 seconds is quite a lot of time, but if the jet had been at altitude he could have taken some time to steer the projectile away from homes to a hillside or water.
SAN DIEGO - A pilot struggling to control a crippled Marine Corps jet bypassed a chance to land at a coastal Navy base and instead flew toward an inland base, where minutes later the fighter crashed into a San Diego neighborhood and killed four people, recordings released Tuesday revealed.
Military officials announced they had disciplined 13 Marines for a series of avoidable mechanical and human errors that led to the crash, which killed four members of the same family, including two children.
Recordings of conversations between federal air controllers and the pilot of the F/A-18D Hornet show the pilot repeatedly was offered a chance to land the plane at the Naval Air Station North Island in Coronado. The base sits at the tip of a peninsula with a flight path over water.
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