Most things are blocked on mobile for copyright reasons - something I'm pretty sure NASA isn't concerned with.

It sure looks like it. Several witnesses repeatedly stated they saw the plane plummeting sans starboard wing. It likely cracked at the root, as just losing the folding tip wouldn't necessarily mean a full loss of control.

Well there you have it.

Replied to promote.

Yeah, you might want to wait a couple of weeks. :(

And here's a technician standing in the nose well of a Hornet. Despite what it looks like, the main avionics troubleshooting interface is right there inside the nose well. You can see that the Hornet is easily twice again as tall as he is. Again, picture for scale. I took this one, along with the last one posted, on…

Here's the ass-end of a Hornet (this one's either an A or B model, can't remember) as it supposed to look, for comparison.

The Ds will absolutely be grounded, and the A through C models will also likely be grounded. The newer Es and Fs are brand new airframes and might be grounded for long enough to establish that whatever caused the mishap doesn't affect them. Those sorts of decisions are way, way, way above my paygrade, so I can only…

WAVY TV reports 6 casualties at Sentara VB General Hospital - both flight crew and 4 from the ground, none life-threatening. No word on casualties sent elsewhere, though any sent away would have been minor.

Just stationed here in Norfolk.

I was at the Michael's off VA Beach BLVD earlier today, and was talking to the lady behind the counter about the mishap you were talking about. She remembered it well because it happened a few hundred feet from where she was, and about two weeks after she'd moved into the area. Crazy stuff.

Also, VFA-106 is the east coast FRS - Fleet Replacement Squadron, formerly known as a RAG (Replacement Air Group). FRSs are the training squadrons for the rest of the fleet - every new F/A-18 pilot will go to one of these before he/she goes to their ultimate duty station.

Apparently there was a structural failure at the wing root. These F/A-18Ds (training models) have already gone through more than one Service Life Extension Program (SLEP), and structural integrity of the fuselage and wing structures is becoming a real concern for these older models. There has been talk of retiring the…

To add insult to injury, said pregnant woman's husband worked for the squadron whose plane crashed. :(

I know. ;) I got to do that once too! Less fire though, it was just a derelict sailboat. Think Top Hat.

I walked up to an ATM once and the guy that just left - left his card in the machine. Fortunately for him, I'm not an asshole, and ran after him to give it back.

I can personally attest, as a guy who got to take part in sinking a boat with a .50 cal (it had been capsized already for a loooong time) once, that it is definitely in the top 5 of "incredibly fun and awesome things to do". If I had got to use 25mm HE shells, I probably would've jizzed in my pants.

My favorite part was where they set it on fire with explosive ammo...

That railgun is not even a tiny little bit close to being on a ship. It would be neat, though.

A couple thousand bucks for the shells. Towing it in would've cost several tens of thousands.