Is a School Lock-down Appropriate when an F-18 Crashes in Your Neighborhood

According to Fox News. a F-18 airplane crashed into a San Diego neighborhood. The F-18 crashed and caused possibly two deaths, one fire and it looks like it destroyed two or more cars. The F-18 was headed toward the Miramar Marine Air Force Base, the scene for movie "Top Gun", and is the home for 10,000 marines. The Navy vacated the Airport in 1996 Until, the Federal Aviation Administration investigates the accident, we will not know how this supersonic jet crashed into a San Diego suburb shortly before noon.

The pilot ejected from the plane, but no one is sure how he is doing, or if there was anybody with him. .

Fox News phoned University City High School, near the site of the crash, a woman who refused to release her name to the press, informed Fox News that the school was in lock-down. She then transferred their call to the principal's office. The principal did not answer Fox's call, neither did he return the call. This is a little disconcerting. Where had the principal gone? Had he left in panic? Was he playing the back 9?

I also do not like the lock-down concept used by the school during a plane crash. I would not want my children held in lock-down while planes are colliding with local buildings and vehicles. While I understand the concept of lock-downs during shootouts in schools, I am not sure that they are appropriate when airplanes are falling out of the sky. What if the plane had warheads? I think that I would prefer it if my child had a running chance, rather than being trapped in a classroom. .

Witnesses near the crash scene claimed that there were two very large bangs and that the earth shook. These are quite different sounds then those of guns going off down the hall. Obviously, principals need to be able to distinguish the difference between the sounds of guns going off and supersonic jets crashing. I firmly beleive that my child would have a better chance at survival, if they were allowed to heed their fight or flee instincts during a plane crash, rather than heeding a Principal.

When we were children we always had nuclear bomb drills. We were instructed to hide underneath our desks. This usually gave us an opportunity to throw pencils, erasers and other objects at other children in the class. While I am not sure of the effectiveness of these drills against nuclear warheads, at least it showed us our superiors had our well-being in mind.. With the increase of pilots not being able to differentiate between landing strips and suburban roadways, we will need some sort of emergency plan for our schools, in case an errant plane finds it way into our schools