Captain Crash: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

 

 

 

Even if he's in the desert with nothing to crash ''into'', he'll somehow find a way. To his credit, the crashes are survivable, so he does have that going for him. 

 

 

Can be somewhat justifiable for rookies crashing planes, because taking off and flying are much easier than landing. The landing is where the real skill shows itself.

Sister trope of the [[Disposable Pilot]], who generally doesn't even survive his ''first'' crash. See also: [[Drives Like Crazy]].

 

* Hikaru Ichijo/Rick Hunter of ''[[Super Dimension Fortress Macross]]''/''[[Robotech]]'' gets his Valkyrie trashed a lot.

** It's so bad, that even his ''[[Beyond the Impossible|coma delirium]]'' mocks him for it repeatedly (and even has him crashing a bicycle!) in the episode ''Phantasam.''

** Though not nearly as much as Alto in ''[[Macross Frontier]]'', who trashes a new plane every other episode or so. {{spoiler|In the epilogue, he managed to set his perfectly-undamaged Valkyrie on fire, ''after'' the battle was over, and scuttled it as it was breaking apart.}}

* Seta in ''[[Love Hina]]'' usually enters a chapter by crashing his van, but emerging without major injury. His protégé Keitaro picks up the trait by the final chapters.

** Cars, trains, boats and ''submarines'' have a similar tendency to crash somehow when a Joestar is near. Oh, and an helicopter, but that was highly intentional.

** In ''Gundam Seed'' and ''Seed Destiny'' Kira Yamato and Athrun Zala have each had only one of their mobile suits survive the end of the series (one each across two series), every other suit they used was totaled, though Athrun went though far more suits, to the point if he touched it it was probably doomed and Kira's tended to be rebuilt and destroyed again.

* In ''[[Gunsmith Cats]]'', Rally Vincent wrecks her car on multiple occasions despite proving her worth in multiple street races. At one point it is even mentioned that she can't get insurance anymore.

* Rosette Christopher of ''[[Chrono Crusade]]'' has gotten into so many car accidents that even the ''mangaka'' isn't sure whether or not she has a license.

 

== [[Comic Books]] ==

* [[Green Lantern|Hal Jordan]] is a test pilot for the Air Force, and constantly crashes planes by taking them well beyond test parameters.

* Whenever we meet Spaceman Spiff in the ''[[Calvin and Hobbes]]'' comics, he's crash landing on some planet.

** Also, Calvin rarely pilots his sled or wagon without flying off a ravine or crashing into a tree.

* Almost everyone in ''[[Sin City]]'' crashes his or her car, often due to [[Car Fu]].

* In the ''[[Lucky Luke]]'' episode ''Going Up the Mississippi'' the machinist, [[Meaningful Name|"Bangs"]], is stated to have exploded fourteen river boats. {{spoiler|Subverted in the end: This time the other boat explodes, much to his surprise.}}

 

 

== [[Film]] ==

** The [[X Wing Series]] gives us [[Ascended Extra]] Derek 'Hobbie' Klivian and his much-lampshaded tendency toward spectacular crashes and long periods in a bacta tank. Despite this, he's unquestionably an [[Ace Pilot]] and even seems to make it work for him: no matter what violent fate befalls his vehicle, Hobbie will ''always'' eject, survive and be back kicking ass within the week.

'''Indiana Jones:''' Fly, yes. Land, no. }}

* Orville the albatross in ''[[The Rescuers]]'', as well as his brother Wilbur in ''[[The Rescuers Down Under]]''. [[Truth in Television]], as real albatrosses are masters of the air, yet largely usesless on land.

** Sometimes it's because they're drunk. On fermented nectar. Yes.

* Q makes a point in some of the later James Bond movies of asking 007 to bring his gadgets back in one piece. They never do, especially the cars.

'''[[James Bond]]:''' Standard operating procedure. }}

* The absent-minded Admiral Benson in ''[[Hot Shots]]!'' gives us this line:

 

== [[Literature]] ==

* A romance novel where the hero, an airplane pilot, was called "Crash" ... because he crashed a car.

* ''[[Catch-22]]'''s Orr ''practices'' crashing his plane. [[Obfuscating Stupidity|Not that anyone could tell.]]

* [[Sinbad the Sailor]] had a bad habit of getting shipwrecked in his stories.

* Callista Carmel of ''[[Tour of the Merrimack]]'' earned the nickname "Crash Carmel" for totaling a number of shuttles.

 

** Racetrack and her co-pilot Skulls fall into the bad-luck variety. There is nothing to show that [[Deadpan Snarker|Racetrack]] is a bad pilot. That doesn't change the fact she seems to attract errors, breakdowns, sabotages and attacks. Did the striking workers spike the fuel, casing a Raptor to spin out of control and crash into Colonial One? It'll be Racetrack's. Did chief mess up the repairs and caused a Raptor to crash on the landing deck? It's Racetrack's. Did a saboteur plant a bomb in a Raptor to kill Baltar's attorney? It's Racetrack's Raptor. Did the experimental jump drive cause a mis-jump? It was Racetrack and how she discovered New Caprica.

*** Skulls lampshades it in the [[Grand Finale]].

*** {{spoiler|And yet she manages to perform a post-mortem [[Deus Ex Nukina]], taking out the Cylon Home Colony with her}}.

** Lee "Apollo" Adama should also bear mentioning. He doesn't necessarily wreck a lot of stuff, but he has a penchant for wrecking important stuff. From the mini-series he manages to first disable his father's old fighter and then utterly trash it before the the end. He goes on to wreck the only stealth fighter another character spend an entire episode fabricating. And then he wrecks {{spoiler|The Pegasus, the more advanced of the pair of battlestars.}} It's a wonder why Daddy keeps giving him the keys. 

* For Jake Cutter, of ''[[Tales of the Gold Monkey]]'', crash landings were routine and accepted as such on Bora Gora.

* Richard Hammond of ''[[Top Gear]]'' has a... not-undeserved reputation for being accident-prone.

* This was a running joke when referencing Uncle Albert in ''[[Only Fools and Horses]]''.

 

* Captain Jet Morgan of the old BBC radio serial ''[[Journey Into Space]]'' could fit this trope. He captains the spaceship Discovery, and when it's required that the ship lands, Jet is always the one who pilots her down. Unfortunately he tends to crash, or at least make hideously bumpy landings, more than he manages to bring her down smoothly. Of course, one of those times he had actually been knocked out before the ship was quite fully landed, but most other times it's just Jet. Nobody ever really comments on this.

* A naval example in ''[[The Navy Lark]]'', Mister Phillips's standard method of docking is this trope. He caused more damage to Naval property than both world wars.

** Ironically, the ''one'' time he was ''asked'' to deliberately crash HMS Troutbridge into another ship (as part of a ploy to allow Captain Povey to escape his overbearing mother-in-law and join the rest of the crew at a pub) a fault in the steering mechanism ensured he ''couldn't'' hit anything... 42 times in a row!

 

== [[Video Games]] ==

** Even more amusing is that his gang acts like he isn't blind at all. It is rather confusing especially since you meet him during a high speed race. Through the countryside. The [[Crowning Moment of Funny]] is when he confesses to CJ that he is blind. No shit, homie.

* ''[[Ratchet and Clank]]'' showcases the former of the two protagonists destroying every single starship he pilots in the series, at one point or another.

* More of a player Captain Crash than anything else, but in ''[[Saints Row|Saints Row 2]]'', if the Boss is driving in a car with Johnny Gat and s/he crashes into something, Johnny is liable to muse, "Just like old times."

** Also, <s>me</s> the Boss behind the metaphorical wheel of a helicopter. [[Heroic Resolve|I don't care]] [[Selective Obliviousness|what you say]], [[The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard|those controls are impossible]].

'''Flintlocke''': [his head popping into view, and looking down at the player] What? Like ''you'' could have done any better! }}

** [[Sarcasm Mode|Vega learned from the best.]] Shepard crashes the skycar no matter who is in the backseat with them. And when chasing {{spoiler|Tela Vasir}} in the last game's DLC missions, Shepard used another skycar to sideswipe {{spoiler|her}} into crashing. And let's not get into [[Drives Like Crazy|all]] [[Car Fu|those]] [[Good Bad Bugs|shenanigans]] with the Mako in the first game. One thing's for sure; if Shepard's driving, ''something'' is going to [[Stuff Blowing Up|end up in a fiery wreck]].

 

== [[Western Animation]] ==

** [[Subverted Trope|Hilariously subverted]] in "The Golden Goose" when Launchpad attempts to crash on purpose, [[Springtime for Hitler|only to land perfectly]] - Launchpad may crash all the time, but he's so good at wrecking his planes that he's an expert at crashing ''safely''.

** [[Deconstructed Trope|Deconstructed]] in one episode where a Scrooge orders Launchpad to pilot a sabotaged blimp that's about to crash on its own. With Launchpad at the control, they still crash, but everybody survives with minor injuries.

* Ace in the ''[[G.I. Joe]]'' cartoon and comic. Lampshaded in one instance when he says over the radio, "I'm going in!", to which Duke replies, "Every time you say that it gets expensive!"

** Cobra troops often joke about their own Air Devil pilots. "What's the last thing to go through an Air Devil's head when he hits the ground? His engine."

** Also the notoriously clumsy and oafish Wildcard, who seems to break everything he comes in contact with by random chance ''except'' for his vehicle of choice. His filecard says that they put him in that thing because siccing him on the enemy personally is probably against the Geneva Convention.

** A lot of crashing is indicated to come from constantly attempting impossibly difficult stunts in an effort to impress the Wonderbolts. She also has a tendency to lose concentration or get distracted at critical moments (if she starts talking to someone while flying, it's a safe bet she's going to hit something in the next few seconds).

** For that matter, wouldn't one expect their vehicles to just turn into even gianter robots? Maybe then CAN but they all just keep crashing themselves and dying before we can see any of them transform...

 

 

== [[Real Life]] ==

* Cpt. Hans Ulrich Lutz, Swiss aviator with the Crossair airline, worked as a pilot-in-command and a training pilot, even though his competences were somewhat slim: flying a Saab 340, he failed an upgrade exam to MD-80 eight consecutive times; he crashed an aircraft while sitting on the tarmac (he tried to retract the gear to show the student that it is impossible on the ground due to pressure sensors in the landing gear, but on this particular aircraft, these sensors were temporarily disabled and he simply retracted the gear, resulting in a Saab 340 write-off); once, he almost landed in Italy instead of Switzerland due to navigational errors; and once, he almost flew his aircraft into a lake, confusing it with a runway. Sadly, on 24 November 2001, Crossair Flight 3597 crashed into a hill on final approach due to his major error (he descended well below the minimum safety altitude in heavy snowfall and borderline visibility), claiming 24 of 33 people on board.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Vehicle Tropes]]