Danger in the sky: Near Fort Worth air base, hundreds live in high-risk crash zone

Neighbors marveled that no one was killed when a jet, making its final approach to Naval Air Station Fort Worth, crashed into a densely populated Lake Worth neighborhood. Neighbors saw the pilots and their ejection seats falling from the sky, as the plane itself crashed behind a trio of homes and erupted into flames. When the smoke cleared Sept. 19, a twisted and charred hunk of plane rested in the small backyard of one home, several residents had sustained minor injuries and both pilots were injured, one of them seriously enough to remain in the hospital more than two weeks later. But no one died. “An aircraft came down in the back of several people’s homes and nobody was killed and that is a miracle,” said John Baxter, the civilian who oversaw the crash cleanup, at the time.

The U.S. Department of Defense agrees — a plane crash in a dense neighborhood could indeed be catastrophic. That’s why it had already labeled that Lake Worth neighborhood an “accident potential zone” for its proximity to the naval air station. And that’s why the Defense Department recommends the lots should be at least a half-acre each — even though many homes in that neighborhood sit on less than a fifth of an acre. And, just a few streets to the south, the Defense Department recommends there shouldn’t be any housing at all. But a Star-Telegram investigation found that more than 200 homes sit on land the Defense Department has labeled unsuitable for residential use because of the risk of an airplane crash. Although the cities of Fort Worth and Lake Worth have decided that the existing homes can remain despite the risk, no one is responsible for notifying existing or future residents about the dangers. Not the cities, not the county, not the state and not the Navy. There have been loose efforts: the two cities have occasionally mailed notices and, several years ago, the state of Texas added a paragraph about military installations and “air installation compatible use zones” to the standard real estate disclosure form.