History Main / CaptainCrash

[[folder:Pinballs]]
* The backglass for ''Pinball/VacationAmerica'' shows the family wagon flying offroad and crashing through a "Road Closed" barricade.
[[/folder]]

* ''Fanfic/CaptainsCrash'': Launchpad, of course. [[JustifiedTrope Justified]] in that he's actually doing it ''deliberately'', and the Wonderbolts theorize he has some kind of innate magical talent that assists him in always walking away from the crash unscathed. By the fic's end, he's been hired as an instructor at the Academy to teach its students how to crash safely, so they don't get hurt. A minor amount of RealityEnsues deconstruction occur before that happens, though -- Spitfire refuses to hire him as long as the deliberate crashing mentality is his standard, because whether or not he always comes out okay, that is just a very serious degree of reckless endangerment. ''After'' he trains it out of his system, ''then'' they are all okay with hiring him.

* Ibis Douglas of ''VideoGame/SuperRobotWars'' is given the InSeriesNickname "Shooting Star" because, just like a shooting star, she inevitably falls to earth. Unfortunately, RealityEnsues in one {{Continuity}} where her tendency to crash ''[[DeconstructedTrope actually kills someone]],'' [[spoiler:specifically her mentor and older brother to TheRival]]. Oh, and whatever confidence she had before [[HeroicBSOD goes straight down the tubes because of this]].

** James Vega from ''VideoGame/MassEffect3'' gets this reputation after he intentionally crashes his shuttle into ''another'' shuttle to prevent [[spoiler:Dr. Eva from escaping with the plans for the Prothean device]]. ''Nobody'' will let him forget it. He can end up crashing ''again'' if he's the one to take over the skycar controls when Shepard [[spoiler:abandons the control panel to shoot at Kai Leng]] during [[spoiler:the Citadel coup]]--although ''that one'' is [[DrivesLikeCrazy Shepard's fault]].

* WebAnimation/DickFiguresTheMovie introduces Captain Major Lieutenant Crookygrin, an alcoholic pilot with a perfect record of crashing all one thousand of his flights.

** In ''VideoGame/KnightsOfTheOldRepublicII'', Atton manages a total of four crash-landings -- twice on Telos, once on Dxun, and once on Malachor V. The first three involved getting shot out of the sky, while in the last case there probably wasn't any way to make a smooth landing on the planet in question.

Everyone's encountered or at least heard of this fellow. He's the [[TheRedBaron Patrician of Demolition]], the [[GettingCrapPastTheRadar Czar of "Fubar"]], and the [[RhymesOnADime Master of Disaster]].

* In ''VideoGame/DeadSpace2'' Isaac Clarke climbs/gets thrown out of a train, a drilling machine and an escape pod. Outside influences causes the crash in those cases but still, guy climbs out of a lot of wreckage. Oh and you know that [[spoiler: Giant mining ship from the first game?]] that gets blown up as well.

* ''In VideoGame/DeadSpace3,'' the player character (Isaac Clarke) must fly a heavily damaged shuttle from the frigate ''Roanouke'' to the surface of Tau Volantis, dodging mines and debris all the way down. [[ForegoneConclusion Needless to say, you crash]], but only two {{Mauveshirt}}s die. Strangely, Ellie, the actual pilot, [[InformedAbility doesn't do any piloting]]. Before that another ship you're on gets trashed by mines before you can enter orbit, a car get blown up before you can get in it and many, many autonomous transport crash when he attempt to cross a free way. Later on even 300 year old wrecked vehicle arn't safe from him, with one falling off a cliff shortly after he climbs though it. Even ''ladders'' and lifts break down or are trashed around him. All this from an engineer/repair man, you know, someone who is supposed to 'fix' things.

* Franchise/{{Kirby}} uses his Warp Star to fly from place to place very quickly, but the flight always seems to end with him crashing into the ground and/or other objects. In ''VideoGame/KirbyPlanetRobobot'', this extends to the [[UnexpectedShmupLevel Jet Mode]] of his Robobot Armor; the segment always ends with him crashing the armor into the ground. The ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBros'' games weaponize this. Anyone who uses the Warp Star immediately flies off into the sky and crashes back into the ground, obliterating anyone underneath.

He's supposedly an accomplished captain/pilot/driver, but whenever he gets behind the controls of any vehicle, he crashes it.
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Even if he's in the desert with nothing to crash ''into'', he'll somehow find a way. To his credit, having a reputation for crashing repeatedly means his crashes are, at the very least, survivable, so he does have that going for him.

* [[http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/make-believe-maverick-20081016?page=3 John McCain]] had a longstanding reputation for being unable to stay airborne, pulling stunts like crashing into suburban power lines even though his flight plan was high altitude. It's rumored that [[{{Nepotism}} his father being in charge of his branch]] of the armed forces was a factor in his keeping his wings. [=McCain=] came to be known mockingly as a "reverse ace", for having lost 5 of his own planes. In fairness, two weren't his fault; one plane was destroyed (while on a carrier deck, but with [=McCain=] in the cockpit) when another pilot somehow managed to accidentally fire off a rocket into it, and the last time he crashed was when he was shot down by the enemy on a bombing mission.

* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chesley_Sullenberger Chesley Burnett "Sully" Sullenberger III]] is a rare good pilot remembered for this. On January 15, 2009, after bird hits took out the engines of his Airbus A320, he calmly landed in the Hudson river - ''saving the lives of all 155 people on the aircraft''. As air traffic controllers panicked and continued to offer him alternate landing places, Captain Sullenberger calmly told them "We'll be in the Hudson". [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tE_5eiYn0D0 Listen to him here.]] While this was his only crash, he fits the trope well in this instance and is honorably remembered for it.

** In general, pilots who were involved in famous accidents can find themselves the subjects of this trope even when, like Sully, their actions were heroic rather than reckless, because their names become associated with that single incident of a crash rather than the countless uneventful flights over the course of their career. However, in the case of heroic actions, the heroism usually supercedes the fact that there was a crash, so it ends up being a boost to their reputation rather than a detriment.

* In the ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' of Creator/AAPessimal, the Ankh-Morpork City Air Watch are policewomen for ''most'' of the time. They are also in continual training for what Lord Vetinari wants them to be for the ''rest'' of the time - a fighting Air Force. [[Fanfic/thePriceOfFlight When deployed to the skies over Lancre and the Chalk to fight Elves]], they bring in new recruit pilots drawn from young Witches in training who have an aptitude for flying. One, Matilda Glossop, distinguishes herself in her first combat flight by shooting down an Elf and then crashing her broomstick in a spectacular power-dive. Matilda walks away, more or less unscathed; but soon gets a nickname in the Air Watch - "Death Of Broomsticks".

* In the ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' of Creator/AAPessimal, the Ankh-Morpork City Air Watch are policewomen for ''most'' of the time. They are also in continual training for what Lord Vetinari wants them to be for the ''rest'' of the time - a fighting Air Force. When deployed to the skies over Lancre and the Chalk to fight Elves, they bring in new recruit pilots drawn from young Witches in training who have an aptitude for flying. One, Matilda Glossop, distinguishes herself in her first combat flight by shooting down an Elf and then crashing her broomstick in a spectacular power-dive. Matilda walks away, more or less unscathed; but soon gets a nickname in the Air Watch - "Death Of Broomsticks".

** They're rarely the ones piloting them, but there's a rule that if someone of the Joestar bloodline gets into a plane, ''it will crash''. No exceptions.
** 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.
*** Joseph, in particular, is the king of this, having crashed at least 4 planes, one ship, a submarine and a car during the course of his life. The fun part is that when he was a kid, he dreamed of being a Royal Air Force pilot like his father. (He became a real estate mogul instead.)

** Hikaru Ichijo/Rick Hunter of ''Anime/SuperDimensionFortressMacross''/''Anime/{{Robotech}}'' gets his Valkyrie trashed a lot.
*** It's so bad, that even his ''coma delirium'' mocks him for it repeatedly (and even has him crashing a bicycle!) in the episode ''Phantasm.''

* ''Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventure''

* Sagara Sousuke from ''LightNovel/FullMetalPanic'' seems to be this. Of course, part of it might be explained by how most of the instances where he's driving have been [[ChaseScene dangerous car chase scenes]] (where it's only natural that he would be crashing through things and [[DrivesLikeCrazy driving crazy]]). But then one starts to wonder when, during an instance where he wasn't even being chased, he ended up running an obvious red light and crashed into another car. And then there's his crazy "driving" when he was riding on a bicycle... honestly, people should get the idea and just ''not'' let him drive. Kaname seems to agree.

* ''Manga/{{Area 88}}'': While very much an AcePilot, Shin Kazama manages to get at least three or four planes shot out from under him, depending on the continuity. His luckier comrades also have tendencies in this directions. The rest, well, AnyoneCanDie.
* ''Anime/MobileSuitGundamWing'': Heero Yuy. Utterly lethal in mobile suit combat, but the number of suits he's totalled or seriously damaged defies belief. He has had at least two Leos and the Mercurius shot out from under him, as well as wrecking Wing Zero in Endless Waltz (although that [[RasputinianDeath took some doing]].) And then there is Wing Gundam. Poor, poor Wing Gundam. To date, Heero has crashed it into the ocean, attempted to self-detonate it, attempted to blow it up with torpedoes, actually self-detonated it, then finally had it shot out from under him before getting his MidSeasonUpgrade. One has to wonder what Trowa was thinking when he lent him Heavyarms... Ironically he actually got Heavyarms through that mission totally intact.
** In ''Anime/MobileSuitGundamSeed'' and ''Anime/MobileSuitGundamSeedDestiny'' 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. To be specific Athrun self destructs Aegis to fight Kira, self destructs Justice to stop the GENESIS laser, had his ZAKU totalled during re-entry, and gets Saviour damaged beyond repair by Kira. Kira meanwhile gets the Strike wrecked against said Aegis self-destructing (It's repaired and given to Mu, who gets it completely destroyed), gets Freedom wrecked against Rau in the final battle of SEED. In Destiny Freedom is repaired and Kira pilots it again, until Shinn also wrecks it, this time beyond repair. Only their final Strike Freedom and Infinite Justice units manage to remain unwrecked.
*** Even then, Infinite Justice ended the war with its transformable backpack missing, having been used to [[RammingAlwaysWorks ram the Requiem's muzzle]] near the end of the final battle.

** Donald himself seems to show signs of this trope when he accidentally grabs onto a Magnum Loader and causes it to go wild all over the place while Sora and Goofy try to help him. Played for laughs, mostly, [[spoiler: until he [[NiceJobBreakingItHero crashes into Tron]], causing the latter to drop a required piece of data and destroy it]].

* Killboy from ''Comicbook/DeffSkwadron''. A ''deliberate'' example, since his entire flying style is founded on RammingAlwaysWorks.

* From ''ComicBook/{{Melusine}}'', we have [[TheChewToy Cancrelune]] who have some many different ways of crashing her FlyingBroomstick that we can probably write an entire encyclopedia about it.

* In ''Franchise/StarWars: Film/TheEmpireStrikesBack'', Luke crashes his Tauntaun, his snowspeeder, and his X-wing. This is all within an hour of the opening crawl.

-->'''Obi-Wan Kenobi:''' Another happy landing!

** ''Film/{{GoldenEye}}'': Bond drives a motorcycle off a cliff into a nose-diving plane and barely straightens it in time; he barely manages to eject out of a helicopter before its own missiles destroy it; he wrecks a huge portion of St. Petersburg in a tank by ramming right through buildings; he derails an armoured train by ''firing a tank shell'' at it, and then uses the tank as a roadblock; he barely escapes the booby-trapped train before it blows up; then, in Cuba, the plane he's flying gets shot down by a surface-to-air missile.

-->''You know, I've personally flown over 194 missions and I was shot down on every one. Come to think of it, I've never landed a plane in my life.''

* As seen on the main ImageSource, Launchpad [=McQuack=].

** It's brought back in full force in [[WesternAnimation/DuckTales2017 the 2017 reboot]]. This incarnation of Launchpad can handle any vehicle, [[DrivesLikeCrazy to a point]], and mostly crashes them because he's distracted from the road. In fact, he's so used to crashing that he has trouble comprehending the idea of ''not'' crashing a vehicle.
--->'''Launchpad:''' Aw, family truly is the greatest adventure of-- [[OhCrap OH NO, THE GROUND!]]

--->'''Launchpad:''' Huh, never crashed a ''me'' before.

** The {{pegasus}} Rainbow Dash exhibits the non-vehicle version of this trope. Dash is a superb flyer; her landings, however, are sometimes far from graceful, as Twilight's library can attest. 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).\\\
Taken UpToEleven when she's afflicted by Poison Joke, which inverts her wings, leaving her crashing into things every few seconds, thrust-vectoring into the floor, and other such mishaps.

* From ''Mélusine'', we have [[TheChewToy Cancrelune]] who have some many different ways of crashing her FlyingBroomstick that we can probably write an entire encyclopedia about it.

* ''In VideoGame/DeadSpace3,'' the player character (Isaac Clarke) must fly a heavily damaged shuttle from the frigate ''Roanouke'' to the surface of Tau Volantis, dodging mines and debris all the way down. [[ForegoneConclusion Needless to say, you crash]], but only two {{Mauveshirt}}s die. Strangely, Ellie, the actual pilot, [[InformedAbility doesn't do any piloting]]. Before that another ship your on gets trashed by mines before you can enter orbit, a car get blown up before you can get in it and many, many autonomous transport crash when he attempt to cross a free way. Later on even 300 year old wrecked vehicle arn't safe from him, with one falling off a cliff shortly after he climbs though it. Even ''ladders'' and lifts break down or are trashed around him. All this from an engineer/repair man, you know, someone who is supposed to 'fix' things.

** 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.He confesses to CJ that he is blind. No shit, homie.

* Formula 1 driver Pastor Maldonado gained this reputation. He's been involved in multiple crashes and incidents since 2011, prompting fans of the sport to call him [[FanNickname Crashtor Maldonado]].

* Dulcy the dragon in ''WesternAnimation/SonicSatAM'' almost always messes up her landings. The only time she doesn't is when she's carrying another dragon's egg.

* ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'': Deanna Troi [[NeverLiveItDown can't escape the fact]] that the [[Film/StarTrekGenerations two]] [[Film/StarTrekNemesis times]] she's taken the helm, she's crashed an ''Enterprise.'' Though to be fair, the first was a crash landing after half the ship blew up that miraculously had minimal casualties and the second time, she was ordered to [[RammingAlwaysWorks ram the ship into the enemy.]] In addition, Deanna's role is so far removed from piloting that if she's being asked to take the helm, there's some ''serious shit'' going on already, so rather than her causing the crashes, it's more that her being in that seat is a result of the same catastrophe that causes the ship to crash.