AI just randomly dives into the ground on career missions

[Gunfreak]

I landed and saw I had lost 2 aircraft and pilots. looking at those aircraft in the track, they both just randomly nose dive into the ground for no reason, no high G stuff, no damage to the aircraft, they just dive into the ground like it was a routine thing. I saw at least 1 of the enemy AI doing the same, just flying and then diving into the ground.

Given that in career mode these pilots and aircraft have to be replaced, this is a rather nasty bug.

 

[JollyJack]

post mission example?

[Ludl0w]

This is how I lose most of my pilots and aircraft in career mode. Around 2/3 of my losses are my pilots nose-diving into the ground. I keep forgetting to save the _gen.mission file before its overwritten when this happens.

[pr0x]

Same here. I've noticed two specific causes for this, but there are surely more:

- Wingmen will continue in formation flight when you are landing, thus crashing into the ground

- If you fly too far away after a 'parked' mission start and then skip to the next point, wingmen will still fly in landing configuration and sometimes crash because of that.

[Gunfreak]

23 minutes ago, reidarpeidar said:

Same here. I've noticed two specific causes for this, but there are surely more:

- Wingmen will continue in formation flight when you are landing, thus crashing into the ground

- If you fly too far away after a 'parked' mission start and then skip to the next point, wingmen will still fly in landing configuration and sometimes crash because of that.

Not what happens to me, they are just flying around in a furball, and then nose dive into the ground

[pr0x]

3 hours ago, Gunfreak said:

Not what happens to me, they are just flying around in a furball, and then nose dive into the ground

I've seen that too, but I'm sure there is some logic behind it.

[JollyJack]

Post a mission example? If this is only with Russian planes behavior the fix might be to disable vodka in the payload settings. 

[pr0x]

I believe it might be related to formation orders and wingmen trying to match your speed. I have a replay of a wingman seemingly trying to match my speed and then crashing, but it's 400MB+ zipped. 

 

 

[LukeFF]

15 hours ago, Gunfreak said:

I landed and saw I had lost 2 aircraft and pilots. looking at those aircraft in the track, they both just randomly nose dive into the ground for no reason, no high G stuff, no damage to the aircraft, they just dive into the ground like it was a routine thing. I saw at least 1 of the enemy AI doing the same, just flying and then diving into the ground.

Given that in career mode these pilots and aircraft have to be replaced, this is a rather nasty bug.

 

🙂  

[pr0x]

On 7/27/2026 at 1:29 AM, LukeFF said:

🙂  

Would the _gen.mission file alone be useful? Because the mission folder is way too big to post.

[LukeFF]

3 hours ago, reidarpeidar said:

Would the _gen.mission file alone be useful? Because the mission folder is way too big to post.

Yes, that's what's needed.

[pr0x]

16 hours ago, LukeFF said:

Yes, that's what's needed.

Aha, here is a _gen.mission file where my wingman Kangdae Kim plummets to the ground at the end of the mission. Don't know if this is exactly what Gunfreak is seeing, but it could be.

wingmancrash.zip