Former Technical Director at Rockstar Games explains random Crash planes in GTA San Andreas

The Former Technical Director of Rockstar North, explained why planes would sometimes randomly appear in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas would spawn and crash near the player. He also explained some other interesting things that happen in San Andreas, like the random NPC taking a photo and falling to his death off a Cliff.

Obbe Vermejj, is a former Technical Director for Rockstar North, the studio known for mostly working on the Grand Theft Auto Series. Obbe Vermejj worked at Rockstar North from 1995 when it was known as DMA Design until 2009 after GTA IV, the Story updates and GTA Chinatown Wars were released.

Almost 20 Years since the game was released, Obbe Vermejj has given the fans an explanation as to why Airplanes will crash near Carl Johnson in San Andreas.

Why Planes Appear and Crash in GTA San Andreas

Posting the explanation on X (formerly known as Twitter), Obbe explained that they wanted Small planes to periodically perform a fly by Carl Johnson. He then said that he created some code that before the plane generates in, it would look for obstacles in its path. The scans that would detect obstacles were slow and only scanned in the forward direction of the Aircraft, so to save time, they used the absolute minimum. This means that sometimes, Thin and tall objects (such as Trees or Pylons) in the San Andreas map would not be detected by the scans and would cause the Small planes to fly directly into them.

Obbe also said in the X-Mail that the initial speed of the Planes when they spawned was sometimes not enough and caused the planes to lose altitude, also causing them to crash into objects around the map. Responding to someone who questioned why some planes spawned vertically, he said that all the small AI Planes were coded to fly at the same height, about 30 meters, but there was a bug that caused some planes to spawn much higher, meaning , that they Nose Dive directly. down until it reached its assigned coded height.

Game Developer and Modder, known as CookiePLMonster pointed out to Obbe that the planes also crash more than they should, not only because of the Scans but also because there is a bug in the Collision Detection when planes are spawned, in which it thinks the flight path is clear when it's not. Obbe responded by saying he didn't realize there was also a large in the gaming code.

Obbe debunked a long held myth regarding Plane Crashes, saying that it was NOT true that Plane Crashes was a Game Mechanic that was affected by the Luck Stat of collecting Horseshoes.

The Famous Photographer who falls to his death

User on X, asked Obey to explain the Suicide Photographer in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. The NPC that can be found in Flint County, who will simply kill himself by walking off the side of the Coast and into the water after taking some Rodeo Photos across the water.

Obbe Vermejj confirmed that this was due to the NPC being a path to the nearest node. GTA San Andreas used something called “Attractors” which were items such as ATM's, Chairs etc that NPCS would direct to the nearest when they completed their activity. Obbe suggests that the Photographers closest to Nodo could be across the water, meaning it automatically headed for it, explaining why the NPC committed suicide by drowning all the time.

GTA 3 Map Place Names

Although confirmed in the past and known for a long time. Obbe confirmed again that multiple cities in Upsate Liberty City were named after Devs at Rockstar North at the time.

• aaronsville – Aaron Garbutt
• Woodcunty – Alistair Woods
• Les district – Leslie Benzies
• Gary City – Gary McAdam
• Adamton – Adam Fowler & Adam Cochrane
• Chris's town – Chris Rothwell
• Obbeburgh – Obbe Vermejj

To read the full thread. You can check Obbe Twitter thread here which includes many interesting facts about GTA San Andreas, GTA Vice City and Grand Theft Auto 3.