Plane crashes in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas often happen because of some glitchy and flawed codes. This problem is partly because of the game's old hardware. Obbe Vermeij, a former Rockstar developer shared this info, solving a mystery that's confused players for almost 20 years.
The mysterious crashing plane is known as one of the odd occurrences in the GTA series. Although not unique to GTA: San Andreas, they occur frequently in the 2004 game, especially in the Las Venturas area. Players who explore the game thoroughly often encounter these crashes multiple times.
2004 Hardware Limitations Are One Of The Reasons For Plane Crashes
Obbe Vermeij, who served as a technical director for GTA: San Andreas, recently addressed this mystery in a social media post. He clarified that the plane crashes were not intended but rather a result of several flawed codes that spawned planes for fly-bys.
Because of the limitations of the 2004 hardware, the coding logic was quite basic. Even though the code aimed to prevent obstacles in the plane's path before spawning it, performing such checks was resource-intensive. Therefore, Vermeij decided to implement “the absolute minimum”, which sometimes failed to detect thin obstacles the plane could strike, leading to crashes.
Additionally, there were instances where a plane was spawned with insufficient initial momentum to stay at its intended altitude, making it descend below its predetermined flight path, collide with an obstacle, and… crash!!!
Another issue arose when the plane was loaded before the collision detection for map models, resulting in similar crashes. Twitter user @_silent also uncovered a bug in the game's leaked code that could lead to false positives.
Gameplay footage from the heavily criticized Definitive Edition of GTA: San Andreas, available online, shows that the plane crashing issues have carried over into the 2021 HD remaster. Vermeij mentioned he had thought about removing the fly-bys from the original game due to these problems but chose not to. While reports suggest occasional plane crashes in GTA 5 as well, it's unclear if they stem from the same issues as those in San Andreas.
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