Air Crash

Air Crash (ぶっとび サーフィン lit. Surprising Surfing in Japanese) is the seventh level and is the second level of the second warp room in Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back. Like Hang Eight in the previous warp room, it is a stream based level in which Crash gets to ride his jet board. Breaking all the crates and obtaining the clear gem for doing so is only possible by discovering the secret entrance for this level from the secret warp in Bear Down, as not only does it contain several normal crates but also the only nitro switch crate in the level. The other clear gem is found on a death route, the first of the game (and series). This level also contains a secret exit of its own - skip the first jet board and, instead, have Crash jump across the floating crates until he reaches a stone platform. This platform will warp him to the secret warp room, where the portal to the secret area of Snow Go will be unlocked.

Types of crates

 * Aku Aku Crate
 * Arrow Crate - iron (bonus round only)
 * Arrow Crate - wooden
 * Basic Crate
 * Bounce Crate
 * Checkpoint Crate
 * Crash Crate
 * ! Crate - standard (bonus round only)
 * Iron Crate
 * Locked Crate
 * Nitro Crate
 * Nitro Switch Crate (in the secret entrance area)
 * Outline Crate (bonus round only)
 * ? Crate
 * TNT Crate

Stage parameters

 * Aku Aku Crates: 2
 * TNT Crates: 5 (1 in bonus)
 * Nitro Crates: 33 (15 in death route, 7 in secret route)
 * Other Crates: 62 (8 in bonus, 13 in secret route)

Translation of Aku Aku Hints in the Japanese Version

 * If you come here with no miss, a secret footing will appear.

Trivia

 * There are 2 difficult sections in the death route: the first one being two platforms moving up and down at different times, with a hippo in the middle. Similarly to Piston It Away's floating spike robots, this requires perfect timing. The second is the 3 moving mines in the water, 2 of them move one way, 1 the other. The player must navigate through the middle of this. Or consequently sacrifice the Aku Aku they collected before they entered the death route.
 * This level's name may be a reference to Nike's popular line of Air Jordan shoes. Named after and originally endorsed by popular basketball athlete Michael Jordan, the Air Jordan shoes purported to help one be good at the sport of basketball, even though in reality they were exactly like normal shoes, but expensive.
 * This is the only level that must be played three times to complete this game 100% (without taking advantage of glitches). It must be played once to access the warp to Snow Go in the secret warp room.  It must be played another time to get the crystal and death route gem. It must be played a third time, using its entrance from the secret warp room, to get the box gem.
 * Because of this it holds the distinction for having the most secrets/different routes (death route, secret entrance and secret platform to Snow Go). This is the only level in the series to contain 3 or more exits, as it contains 3 exits (normal, death route, warp to Snow Go). This also means that out of every Crash game, with levels in, it has the most secrets in.
 * Originally, this level was only going to contain one gem.
 * This level, Piston It Away and Spaced Out are the only levels in this game with an alternate route that leads to an exit back to the main warp room.
 * It is one of three levels in Crash 2 which has more than 100 boxes. In this case it's 102. The others being Snow Biz (124 boxes) and the record breaking Cold Hard Crash (155 boxes).
 * It's possible for Crash to break boxes on platforms while he's riding the jet board if he touches a mine and has an Aku Aku mask.