Sachiel crushes the fighter under his foot as he lands.
HeWhoPostsStuff: Sachiel's actions here make me wonder a bit. Though for most of the battle it seems that he's acting more in self-defense than anything else, just sort of swatting away whatever's trying to impede his path and then moving on, here he seems a tad more sadistic in crushing the plane with his foot after he's already shot it down… unless, of course, he just landed on it by chance. I tend to think that he was just made to do this to bring him dramatically close to the cowering Shinji, but others could probably suggest other reasons for his abrupt “Godzilla-esque” behaviour…
Reichu: I agree that he's most likely just stepping on the plane by accident. In real life, the chances of him doing this would probably be fairly slim — it's obviously only happening to add another explosion and additional tension to an action scene (for dramatic effect, as you basically said).
This is the only time you see the three bumps on Sachiel's heel, BTW.
Kendrix: CRUNCH! Again, we see how mankind looks insignificant before this incomprehensible, logic defying monster. We're used to seeing big kaiju on the screen, so we have to work hard to bring across the fact that this thing should normally collapse under its own weight, m'kay?
After all, the protagonist is gonna be freaked out to a realistic degree.
I also agree on the "accidental" version (or more like he just doesn't care what sort of silly lillim constructs are between him and his goal - the plane is no different from the street to him, we don't merit his attention... classic cosmic horror staple. ), he's not stomping on the middle of it like he's deliberate, but severs a wing. When there's a big, stomping monster, you need it to stomp something to show off its power.
Anno & co were probably too nerdy to *resist* the obvious stomping.
