I thought about the possibility of this happening at the Air Show I attended on September 11th in Pittsburgh.....
RENO, Nev. (AP) — As thousands watched in horror, a World War II-era P-51 Mustang fighter plane competing in a Nevada event described as a car race in the sky suddenly pitched upward, rolled and did a nose-dive toward the crowded grandstand.
The plane, flown by a 74-year-old veteran Hollywood stunt pilot, then slammed into the concrete in a section of VIP box seats and blew to pieces in front the pilot’s family and a tight-knit group of friends who attend the annual event in Reno.
75 people were injured, many seriously, and 3 are dead.
[video=youtube;QNtERSeYMUM]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNtERSeYMUM&feature=player_embedded[/video]
“It absolutely disintegrated,†said Tim O’Brien of Grass Valley Calif., who attends the races every year. “I’ve never seen anything like that before.â€
Three people were killed and more than 70 injured amid a horrific scene strewn with smoking debris.
Authorities say it appears a mechanical failure with the P-51 Mustang — a class of fighter plane that can fly in excess of 500 mph — was to blame. Some credit the pilot, Jimmy Leeward, with preventing the crash from being far more deadly.
Leeward was among those killed.
“If he wouldn’t have pulled up, he would have taken out the entire bleacher section,†said Tim Linville, 48, of Reno, who watched the race with his two daughters.
Left in its wake were bloodied bodies spread across the area as people tended to the victims and ambulances rushed to the scene. Video of the aftermath shows a man with his leg severed at the knee.
The National Championship Air Races have been deadly before. Two pilots died at the event in 1994. And organizers softened two of the curves pilots negotiate after two more pilots crashed into nearby neighborhoods in 1998 and 1999.
In 2007 and 2008, four pilots were killed at the races, prompting local school officials to consider barring student field trips to the event.
Planes at the yearly event fly wingtip-to-wingtip as low as 50 feet off the sagebrush at speeds sometimes surpassing 500 mph. Pilots follow an oval path around pylons, with distances and speeds depending on the class of aircraft.
Mike Houghton, president and CEO of Reno Air Races, said at a news conference hours after the crash that there appeared to be a “problem with the aircraft that caused it to go out of control.†He did not elaborate.
He said the rest of the races have been canceled as the National Transportation Safety Board investigates.
“The way I see it, if he did do something about this, he saved hundreds if not thousands of lives because he was able to veer that plane back toward the tarmac,†said Johnny Norman, who was at the show.
RENO, Nev. (AP) — As thousands watched in horror, a World War II-era P-51 Mustang fighter plane competing in a Nevada event described as a car race in the sky suddenly pitched upward, rolled and did a nose-dive toward the crowded grandstand.
The plane, flown by a 74-year-old veteran Hollywood stunt pilot, then slammed into the concrete in a section of VIP box seats and blew to pieces in front the pilot’s family and a tight-knit group of friends who attend the annual event in Reno.
75 people were injured, many seriously, and 3 are dead.
[video=youtube;QNtERSeYMUM]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNtERSeYMUM&feature=player_embedded[/video]
“It absolutely disintegrated,†said Tim O’Brien of Grass Valley Calif., who attends the races every year. “I’ve never seen anything like that before.â€
Three people were killed and more than 70 injured amid a horrific scene strewn with smoking debris.
Authorities say it appears a mechanical failure with the P-51 Mustang — a class of fighter plane that can fly in excess of 500 mph — was to blame. Some credit the pilot, Jimmy Leeward, with preventing the crash from being far more deadly.
Leeward was among those killed.
“If he wouldn’t have pulled up, he would have taken out the entire bleacher section,†said Tim Linville, 48, of Reno, who watched the race with his two daughters.
Left in its wake were bloodied bodies spread across the area as people tended to the victims and ambulances rushed to the scene. Video of the aftermath shows a man with his leg severed at the knee.
The National Championship Air Races have been deadly before. Two pilots died at the event in 1994. And organizers softened two of the curves pilots negotiate after two more pilots crashed into nearby neighborhoods in 1998 and 1999.
In 2007 and 2008, four pilots were killed at the races, prompting local school officials to consider barring student field trips to the event.
Planes at the yearly event fly wingtip-to-wingtip as low as 50 feet off the sagebrush at speeds sometimes surpassing 500 mph. Pilots follow an oval path around pylons, with distances and speeds depending on the class of aircraft.
Mike Houghton, president and CEO of Reno Air Races, said at a news conference hours after the crash that there appeared to be a “problem with the aircraft that caused it to go out of control.†He did not elaborate.
He said the rest of the races have been canceled as the National Transportation Safety Board investigates.
“The way I see it, if he did do something about this, he saved hundreds if not thousands of lives because he was able to veer that plane back toward the tarmac,†said Johnny Norman, who was at the show.
