Witness accounts said he was showing off, and it wasn’t the first time he had crashed his plane (this was an F-14). This one had deadly consequences, killing 5 people (himself, the co-pilot, and 3 on the ground). There was also the claim that the Navy encouraged that sort of flying behavior, but why they would do so over highly populated areas is insane. The final verdict by investigators was “pilot error.”
http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/VA-news/VA-Pilot/issues/1996/vp960130/01300299.htm
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D04EED61639F932A05752C0A960958260
http://www.cnn.com/US/9601/nashville_plane/crash_update/index.html
RIO