Posted on 09/16/2011 5:15:07 PM PDT by PilotDave
A P-51 crashed into a vip area at the reno air races about 25. Initial reports indicate many deaths.
“That tends to lend credence to my speculation (shared by several others btw) of a blackout caused by G-forces in the turn.”
The early reports mentioned several times that he’d declared “Mayday”. If so, that wouldn’t seem consistent with a blackout, would it?
FAA inspectors on the scene witnessed the crash.
-KTLA News, Los Angeles
Caution: some graphic content.
The worst part of this disaster was the plane impacting very close to the front of the spectator stand, and flying crash debris caused a huge number of injuries and unfortunately deaths. 
Agree totally with you. However he was 80yo so he got a full life just it is a real shame he took others with him.
No, it wouldn’t. Mayday + ‘augured into ground’ sounds like straight line wind? Might also explain the diverse injuries.
From pictures, I believe it was a highly modified razorback P-51 -- even harder to get out of than the P-51Ds and later, with their bubble canopy...
Mom's mobo is already in the hobo zone. SO: I get my Dad's machine workin' (so Mom can get crucial eMails from her sewing buddies; at LEAST in some obtuse fashion for a temporary period). Dad's HDD suddenly went south, i.e. system locked up and upon re-boot: "INVALID SYSTEM DISK, press enter to reboot" ( or whatetever the stinkin' messege was).
Who cares what my specific prollems were/are (and I'm still workin' 'em out)? The fact is after the LEAST bit of success on my end:
...now THIS happen.
Re: “...early reports mentioned several times that he’d declared “Mayday”.”
Now that’s the first time I’ve seen that significant bit of information. It does indeed alter our speculations a bit, and after the investigation is completed I’m sure that I’m not the only one who will be proven to have been way off the mark.
A lot more data and evidence will need to be collected and carefully analyzed before anyone really knows for certain what caused this tragedy or how it might have been prevented... if they ever know.
Sometimes you never can tell for sure, and an educated guess or speculation is what you’re left with.
It is one conceivable scenario however, lacking any preceding transmission. I rather doubt that any of these airplanes had a “black box” data recorder on board.
thanks VR
Just got off the phone with my husband who is there. He said the force blew a lot of people over - he ended up helping people - one guy was covered in blood and parts of bodies - he got him to his hotel and back with his family. Was talking in such an excited way that I didn’t get the whole story and he had to go.
That’s why the mods killing these breaking news threads is ridiculous. It’s impossible to cross-tab important pieces of data when you have threads appearing and disappearing. Best wait until the dust settles before downgrading threads because you lose the crucial ‘my friend saw’ or ‘I heard’ which pan out often to be facts.
He said the force blew a lot of people over
prayers again....
Presser coming up shortly...
-KTLA News
Just wow. The P-51 totally disintegrated. Nothing left. And it looks like it took out some old vets and their spouses. One guy clearly lost his leg. This is about as bad as it gets.
Another thread has a trailing pilot seeing an elevator breaking off.
For the non pilots (like me) what’s an elevator?
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