This is about the 10th air crash thread so far
I understand a vintage P-51 mustang was lost.
Prayers for all involved. This looks really bad.
This is about the 10th air crash thread so far
RIP, Jimmy.
A good friend of my wife had family at that race and we’re waiting to hear that they are OK.
This will be the end of the Reno Air Races. They can’t get insurance any longer and this will be the final accident for them.
I always wondered when that would happen at one of these events. Usually I wonder about them hitting each other.
I have a coworker out there watching this event. I hope she’s okay.
If anyone cares for reasonably ACCURATE report, from the official press conference going on now?
3 Dead, including the pilot.
54 transported to hospital, 8 serious condition.
Pilot was 74, and a true expert.
Did NOT crash “Into the stands”!
Did crash a few (unspecified) yards in front of the box-seat stands, shrapnel from the crash caused death & injury.
YouTube video of crash:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCNePeKn3Tg
Plane is headed straight to ground at 0:21. Crash itself is obstructed but the debris comes in view just a second later.
Obviously don’t click on this if you’re sensitive.
You ok 4?
It's a tragedy, and a sad day for aviation.
That said, I heard Sean Hannity wondering why pilots were allowed to do this, and implying that it should not continue. (Hannity just went from "Great American" to "Ignorant Creep" in my book. There is no coming back from "ignorant creep".)
I've been to the Reno Air Races many times (last year being most recent.)
It's a RACE. Crashes happen (unfortunately) in racing.
After feeling sorrow for those lost, and some anxiousness for those injured, my thoughts go to how some ninneys will try to take the Reno Races away (or move the grandstands to an unwatchable distance); and, how some lawyers will consider this good news, and try to organize the bereaving and injured into a lawsuit class.
.
Very sad. Saying prayers.
I was at the races today and sit in the box seats about 40 -50 yards from where the plane went in. We dodged shrapnel and weren’t hit. A guy two boxes down was being given CPR. My take on the accident is this: Galloping Ghost was rounding pylon eight and appeared to get hit by wake turbulence which caused him to roll up off the course and upside down.
He crossed the deadline, heard the engine surge twice and he was on a downward trajectory. At first I thought he was going in behind the grandstands but he rolled it back to the airfield. For a moment I was looking right down his spinner.
We thought he was going to land on us but we got lucky. There was no explosion. We dodged some flying shrapnel and stuff that was rolling down the aisle
If there was mechanical problems it picked the worst time to happen.
I met Jimmy many times and I feel like I have lost a friend. It’s devastating
I was stationed in Frankfurt, Germany back in 1988-89, when the jets crashed into the crowd at the US Air Force base over there, I forget which one at the moment, and many were killed. A soldier who lived across the street from me was one that was killed. He and his family went down there to the air show. He was the only one in his family to die. I think like 80 or more were killed that day.
11:00 News showed a VERY clear still photo of a trim-tab coming off the plane just before the pilot lost full control.
The trim-tab is not that large a part, it is part of the horizontal stabilizer.
Apparently, losing it made this plane uncontrollable.
So, it seems fairly clear that this was a mechanical failure at speed.
No doubt the NTSB will have more to say, in several months.
I was thinking of going, but decided not to...interesting how life takes you places and holds you back.
