Blue Angel Down...

[bamachem]

Please keep their family and friends in your prayers.

Blue Angel No. 6, just above center, crashed moments after this photo was taken.

http://i.a.cnn.net/cnn/2007/US/04/21/blueangels.crash/vt1.1845.jets.ap.jpg



http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,267681,00.html

Blue Angels Jet Crashes, Killing Pilot in South Carolina

Saturday, April 21, 2007

BEAUFORT, S.C. — A Navy F-18 Blue Angel plane crashed during an air show Saturday, plunging into a small neighborhood of homes and trailers and killing the pilot.

Witnesses said the planes were flying in formation during the show at the Marine Corps Air Station and one dropped below the trees and apparently crashed, sending up clouds of smoke.

Raymond Voegeli, a plumber, was backing out of a driveway when the plane ripped through a grove of nearby pine trees, dousing his truck in flames and debris.

"It was just a big fireball coming at me," said Voegeli, 37. "It was just taking pine trees and just clipping them."

He said wreckage hit "plenty of houses and mobile homes." Other witnesses said metal and plastic, some of it on fire, peppered the neighborhood and that one mobile home was destroyed. The witnesses were unsure whether that home was occupied.

John Sauls, who lives near the crash site, said the planes were banking back and forth before one disappeared, and a plume of smoke shot up.

"It's one of those surreal moments when you go, 'No, I didn't just see what I saw,' " Sauls said.

County Coroner Curt Copeland said the pilot was killed, but the identify was not immediately available. Copeland said there was a lot of debris at the crash site and described the scene as horrific.

At the Blue Angels command headquarters at Pensacola Naval Air Station the petty officer on duty said he "had no comment at this time." Phones rang unanswered at the Marine base.

More than 100,000 were expected to attend the air show and the Blue Angels were the main attraction. The elite aerial-demonstration team, which is based at Pensacola, recently celebrated its 60th anniversary.

Beaufort is about 35 miles northwest of Hilton Head Island.

Several witnesses said the debris destroyed a mobile home. It was not clear whether it was occupied.

[neliconcept]

my father was at the show. Hes coming back tomorrow night,

Still confused on how it happened, mostly a mechanical failure.

[Texas Jim]

That's what it sounds like from the article.. I know those planes are service to the nTH degree, but it only can be some simple part that gives out at the wrong time....My thought's go out to the Pilot's Family. TJ

[Tanto]

I agree with TJ about the maintenance on these birds. Heck, the warbirds on the ship here are ALWAYS getting worked on and I've yet to see a maintenance man/woman NOT covered from head to toe in grease and oil.

My bet is that it's pilot error in the end. The margin of error for the kind of flying is incredibly thin. I would imagine that a longer blink of an eye at a certain point in the show could very well spell disaster.

[MTL_4runner]

My bet is that it's pilot error in the end. The margin of error for the kind of flying is incredibly thin. I would imagine that a longer blink of an eye at a certain point in the show could very well spell disaster.


Unfortunately you're probably right but we'll wait to see what the investigation finds as the cause of the crash. I know they do alot of inverted stuff right above the trees (less than 500ft) so if you make a small mistake (which is even easier inverted), at the speed they travel you don't have time to correct. I remember them back when I was a kid the Blue Angels used to do the North-South-East-West and one of the directions was right over my house. Well they would pass one way normally and the again inverted over my house and I could clearly see the pilot in the cockpit and the jet was so close to the trees that the engines made the tops of the trees sway as it went by.

[bamachem]

It turns out that the pilot who died was only w/ the Angels for two years and this was his FIRST exhibition show.