Jul
29
A Rough Weekend for Air Shows
Filed Under News
As we know anything involved in aviation is extremely dangerous. Everyone understands those risks otherwise we would not be flying the skies. Driving a car down the road is even more dangerous than cruising the friendly skies, but this weekend the skies were not friendly at two different air shows.
In Oshkosh, Wisconsin on Friday, two single engine war planes collided while landing and killing one of the pilots and injuring the other. The two P-51 Mustangs collided after finishing their show upon landing at the Experimental Aircraft Association’s annual AirVenture show. The P-51 Mustangs are single seat fighters that were used in World War II.
This annual convection at Oshkosh is considered the world’s largest gatherings of recreational aviators. More than 600,000 people and 10,000 planes from around the world attend this event that ends today (Sunday).
The picture on the left from the AP shows the two P-51 mustangs colliding upon landing at Oshkosh, Wisconsin Air Show.
A day after that crash, there was a biplane crash after doing a couple loops in Dayton, Ohio. The pilot didn’t survive on his way to the hospital when his S2S Bulldog biplane crashed at the end of a runway at Dayton International Airport in Ohio.
The plane was making two loop-the-loops with smoke trailing when it slammed into the runway across the air field from spectators and caught on fire. A quote from a spectator who was watching this air show from the AP:
“It came down and didn’t have enough room,” said Aaron Smith, who was watching with his 5-year-old son. “I could hear it crunch, hard. Some pieces came off.”
This next photo from the AP shows the blazing biplane after it crashed.
Please make sure we keep these wonderful stunt pilots and their friends and family in our thoughts and prayers. These pilots are among the best there is out there performing and doing what they love. Thanks to all the stunt pilots out there for sharing their passion with us!
That was very terrible. I hate it when events like this happen. Such amazing people flying such amazing aircraft. It’s very sad and I feel terrible for the family and friends of the pilot who was killed. And pray for a speedy recovery for the other pilot.
was that WWII era plane that made an emergency landing on that Wisconsin highway going to one of these events?
Stormin,
I am not sure… but I would almost say so. Who happens to fly their war bird casually in the same area and time of an airshow. So, my guess would be yes. I haven’t been following the news over the weekend so I too have some catching up to do.
Stormin,
You found the video of it… wow!
http://storminthenews.blogspot.com/2007/07/cool-video-of-day.html
Hey Stormin! good job at finding the cop video of it! That is something you don’t see everyday! The air show crash and the landing on the highway are two different events but they happened in Wisconsin.
Wow that looked nasty! - My thoughts are with the pilots family of the one who lost their life.
That’s terrible.
It’s really sad to see these great pilots crash after putting their lives on the line to please the crowd.
Bryan- It is extremely sad anything like this happens in the aviation community! At least they were doing something they loved to do!
Good point John.
It’s never good when these things happen. Also, this morning when I was driving to work I heard about this helicopter crash on Friday - two helicopters crashed while they were covering news, one was live on TV. There is more about it here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6920156.stm
Yep I saw that to - looked nasty!
PJ,
i found a video of the P-51’s crashing at the airshow.
Everything was going smooth and then that…
Thank You Stormin for sharing that video! It is awful!! I may write a post about it a lil later…
Watched the video - thats awful!
hey PilotJohn, i just posted another video of another P-51 (i think) having a close call at an airshow.
Hey Stormin! Thanks for the post and video! Talk about a close call!