P-51 Crashes Into Crowd at Nevada Air Race

[ucfgrad93]

A vintage World War II-era fighter plane plunged into the grandstands Friday during a popular annual air show, killing at least three people, injuring more than 50 spectators and creating a horrific scene strewn with body parts and smoking debris.

The plane, flown by an 80-year-old pilot, spiraled suddenly out of control and appeared to disintegrate upon impact. Bloodied bodies were spread across the area as people tended to the victims and ambulances rushed to the scene.

Oh, this is just tragic. Early reports have 3 killed and over 50 injured. I hope it wasn't a result of some medical condition that struck the 80-year-old pilot in the middle of the race.

www.foxnews.com/us/2011/09/16/plane-crashes-at-nevada-air-race/#ixzz1YAurK5T6

 

[bradl]

This was covered on the KRNO LiveATC.net feed, if you want to hear everything as it happened. I'm not going ot post the clip of the comms here, as it is available at the forums at LiveATC, but I'll warn you it isn't pretty.

As far as the pilot and the aircraft go, I hate to say it but I'm leaning towards something medically happening to the pilot from other reports, that P51 was recently inspected and given a clean bill, so it was in good order. It may have even been one of the P51s that was here the week prior at the Capital Airshow in Sacramento. There were a group of P51s here, but without catching the aircraft reg. number, I won't know for sure..

The rest of the Reno Air Race is cancelled (obviously), and there is talk of cancelling them period. $85 million tourism hit to Nevada.

BL.

 

[dmr727]

and there is talk of cancelling them period. $85 million tourism hit to Nevada.

BL.

I hope this doesn't end up being the case. Obviously there's an element of increased risk when pushing airplanes to the limit, and everyone involved is well aware of the risks (including the spectators). It's a shame when something like this happens, but shutting it all down isn't the solution, IMO.

It's just speculation, but I've been hearing that the pilot lost a control tab on his elevator. Ugh...

 

[ucfgrad93]

It's just speculation, but I've been hearing that the pilot lost a control tab on his elevator. Ugh...

That is what I have heard as well. I'm glad that it doesn't appear that there was some sort of medical issue with the pilot. In my opinion, 74 is too old to be doing something like this.

Unfortunately, the death toll has climbed to 9.

The deaths include seven who were killed on the tarmac, including the 74-year-old pilot, and two others who died at hospitals, Reno Deputy Police Chief Dave Evans said.

The higher death toll was announced at a briefing a day after the Friday afternoon crash. Authorities previously said that three people had perished.

www.foxnews.com/us/2011/09/17/feder...aused-deadly-crash-at-air-show/#ixzz1YFibmxdF

 

[rhett7660]

Saw this... pretty horrific from the footage, glad to see it didn't take out all the grand stands... like the one about ten years in Rammstein.

 

[PracticalMac]

That is what I have heard as well. I'm glad that it doesn't appear that there was some sort of medical issue with the pilot. In my opinion, 74 is too old to be doing something like this.

Unfortunately, the death toll has climbed to 9.

www.foxnews.com/us/2011/09/17/feder...aused-deadly-crash-at-air-show/#ixzz1YFibmxdF

That 74 year old was in better shape then a lot of 50 year olds!

It seems in 1998 a very similar incident happened, the YOUNG 30 something pilot also blacked out, fortunately his 51 headed up and he recovered and landed safely.

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Saw this... pretty horrific from the footage, glad to see it didn't take out all the grand stands... like the one about ten years in Rammstein.

that one was about 25 years ago.

(suks huh)

 

[Huntn]

I've talked to a guy who has been to the Reno air races and he says at the closest point to the grandstand they are a quarter mile away. I know at airshows, in the U.S., they can't do maneuvers perpendicular to the crowd. That was why so many got killed in Ramstein. Now for this case, if the guy blacked out or had a mechanical failure, and stopped pulling the required Gs to stay within the course boundaries, I could see it would not be that hard to drift out and down into the crowd. You know all aviation related rules are written in blood. It will be interesting to see what regulations come out of this accident.

 

[PracticalMac]

Reno air races follow a track that avoids the stands as much as possible.

Unlimited race track:

Witnesses and Video of what 51 did seemed to show is suddenly climbed upward, then started to roll to right, in direction of stands, and kept rolling as it headed down and hit the ground (unfortunately some people).

I just discovered that a member of my CAF club was one of the casualties.

It was a freak accident.

 

[alphaone]

The attached picture pretty clearly shows that the pitch trim tab did separate from the aircraft. Similar to what happened a while back to Voodoo: http://www.warbird.com/voodoo.html (scroll down).

 

[Trudy]

Saw this... pretty horrific from the footage, glad to see it didn't take out all the grand stands... like the one about ten years in Rammstein.

I was in Germany then, about an hour away luckily. It was back further, 23 years ago, 1988.