Pilot Killed In Blue Angel Jet Crash

(CBS News) BEAUFORT, S.C A Navy Blue Angel jet crashed during an air show Saturday, plunging into a neighborhood of small homes and trailers and killing the pilot.

Witnesses said the planes were flying in formation during the show at the Marine Corps Air Station at about 4 p.m. and one dropped below the trees and crashed, sending up clouds of smoke.

Buzz Henry, who was in the front yard raking when the jets passed overhead, told CBS News he saw one of the planes burst into flames while still in the sky, spitting a strip of fire across the sky as it headed down into the trees. Henry says he found the pilot’s body. He added that the parachute had not been released and that it appeared that the pilot did not attempt to eject himself from the plane.

Raymond Voegeli, a plumber, was backing out of a driveway when the plane ripped through a grove of pine trees, dousing his truck in flames and debris. He said wreckage hit “plenty of houses and mobile homes.”

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

Witnesses said metal and plastic wreckage — some of it on fire — hit homes in the neighborhood, located about 35 miles northwest of Hilton Head Island. William Winn, the county emergency management director, said several homes were damaged. Eight people on the ground were injured.

The crash took place in the final minutes of the air show, said Lt. Cmdr. Anthony Walley, a Blue Angel pilot. The pilots were doing a maneuver which involved all six planes joining from behind the crowd to form a Delta triangle, said Lt. Cmdr. Garrett D. Kasper, spokesman for the Blue Angels. One plane did not rejoin the formation.

Walley said the name of the pilot would not be released until relatives were notified of the death. A Navy statement said the pilot had been on the team for two years — and it was his first as a demonstration pilot.

“Our squadron and the entire U.S. Navy are grieving the loss of a great American, a great Naval officer and a great friend,” Walley said.

Kasper said all possible causes of the crash are under investigation, and it could take at least three weeks for an official cause to be released.

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.

The Blue Angels fly F/A-18 Hornets at high speeds in close formations, and their pilots are considered the Navy's elite. They don't wear the traditional G-suits that most jet pilots use to avoid blacking out during maneuvers. The suits inflate around the lower body to keep blood in the brain, but which could cause a pilot to bump the control stick — a potentially deadly move when flying inches from other planes.

Instead, Blue Angels manage G-forces by tensing their abdominal muscles.

The last Blue Angel crash that killed a pilot took place in 1999, when a pilot and crewmate were killed while practicing for air shows with the five other Blue Angels jets at a base in Georgia.

Saturday's show was at the beginning of the team's flight season, and more than 100,000 people were expected to attend. The elite team, which is based at Pensacola Naval Air Station, recently celebrated its 60th anniversary.

The 2007 team has a new flight leader and two new pilots; Blue Angel pilots traditionally serve two-year rotations.

Kasper said the team would return to Florida on Sunday afternoon. “We will regroup,” he said.



God Bless the Blue Angels!

 

Wow, terrible news. I'm a big fan of Air Shows, and attend several each year. I've seen the Blue Angels many times and they always put on a great show. It's easy to forget just how difficult and extreme their maneuvers are, and how far they push the envelope. They make it look so easy and routine. Truly a sad day.

 

That is terrible news.I feel for the family of the aviator and the whole Blue Angels team as well.I have seen them do their thing several times and they are always astounding.They will regroup and go on because they all know that any kind of flying is a dangerous business and unfortunately crashes are part of it.We lost a civilian flight instructor here at Ft.Rucker in a UH-60 crash last month as well.It is always sad though.

 

Sad day.

I know a Naval aviator who was one of the Blue Angels' demonstration pilots back in '88-'90. Those guys fly right on the edge of flying and dying. The only problem is that their equipment are aircraft that are at the end of their useful combat flying lifetimes and usually make it through one season of demonstration flying before they're finally decommissioned. Often times they'll have to rotate in the #7 Hornet trainer to replace one of the aircraft that may be too damaged to perform in a given show, or one that is stuck at the location from the weekend before because it can't fly.

The Thunderbirds can wear a g-suit and mask because the Falcon uses a side-stick flight control, unfortunately the Blue Angels can't because the Hornet uses a traditional center-stick and the g-suit would interfere with accurate flight control. Hopefully this aviator didn't die because of that.

 

Sad and terrible situation. Just down the road from me.

 

I was at an airshow in 1985 at the Niagara Falls Air Base and witnessed two Blue Angel A-4 Skyhawks collide during a pass. One of the pilots was killed , the other parachuted to safety. Up until that point I had attended many airshows and had never witnessed a fatality or crash. Once you see a crash, it changes your outlook at airshows from "they're pros so they won't make a mistake" to a realization that there CAN be an accident. After the Blue Angel crash, 60,000 people left the airshow grounds in silence... it was strange to have a big crowd be so quiet. The realization of what had happened was starting to sink in.

Steve

 

It's a sad time here in the panhandle of Florida. We get our news out of Pensacola. They had interviews with neighbors and friends of the crash victim. He will be dearly missed by all!

I, too, have been to many air shows across the country and loved every one of them. When a tragedy like this occurs, the first questions are why risk lives by performing such difficult tasks. The number one reason is that it inspires others to become military pilots. My son saw his first air show at 18 months old. Some day he may get the chance to perform with the Thunderbirds. That would make me very proud!