I attended the April air show in conjunction with a reunion of A-4 Skyhawk aviators. I had proudly served as a ground crewman at Beaufort from Sept 71 through March of 76 with VMA 324 and VMA 311, and until 1980 at MCAS Eltoro CA. I was horrified at the crash of Number 6, of the Blue Angels and strongly thought I knew what the cause of this crash was. I have not heard the results of any investigation into the cause of the crash. I had been closely involved with several crash investigations while stationed in Beaufort and would like to know if my hunch was correct. Have any details been released?
Even though it's not required, your name and unit history is missing from your bio. Creditablity is the name of the game in the Winger forums, please take that into consideration...He are not here to linch you, nor are we the thought Police. There have been some that have pretended to be one of us and turned up not being what they said....
NTSB.GOV, or search it just type in ntsb and it should bring up a link. you'll need the month year of crash and location and it shoud either spit it out or tell you its not been compledted yet.
I believe, when the findings are in, evidence will show that the plane ran out of fuel. I watched as it fell from flight attempting to catch up with the others for the Delta landing. I saw the smoke when it hit the ground. I attempted to get my wife’s attention and tell her the plane went down. By the time she turned around, moments later, the smoke was gone. If there had been fuel onboard, the fire would have burned considerably longer. Reports from spectators on the ground indicate that the pilot attempted a restart unsuccessfully. This eliminates the possibility that the pilot blacked out because of the lack of a “G” Suit, as speculated in early reports. I think evidence will show that the pilot stayed with his plane and was actively flying his disabled aircraft into the ground. His heroic effort to keep the plane off of homes and in the middle of the street saved lives and minimized damage on the ground. An American hero, as I see him, may he rest in peace.
hey david, you may well be right. for sure he stayed with it to try and avoid hitting the house. he coulda punched out long before it hit the ground. n yep another american hero.
So the findings are out. And the people in the know said the pilot blacked out. He was a great pilot though. He attempted a restart on a powerless aircraft, and flew the plane into the street avoiding people and homes unconsciously.
From my understanding, and I was a ground crewman for 10 years, so I am not nor do I pretend to be an expert, but this is how I saw it. This is my logical observation based on what I saw and what I know about planes and aviation. There are 6 planes numbered 1 through 6 in any "Blue Angel" performance. Numbers 1 – 4, do all the 4 plane close formation flying. Planes 5 & 6 add to the performance by flying into the group at high speeds, after instantly appearing from somewhere over the horizon. Air planes 5 and 6 burn a considerably larger quantity of fuel, due to many after burner accelerations, and only a few slow to moderate speed passes over the observing crowds. Now, the pilot of No.6 last April in Beaufort was flying his first air show demonstration. Though he’d been an Angel pilot for several years, his pervious duties were ground commentator and guest pilot taking local dignitaries for demonstration flights. This in my estimation makes him a candidate for oversight. He obviously has to maintain a great deal of concentration on his position at all time. Like you, I was of the belief that they would have provided enough fuel. But the truth of the matter may be they do not take extra fuel, but just enough to complete the performances. The pilot’s inexperience may have allowed him to waste fuel. Combined with the possibility of an inaccurate fuel gage greatly increases the possibility of what I saw. I saw the plane, seem to just fall powerless from his pursuit of the other 5 aircraft to gather for the final approach. I lost sight of him over the tree line. I saw a cloud of smoke quickly form in that direction. I turned to get my wife’s attention to tell her that one of the planes just crashed. But before she could turn around to look, the entire smoke cloud had dissipated from view. So I told her I guess I was mistaken. In all crashes involving JP-5 that I have seen, the fire burned longer and the smoke took much longer to dissipate. News stories that interviewed witnesses on the ground initially said that an attempt to restart the planes engines was heard as the plane passed overhead. The plane landed belly down in the street as if it was being flown into the street and away from the people and homes. So the pilot was conscious. He was aware of his position over the community. If he had ejected to save his life, the unmanned aircraft may have clipped the trees and cart wheeled through the neighborhood, destroying many homes and wounding or killing many more people. I believe the pilot was a modern day peace time hero, giving his life to save others in the path of his failed air craft.
