As thousands watched in horror, a World War II-era fighter plane competing in a Nevada air race suddenly pitched upward, rolled and did a nose-dive toward the crowded grandstand.
The plane, flown by a 74-year-old veteran Hollywood stunt pilot, then slammed into a VIP box seats section in front where his family and close friends were watching. Three people were killed and more than 50 injured, many seriously, as smoking debris littered the concrete tarmac.
“It absolutely disintegrated,” said Tim O’Brien of Grass Valley, California, who attends the races every year. “I’ve never seen anything like that before.”
Authorities say it appears that a mechanical failure with the P-51 Mustang — a class of fighter plane that can fly more than 800kph — was to blame. Some credit the pilot, Jimmy Leeward, with preventing the crash from being far more deadly. Leeward was among those killed.
“If he wouldn’t have pulled up, he would have taken out the entire bleacher section,” said Tim Linville, 48, of Reno.
Video of the aftermath shows a man with his leg severed at the knee.
The National Championship Air Races draws thousands of people to Reno every September to watch military and civilian planes race in what is dubbed “car races in the sky.” The Federation Aviation Administration and air race organizers spend months preparing for air races as they develop a plan involving pilot qualifications, training and testing along with a layout for the course.
However, the Air Races have been deadly before. In 2007 and 2008, four pilots were killed at the races, prompting school officials to consider barring student field trips there.
Two other pilots died at the event in 1994, and organizers softened two of the course’s curves after two other pilots crashed into nearby neighborhoods in 1998 and 1999.
Planes at the yearly event fly wingtip-to-wingtip as low as 15m off the sagebrush at speeds sometimes surpassing 800kph. Pilots follow an oval path around pylons, with distances and speeds depending on the class of aircraft.
Mike Houghton, president and CEO of Reno Air Races, said there appeared to be a “problem with the aircraft that caused it to go out of control.”
He did not elaborate. He said the rest of the races were canceled as the National Transportation Safety Board investigates.
“The way I see it, if he did do something about this, he saved hundreds if not thousands of lives because he was able to veer that plane back toward the tarmac,” said Johnny Norman, who was at the show.
O’Brien, who is chairman of an air show in his hometown in California, was photographing Friday’s races when the crash occurred.
He said the P-51 Mustang was racing six other planes, and was in the process of moving from third place into second, when it pitched violently upward, rolled and then headed straight down.
NATIONAL SECURITY: The Chinese influencer shared multiple videos on social media in which she claimed Taiwan is a part of China and supported its annexation Freedom of speech does not allow comments by Chinese residents in Taiwan that compromise national security or social stability, the nation’s top officials said yesterday, after the National Immigration Agency (NIA) revoked the residency permit of a Chinese influencer who published videos advocating China annexing Taiwan by force. Taiwan welcomes all foreigners to settle here and make families so long as they “love the land and people of Taiwan,” Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) told lawmakers during a plenary session at the Legislative Yuan in Taipei. The public power of the government must be asserted when necessary and the Ministry of
Taiwan’s Lee Chia-hao (李佳豪) on Sunday won a silver medal at the All England Open Badminton Championships in Birmingham, England, a career best. Lee, 25, took silver in the final of the men’s singles against world No. 1 Shi Yuqi (石宇奇) of China, who won 21-17, 21-19 in a tough match that lasted 51 minutes. After the match, the Taiwanese player, who ranks No. 22 in the world, said it felt unreal to be challenging an opponent of Shi’s caliber. “I had to be in peak form, and constantly switch my rhythm and tactics in order to score points effectively,” he said. Lee got
EMBRACING TAIWAN: US lawmakers have introduced an act aiming to replace the use of ‘Chinese Taipei’ with ‘Taiwan’ across all Washington’s federal agencies A group of US House of Representatives lawmakers has introduced legislation to replace the term “Chinese Taipei” with “Taiwan” across all federal agencies. US Representative Byron Donalds announced the introduction of the “America supports Taiwan act,” which would mandate federal agencies adopt “Taiwan” in place of “Chinese Taipei,” a news release on his page on the US House of Representatives’ Web site said. US representatives Mike Collins, Barry Moore and Tom Tiffany are cosponsors of the legislation, US political newspaper The Hill reported yesterday. “The legislation is a push to normalize the position of Taiwan as an autonomous country, although the official US
CHANGE OF TONE: G7 foreign ministers dropped past reassurances that there is no change in the position of the G7 members on Taiwan, including ‘one China’ policies G7 foreign ministers on Friday took a tough stance on China, stepping up their language on Taiwan and omitting some conciliatory references from past statements, including to “one China” policies. A statement by ministers meeting in Canada mirrored last month’s Japan-US statement in condemning “coercion” toward Taiwan. Compared with a G7 foreign ministers’ statement in November last year, the statement added members’ concerns over China’s nuclear buildup, although it omitted references to their concerns about Beijing’s human rights abuses in Xinjiang, Tibet and Hong Kong. Also missing were references stressing the desire for “constructive and stable relations with China” and
RSS