Official: Reno air race crash 'mass casualty situation'

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

We wait for a wildland fire, and watch CAL-FIRE(formerly CDF) put on their airshow. The show used to be better for classic plane enthusiasts, as a lot of retired military aircraft were converted to drop slurry. CAL-FIRE finally entered the Jet-age about a decade ago.

http://www.fire.ca.gov/communications/downloads/AviationGuide_FINAL_webbooklet.pdf

[BobnCherry 10]

A fellow Transmission rebuilder/facebook friend was there and left 10 minutes before that happened my thoughts are with the families who lost or have loved ones injured in that tragedy.

Bob

[Bad_Daddy 2,209]

http://news.yahoo.com/wwii-era-plane-pilot-dies-w-va-air-223044582.html

WWII-era plane pilot dies at W.Va. air show

AP – 1 hr 4 mins ago

MARTINSBURG, W.Va. (AP) — The pilot of a World War II-era plane has died after it crashed and burst into flames at a West Virginia air show, the second deadly air show crash in 24 hours.

No spectators were reported injured in the crash Saturday. It came a day after a stunt pilot crashed at a Nevada air show Friday, killing nine.

West Virginia air show officials posted a notice on their website encouraging those who witnessed the crash to seek support if they felt viewing it was traumatic.

The West Virginia Air National Guard said the pilot was a civilian, although they hadn't released his name Saturday evening.

The fixed-wing, single-engine plane is registered to John Mangan of Concord, N.C.

A message left at Mangan's North Carolina home was not immediately returned Saturday.

[Bad_Daddy 2,209]

Where's your sense of adventure? Air shows at home, football games at home.

Airshows try to kill Alaskans that's why.

http://www.adn.com/2011/09/17/2073497/anchorage-pilot-among-injured.html

Anchorage pilot among injured at air show

By CASEY GROVE

Anchorage Daily News

Published: September 17th, 2011 06:12 PM

Last Modified: September 17th, 2011 06:13 PM

The P-51 "Galloping Ghost" was rocketing into the home stretch of the National Championship Air Races course on Friday afternoon when it pitched up violently. Anchorage pilot Noah Joraanstad was sitting in a box seat watching the race.

Joraanstad saw the plane roll and zip toward the crowd. That's when the 25-year-old Pen Air pilot and other spectators realized they were in trouble.

" 'He's aiming right at me,' " Joraanstad remembered thinking. "I'm sitting there and I'm looking up and this plane is coming straight down. And I just started running as fast as I could."

"When it started coming down, that's when everybody knew it was probably going to hit, and people started screaming," he said. "It was out of control. It was crazy."

The souped-up World War II-era fighter smashed into box seats alongside the course 30 or 40 feet from where Joraanstad had been sitting, he recalled Saturday. Authorities said nine people died as a result, with more than 50 injured. The injured included Joraanstad, who was hit in the back by flying metal and cut on his head by debris, he said from a Reno hospital bed.

Later, a roughly foot-long wound scarred his back. His head needed eight stitches, he said.

Joraanstad was thrown to the ground and didn't realize he was hurt at first. He jumped up again and started running "out of pure adrenaline," then collapsed. Another spectator held his hand as emergency responders scrambled to help the wounded, Joraanstad said.

"As I was laying there, I kind of looked around, and there wasn't a whole lot left of the plane," he said. "The biggest pieces I could see were about the size of a quarter or silver dollar. There was just nothing left."

An ambulance rushed him to a hospital, where he underwent an hour-and-a-half surgery to clean and stitch his wounds, Joraanstad said.

"It missed my spine, and it missed my kidney, and it missed my lung, just by a hair on all three of them," Joraanstad said.

Saturday marked the pilot's four-year anniversary flying Saab 340s for Pen Air, he said. This was his third year attending the Reno races, "kind of like the World Series of flying," Joraanstad said.

The pilot of the ill-fated P-51 -- 74-year-old Jimmy Leeward -- was flying in the Unlimited class, which includes piston-driven planes that can reach speeds of 500 mph.

Joraanstad said it's tragic that people lost their lives, but he doesn't fault Leeward's flying and suspects a mechanical failure.

"I do not hold a grudge against the pilot or the team," Joraanstad said. "It's just, things happen. I'm not angry at anybody. It's just a freak accident."

Edited September 18, 2011 by Why_Me

[Sofiyya 1,687]

Airshows try to kill Alaskans that's why.

Be kind to Kip. He's just plane shy