Ban all air shows!

[Markle]

2022[edit]​

• November 12, 2022 – A mid-air collision at the Wings Over Dallas airshow between Boeing B-17G Flying Fortress Texas Raiders and a Bell P-63 Kingcobra resulted in six fatalities.[1]
• September 18, 2022 – An Aero L-29 Delfín crashed during lap 3 of 6 during the Jet Gold race of the Reno Air Races in Reno, Nevada. Pilot Aaron Hogue died in the crash.[2]

2021[edit]​

• April 17, 2021 – A Grumman TBF Avenger made an emergency landing in the ocean near Patrick Space Force Base during the Cocoa Beach Air Show in Cocoa Beach, Florida. No one was injured. [3]
• August 20, 2021 – A North American T-6 Texan crashed during preparations for the Great Pocono Raceway Airshow in Pennsylvania. Pilot Andy Travnicek died in the crash.[4]

2020[edit]​

• May 17, 2020 — Before a public flyby of the Snowbirds in Kamloops, British Columbia, Canada, one CT-114 Tutor crashed after takeoff. Capt. Jenn Casey was killed, and Capt. Richard MacDougal was seriously injured.[5]

2019[edit]​

• October 2 – 2019 Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress crash: A Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress owned by the Collings Foundation crashed at Bradley International Airport during the Wings of Freedom Tour due to pilot error and engine/maintenance issues. Seven occupants of the 13 on board were killed and six were injured, along with one ground injury. The aircraft was destroyed by fire.[6]
• June 21 – Skip Stewart was forced to make an emergency landing in his Pitts S-2S after suffering an engine loss on a county road in Troy, Ohio, just 6–7 miles (9.7–11.3 km) from the Dayton International Airport in Vandalia, Ohio, where he was set to take part in the Vectren Dayton Air Show.[7]
• June 16 – Kent Pietsch and his Jelly Belly 1942 Interstate Cadet suffered damage from prop-wash that was caused by a nearby taxiing Lockheed C-130 Hercules. The Interstate Cadet is in need of repairs; the C-130 Hercules was undamaged. No one involved in this accident suffered any sort of injury.[8]
• June 15 – A pilot was killed flying an aerobatic display in a Yakovlev Yak-52 during the Płocki Piknik Lotniczy in Płock, Poland. The aircraft appeared to enter a flat spin. Late in the spin the aircraft appears to enter a more nose-down flight attitude, a common procedure used by pilots to exit a flat spin. Unfortunately, the aircraft was too low to recover and impacted the Wisła river, killing the single crewmember on board.[9]
• February 19 – Two BAE Systems Hawk Mk. 132 aircraft of the Surya Kiran Aerobatic Team collided midair during a rehearsal for the Aero India 2019 near the Yelahanka Air Force Station. Three people were involved in this accident. Two pilots ejected safely, the third, Cdr. Sahil Gandhi, succumbed to his injuries.[10][11]
• March 3 - A USAF C-17 aborted its take-off run during the Australian International Airshow at Avalon, Victoria. Early in the take-off run, number 4 engine ingested a large bird, one of a flock of Wedgetail Eagles which had been milling around the airport. The plane suffered a major compressor stall, but was able to safely abort the take-off with emergency braking and thrust reversers on the undamaged engines.[12]

2018[edit]​

• October 12 – Jon Thocker, a member of the Redline Airshows Aerobatic Team, was killed when his Van's RV-8 crashed while performing a nighttime aerobatic routine at Culpeper Airfest in Culpeper, Virginia.[13]
• July 7 – A MiG-21 LanceR crashed at the Borcea Air Base in Southern Romania. The pilot, Florin Rotaru, was killed.[citation needed]
• June 2 – Dan Buchanan, a hang glider pilot, was killed during the Gunfighter Skies Air and Space Celebration at Mountain Home Air Force Base.[14]
• May 30 – Ken Johansen, a member of the GEICO Skytypers team, was killed when his SNJ-2 aircraft crashed in Melville, New York, on Long Island.[15]
• April 25 – Eglin Wells, an aerobatic pilot from Atlanta, Georgia, was killed when his custom-designed and -built Starjammer aircraft crashed while practicing for the Zhengzhou Air Show.[16]
• April 4 – Maj Stephen Del Bagno, slot pilot, was killed when his aircraft, Thunderbird No. 4, crashed over the Nevada Test and Training Range, during a routine aerial demonstration training flight.
• March 31 - Warbird pilot, Arthur Dovey, was uninjured when his Yak-3 fighter collided with ground equipment during landing from a display for the Warbirds Over Wanaka airshow.[17]

2017[edit]​

• September 24 – Capt. Gabriele Orlandi of the Italian Air Force died while performing at an air show in Terracina. The pilot did not have sufficient height to recover from a loop and his Eurofighter Typhoon crashed into the sea.[18]
• September 2 – An Antonov An-2 crashed at an air show at Chernyoe Airport, Balashikha, Russia, after losing control while performing aerobatics, killing both pilots. The investigation found out that the Certificate of Airworthiness of the aircraft had expired in 2012. Additionally, both crew members did not have an An-2 type rating, and the aerobatics manoeuvres performed by the aircraft were not allowed on the An-2.[19][20]
• July 16 – Vlado Lenoch and passenger Bethany Root were killed when their P-51D Mustang "Baby Duck" crashed in a field in Cummings, Kansas, after performing at the Amelia Earhart Festival.[citation needed]
• June 23 – Capt. Erik Gonsalves was injured when, during landing, Thunderbird No. 8 ran off the runway and overturned prior to the Vectren Dayton Air Show. The pilot and a passenger, Technical Sgt. Kenneth Cordova, were trapped in the aircraft for over an hour. Cordova was uninjured. The investigation revealed excessive air speed coupled with landing too far down a wet runway caused the jet to leave the airstrip and flip over. Rain on the canopy windscreen and failure to follow proper braking procedures during the landing contributed to the accident.
• May 28 – Petty officer, first class Remington Peters, a member of the United States Navy Parachute Team "Leap Frogs", died when his parachute malfunctioned and did not open while he was performing at Fleet Week New York City.[21]
• May 14 – Chris Burkett, a member of the Twister Aerobatics Team, who was piloting the Silence SA1100 Twister at the time had to make an emergency landing following an engine failure while participating in the Abingdon Air & Country Show in Abingdon, Oxfordshire, United Kingdom. The aircraft is in need of repairs and the pilot suffered minor injuries.[citation needed]
• January 28 – A pilot was forced to make a wheels up landing in the Chance-Vought F4U-5N Corsair he was flying due to a failure of its hydraulic system. The incident happened at the Hunter Valley Airshow in Rutherford, New South Wales, Australia.[22]
• January 26 – Australia Day celebrations (Perth, Australia) – A Grumman G-73 Mallard flying boat (VH-CQA), crashed into the Swan River in Perth, Australia during Australia Day celebrations. The pilot Peter Lynch and passenger Endah Cakrawati died on impact.[23]
• January 14 – Hat Yai Airshow during Children Day (Hat Yai, Thailand) – Pilot Dilokrit Pattavee died when his Saab JAS 39 Gripen number 70108 crashed at the Hat Yai Airshow in Hat Yai, Thailand.[24]

2016[edit]​

• August 27 – Alaska-native pilot Marcus Paine was killed when his 450 Stearman biplane crashed during the Airshow of the Cascades in Madras, Oregon.[citation needed]
• August 14 – Herne Bay, Kent – A pilot suffered minor injuries when his plane crashed and flipped over near the shore during an airshow.[25]
• July 22 – Aerobatic pilot Randy Harris and passenger Dale Shillington were killed when their Skybolt Biplane lost control and crashed in a field near Vance AFB in Oklahoma.[citation needed]
• July 17 – A T-28 crashed at The Cold Lake Air Show in Alberta, Canada, killing the pilot, Bruce Evans, upon impact with the ground.[26]
• July 13 – Mesmer Family Block Party (Grand Island, New York) – Skydiver Jeffrey Antonich was seriously injured when he experienced a hard landing while performing during a privately held airshow in front of an estimated 1,000 spectators.[27]
• June 5 – A de Havilland Tiger Moth crashed at Brimpton Airfield near Reading, England, injuring a spectator at a fly-in to raise funds for the local air ambulance.[28]
• June 2 – Major Alex Turner, flying Thunderbird No. 6, crashed in a field near Colorado Springs, Colorado, after performing a flyover at the United States Air Force Academy graduation ceremony. The F-16 pilot ejected and was unhurt.[29][30] Investigation revealed that the aircraft's engine was inadvertently shutdown at the start of landing procedures when a faulty throttle trigger permitted the throttle to be rotated into an engine cut-off position.[31]
• June 2 – Capt. Jeff "Kooch" Kuss of the Blue Angels died just after takeoff while performing the Split-S maneuver in his F/A-18 Hornet during a practice run for The Great Tennessee Air Show in Smyrna, Tennessee. The Navy investigation found that Capt. Kuss performed the maneuver at too low of an altitude while failing to retard the throttle out of afterburner, causing him to fall too fast and recover at too low of an altitude. Capt. Kuss ejected, but his parachute was immediately engulfed in flames, causing him to fall to his death. Kuss' body was recovered multiple yards away from the crash site. The cause of death was blunt force trauma to the head. The investigation also cites weather and pilot fatigue as additional causes to the crash.[32]
• May 28 – Pilot Bill Gordon died when his P-47 Thunderbolt "Jacky's Revenge" crash landed in the Hudson River.[citation needed]
• May 14 – Aerobatic pilot Greg Connell crashed and died during a performance at the Good Neighbor Day Air Show at DeKalb-Peachtree Airport.[33]
• April 17 – Guatemalan pilot Juan Miguel García Salas died when his Extra EA-300L aerobatics plane crashed in a wooded area near Aeródromo Capitán Eduardo Toledo while performing at the Cozumel Aero Show in Cozumel, Quintana Roo, Mexico.[34]

2015[edit]​

• December 20 – Air Force Flight School (Yogyakarta, Indonesia) – Both pilots, Pilot Lt. Col. Marda Sarjono and Capt. Diwi Cahyadi, were killed when their aircraft, a KAI T-50I Golden Eagle, crashed.[35]
• October 18 – Wings Over Houston Air Show (Harris County, Texas) – A skydiver was injured when he landed on a supply tent. It was reported that he did not hear the order cancelling the formation jump due to high winds.[36]
• September 12 – An Aero L-39 Albatros jet, piloted by Jay "Flash" Gordon of Louisville, Kentucky, crashed approximately two minutes after take-off at the Wings Over Big South Fork Air & Car Show in Scott County, Tennessee due to an engine loss. The pilot was pronounced dead on scene.[37][38]
• August 22 – 2015 Shoreham Airshow crash – A Hawker Hunter T7 (G-BXFI/WV372) crashed onto the A27 arterial road (dual carriageway) between Lancing and Shoreham-by-Sea, West Sussex, England, while taking part in the 2015 Shoreham Airshow. Eleven people on the ground were killed and several others, including the pilot of the plane, were injured.[39] Witnesses told local TV that the jet appeared to have crashed when it failed to pull out of a loop maneuver. The pilot, standing trial in 2019 for manslaughter, claimed having become incapacitated by severe g-forces; he was acquitted of all charges.[40]
• August 15 – Sgt. First Class Corey Hood, 32, a member of the United States Army Parachute Team "Golden Knights" team died at Northwestern Memorial Hospital one day after he was critically injured when he struck an apartment building and fell to the ground following a mid-air collision with another parachutist belonging to the United States Navy Parachute Team "Leap Frogs" at the Chicago Air & Water Show.[41]
• August 1 – CarFest, Kevin Whyman died after his Folland Gnat T Mk1 crashed into the ground.The aircraft was carrying out an aileron roll at low level during a flying display when, at an angle of bank of 107° to the left, t.he nose attitude dropped relative to the horizon. The pilot reversed the direction of roll but also applied a large pitch input which increased the rate of descent, and caused the aircraft to depart controlled flight and impact with the ground.[42]
• June 27 – Steven O’Berg died when his Pitts S2-B biplane spun into the ground at the Cameron Airshow.[43]
• June 27 - Minnesota Air Spectacular (Mankato, Minnesota) - Two people received slight injuries when a six-year-old boy accidentally started a Eurocopter EC145 medical transport helicopter that was on display at the airshow.[44]
• February 19 – Aero India (Bangalore, India) – Two Zlín Z-50ZLX of the Flying Bulls Aerobatic Team contacted each other. Both aircraft landed safely.[45]

2014[edit]​

• September 21 – Francesco Fornabaio died at the age of 57 during the "Fly Venice 2014" at the Giovanni Nicelli Airport in Venice, Italy, in his Extreme 3000.[46]
• July 31 – A Hawker Sea Fury performing the penultimate display at the Culdrose Air Day crash landed after an engine problem possibly due to lack of hydraulics. The crash was minor and the pilot survived.[citation needed]
• June 29 – Flying Circus Aerodrome, Bealeton, Virginia – While performing a routine act in the Flying Circus Airshow, a Waco UPF-7 biplane experienced a total loss of power and was forced to make an emergency landing in an adjacent field. However, the landing roll was too fast for the pilot to safely stop the aircraft before it impacted a tree grove at the edge of the field, totally destroying the aircraft. The pilot managed to escape and walk away with minor injuries.[citation needed]
• June 29 – The Shuttleworth Collection's Sopwith Triplane hit a fencepost on landing near the Old Warden airfield, Bedfordshire, and ended up on its nose. The pilot, Roger 'Dodge' Bailey, escaped unhurt, but the aircraft suffered wing, undercarriage and propeller damage.[47]
• June 1 – Bill Cowden died during the Stevens Point Airshow at the Stevens Point Municipal Airport in Stevens Point, Wisconsin in his Yakovlev Yak-55M.[48]
• May 4 – Eddie Andreini was killed during Thunder Over Solano airshow at the Travis Air Force Base in Solano County, California in his highly modified PR13D Super Stearman. The fatal accident occurred when he was attempting his signature low-altitude inverted ribbon cutting maneuver.[49][50]
• March 7 – Tamás Nádas died at the Qatar Mile event at the Al Khor Airport in Al Khor, Qatar. The fatal accident occurred when he was doing an inverted low pass in his Zivko Edge 540. While in the inverted position, he lost control of his aircraft and plummeted to the ground.[51]

2013[edit]​

• October 12 – Glen Dell suffered severe burns when his Extra EA-300 crashed at the Secunda Airshow in Secunda, Mpumalanga. A few hours later he died of his injuries at the local hospital.[52]
• August 17 – An Interstate L-6 Cadet crashed during takeoff while performing at the Lancaster Community Days Air Show at the Lancaster Airport in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. The pilot appears to be fine.[53]
• June 29 – 2013 Eberswalde-Finow Zlin crash – unnamed pilot, 47, who was piloting the Zlín Z-526AFS Akrobat at the Rock 'N' Race in Finowfurt, Germany died when the airplane crashed.[54]
• June 23 – John Klatt was forced to land his MX Aircraft MXS after he experienced an engine failure. He released the aircraft's canopy, which had become coated with oil, in order to regain forward visibility to land. He suffered some minor burns and bruises, but was otherwise fine. The aircraft was in need of repairs.[55]
• June 22 – Pilot Charlie Schwenker and wingwalker Jane Wicker were killed when Wicker's Boeing-Stearman IB75A struck the ground and burst into flames while performing at the Vectren Dayton Air Show at the Dayton International Airport in Vandalia, Ohio. The fatal accident occurred when the Stearman was transitioning to a low-level inverted pass, with Wicker hanging upside down by her ankles off the lower wing (but sitting right-side up while inverted). While flying inverted from the southeast to the northwest in front of the spectators, the aircraft's nose pitched slightly above the horizon. The aircraft abruptly rolled to the right and impacted terrain in a descending left-wing-low attitude. A post-impact fire ensued and consumed a majority of the right wing and front half of the fuselage.[56]
• May 19 – Murat Öztürk crashed his plane while participating for the weekend's Adana Air Show organized to celebrate national public holiday in Turkey.[57]
• May 5 - Pilot Ladislao Tejedor Romero was killed when his Hispano Aviación HA-200 crashed during the accident at the Fundacion Infante de Orleans airshow, in Cuatro Vientos, Madrid.
• April 7 – First Lieutenant Rafael Sanchez and Second Lieutenant Carlos Manuel Guerrero crashed an ENAER T-35 Pillán while participating in the Show Aéreo del Caribe in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. The aircraft pulled up and rolled inverted, but failed to recover from the dive following the maneuver. The pilot rolled upright, and the aircraft impacted the water, Both pilots died.[58]
• March 17 – Roger Stokes, who was flying a Supermarine Aircraft Spitfire Mk26, an 80% scale home-build replica of the Supermarine Spitfire, died when it crashed into a fence between two businesses in a commercial area on Frost Road in the nearby suburb of Salisbury, while completing a routine at the Classic Jets Original Parafield Airshow at Parafield Airport in Parafield, South Australia.[59]
• January 23 – Kirby Chambliss crashed his Zivko Edge 540 while participating for the weekend's Ilopango Air Show in El Salvador. The incident happened when he was executing a formation high alpha pass and crashed at the end of the runway as the engine quit. The airplane was a total loss and Chambliss survived with bumps and bruises.[60]

2012[edit]​

• September 29 – An AS/SA 202 Bravo piloted by Nurman Lubis and Tonny Haryono, owned by the Indonesian Aerosport Federation, crashed because the plane appeared to be flying too low during its aerobatic routine and spun "out of control" before it hit the structure at the Bandung Air Show at the Husein Sastranegara International Airport in. Both pilots died.[61][62]
• September 11 – A highly modified Hawker Sea Fury, nicknamed "Furias," piloted by Matt Jackson made a hard emergency landing when the right landing gear collapsed and veered off the runway at the 2012 National Championship Air Races and Air Show in Reno, Nevada. The pilot was uninjured.[63]
• September 1 – Glenn Smith, a member of the HopperFlight Team died at the Quad City Air Show while executing a crossover break maneuver when his Aero L-39C Albatros failed to pull out of a 45-degree bank and crashed when flying in formation at the Davenport Municipal Airport in Davenport, Iowa.[citation needed]
• August 4 – Kent Pietsch crashed his Jelly Belly 1942 Interstate Cadet immediately following the Wetaskiwin Air Show in Wetaskiwin, Alberta, Canada. Just after takeoff, the engine quit and he attempted to turn back for the runway but with insufficient altitude he landed adjacent to the runway and the aircraft hit a ditch, which ripped the wing off. Kent was taken to the hospital in stable condition. He has since returned to the airshow circuit.[64]
• July 1 – Trevor Roche died at the Shuttleworth Military Pageant Airshow in Bedfordshire, when the 1923 de Havilland DH.53 Humming Bird G-EBHX crashed.[65]
• June 30 – Gianfranco Cicogna-Mozzoni died at the Klerksdorp Air Show in South Africa when his Aero L-39 Albatros got into the wake turbulence of the lead aircraft and suffered a compressor stall, followed by a high-speed wing stall, before hitting the ground at a 50-degree angle. The plane exploded on impact.[66]
• June 15 – A Christen Eagle piloted by Ryland "Buck" Roetman crashed while performing a series of outside snap rolls, when the engine lost oil pressure during a preview for the Legacy Airshow in Rexburg, Idaho. The pilot guided the airplane onto an adjacent golf course where it skidded and hit a tree. The pilot suffered a sprained ankle; the aircraft was destroyed.[67]
• June 3 – A Fairey Firefly AS.6 WB518 suffered a landing gear collapse on runway 27R at the Wings over Gillespie airshow in El Cajon, California. The pilot was uninjured.[68]

2011[edit]​

• October 14 – The fourth prototype Xian JH-7A, 814, of the China Flight Test Establishment of the People's Liberation Army Air Force crashed into a marsh near Wei Nan City, Pucheng, in Shaanxi, China, while performing in an airshow associated with the China International General Aviation Convention. The airframe came down about one mile (1.6 km) from Pucheng Neifu Airport. One pilot ejected safely but the second crewman was killed.[69]
• September 17 – A T-28C Trojan, N688GR,[70] crashed during the Thunder over the Blue Ridge Open House and Air Show in Martinsburg, West Virginia killing pilot John Mangan.[71]
• September 16 – 2011 Reno Air Races crash – Pilot Jimmy Leeward lost control of his highly modified P-51D Mustang, which was named The Galloping Ghost. The Galloping Ghost crashed into spectators and was instantly destroyed at the National Championship Air Races and Air Show, killing 10 spectators, injuring 69 spectators and instantly killing Leeward. The NTSB critically investigated the incident and found that the plane was traveling about 445 knots (510 mph; 825 km/h) when it experienced a left roll upset at 17.3 Gs and a section of the left elevator trim tab separated in flight. Deteriorated locknut inserts allowed trim tab attachment screws to become loose, ultimately leading to aerodynamic flutter at racing speeds.[72][73][74]
• August 21 – Wing walker Todd Green fell 200 feet (60 m) while attempting an aircraft transfer from a Stearman to a Hughes 369 helicopter at the Selfridge Air National Guard Base Air Show in Harrison Township, Michigan. He was seriously injured and taken to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead.[75][76]
• August 20 – A Royal Air Force Aerobatic Team "Red Arrows" aircraft (BAE Hawk T1) crashed after performing at an air show in Bournemouth, Dorset, United Kingdom. The aircraft was witnessed to have plunged into the ground next to the River Stour, near the village of Throop. The pilot, 33-year-old Flt. Lt. Jon Egging, was killed in the crash.[77]
• August 20 – Stunt pilot Bryan Jensen was killed when his modified Pitts 12 "The Beast" crashed at the Charles B. Wheeler Downtown Airport at the Kansas City Airshow in Kansas City, Missouri, around 1:30 pm.[78]
• July 28 – A General Dynamics F-16C Fighting Falcon, 87–296, of the 187th Fighter Wing, Alabama Air National Guard, flying out of Montgomery Air National Guard Base, overruns the runway at Wittman Regional Airport at the EAA AirVenture Oshkosh airshow in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. The nose gear collapsed, the nose radome broke and the air-frame skidded to a stop. The pilot was uninjured.[79]
• July 9 – A replica Fokker Dr.I lost power at about 600 ft (180 m) above the ground during a mock dogfight at the Geneseo Air Show. The pilot, 67-year-old Joseph Auger, attempted a controlled powerless glide, but the landing gear got caught on cornstalks and flipped over. The pilot was able to extricate himself from the wreckage and sustained only minor injuries.[80]
• June 18 – Christen Eagle II aircraft crashed into the River Wisla at the Air Show in Plock, Poland. The pilot Marek Szufa who was also a pilot of Boeing 767 in Polish airlines LOT died three hours later in a hospital. In his life he spent 20,000 hours in the air and took part in many air shows and championships.[81]
• June 4 – 71-year-old Bill Phipps, an experienced Campbell River, British Columbia pilot, was severely injured while performing aerobatics at the Wings and Wheels event at Nanaimo Airport, British Columbia.[82]
• March 26 – A Yakovlev Yak-52 crashed during the "Wings Over Flagler" airshow held at Flagler County Airport in Florida. It is reported that 58-year-old "Wild Bill" Walker experienced G-LOC during an aerobatic "heart" maneuver and was fatally injured in the resulting crash.[83]
• March 12 – While performing their Pirated Skies wing walking act, Kyle and Amanda Franklin were severely injured when their Waco JMF-7 nicknamed "Mystery Ship", suffered an apparent engine failure at the CAF 2011 Air Fiesta in Brownsville, Texas. Both were listed as in stable condition with burns covering more than 60% of their bodies. Kyle's burns were not as serious as first reported. Amanda had successful surgery March 16, and was believed to have a good recovery chance at that time, but died on May 27.[84]

2010[edit]​

• September 5 – A woman was killed when a De Havilland Tiger Moth biplane crashed into spectators at an air show in southern Germany at the Airport Lauf-Lillinghof near Nuremberg. Thirty-eight people were injured in the accident, five of them seriously.[85] Four years later, a trial in Hersbrucker District Court determined that the cause of the crash was pilot error, finding the pilot guilty of "… fahrlässiger Tötung und fahrlässiger Körperverletzung …" (involuntary manslaughter and negligent injury)."[86]
• July 27 - A Hawker Beechcraft 390 piloted by Jack Roush of Roush Performance crashed after stalling at low altitude arriving to the Experimental Aircraft Association's Airventure 2010 fly-in convention in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. Roush was hospitalized for a fractured back, broken jaw, and the loss of his left eye, before being released from the hospital on August 12, 2010. The NTSB determined Roush to be at fault for the accident.[87][88][89]
• April 2 – Pilot Captain Anderson Amaro Fernandes was killed when an Embraer EMB 312 Tucano belonging to the "Esquadrilha da Fumaça" aerobatic team of the Brazilian Air Force crashed while performing at a ceremony for 68 years of the Lages aero club in Santa Catarina, Brazil.[citation needed]
• March 3 – Pilot Commander Suresh Kumar Maurya and his co-pilot Lieutenant Commander Rahul Nair were killed when an HAL Kiran aircraft belonging to the Sagar Pawan aerobatic team of the Indian Navy crashed into a building while performing at the opening ceremony of the India Aviation Show at Hyderabad, India. Apart from the two pilots, one person was killed on the ground and at least 5 others injured.[90]

 

[Stryder50]

^^^^ Synth.....
Stay away from airshows.
Don't ride in any airplanes.
You'll be safer driving in your auto in traffic.

 

[Jarlaxle]

That's just going back to 2010.

List of air show accidents and incidents in the 21st century - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

By all means, cocoon yourself in bubble wrap.

 

[M14 Shooter]

2022[edit]​

No one cares.
Especially you.

 

[Stryder50]

The Hare-Brained, Deadly Stunt that Helped Launch America as an Air Power​

In 1919, with the future of American aviation taking a nosedive, the iconoclastic man who would later be known as the father of the Air Force proposed a solution: a brutal cross-country air race.
[Select Excerpts];

U.S. Army biplanes circled overhead as the Cunard liner Aquitania steamed into New York Harbor on Feb. 28, 1919. It was a fitting welcome for Brig. Gen. William “Billy” Mitchell, a hero of the Great War returning to the United States after nearly two years overseas.

As the commander of American air operations on the Western Front, Mitchell arguably had done more to demonstrate the military potential of the airplane than any man alive, for which he would one day be recognized as the father of the U.S. Air Force. But Mitchell’s triumph was clouded by uncertainty. With the signing of the Armistice less than four months earlier, the government had canceled virtually all of its orders for new airplanes, forcing most manufacturers out of business or nearly so.

The brash, iconoclastic air power advocate who years later would predict the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor knew that a thriving domestic aircraft industry was critical to national defense. But who would buy its products in peacetime?


There were no commercial airlines to speak of, and air mail was still in its infancy. For the most part, the only potential customers were wealthy sportsmen or the itinerant stunt flyers known as barnstormers (though most of them flew military-surplus Curtiss trainers purchased for as little as $300 each). Mitchell knew that if the United States were to dominate this essential new field — still an open question in 1919 — the government would have to help create a market where none existed. The only question was how.
His answer was a transcontinental airplane race — an unprecedented, headline-grabbing spectacle in which more than 60 military pilots would compete to be the fastest man to fly round trip from coast to coast, a distance of 5,400 miles. Mitchell hoped that a successful outcome would boost public and congressional support for his goals, which included more federal spending on aviation and an independent air force co-equal with the Army and Navy.
~~~~~~~~~~~
The transcontinental race, and Mitchell’s role in it, were soon forgotten.

But they shouldn’t have been. Despite its failure to advance Mitchell’s short-term political objectives, “the world’s greatest air race,” as he called it, is worthy of more than a footnote. In fact, it arguably set the stage for the modern air travel system that we all take for granted today.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
It was a different story on the other side of the Atlantic. Aeronautical laboratories backed by governments and wealthy industrialists sprang up in Britain, France and Germany, absorbing some of their best scientists and engineers in the years before the war. From 1908 to 1913, France invested $22 million in aviation, compared with just $435,000 in the United States. Germany led the pack with $28 million.

The pace of aircraft development in Europe accelerated sharply with the outbreak of war in August 1914. At first the warring powers used airplanes for reconnaissance and artillery spotting. The planes lacked armaments, and aviators from opposing sides often greeted one another with a gentlemanly wave. That soon changed, as commanders on both sides saw the wisdom of dominating the skies above the battlefield. Aviators began plinking at each other with sidearms and rifles, soon replaced by swivel-mounted machine guns. Smaller single-seat scout, or pursuit, aircraft were deployed to attack enemy planes and observation balloons. Planes became faster, more maneuverable and more lethal, especially with the advent of synchronizing gears that allowed machine guns to be fired through spinning propellers without shooting them off. Aviators chased one another at heights of up to 20,000 feet, groggy from lack of oxygen and numb with cold, in dizzying mortal contests that often ended in agony, as their wood-and-fabric planes burned easily, and they flew without parachutes. The era of the dogfight had arrived.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Mitchell’s alarm at the state of American aviation was shared by a new federal entity, the Aircraft Production Board, as well as by some in Congress. The turning point came in late May 1917, when the French government cabled an urgent appeal for airplanes and engines. After the board approved the request, military leaders quickly drew up plans for the manufacture of 20,474 new airplanes in just 12 months. Congress supported the program with the largest single-purpose appropriation — $640 million — in U.S. history to that point.

Within days of the French appeal, the production board commissioned two of the country’s leading automotive engineers, Elbert J. Hall and Jesse Vincent, to design a new aircraft engine that could be used across a range of airframes. The men sequestered themselves in a suite at the Willard Hotel in downtown Washington and roughed out the basic design in less than a week. Their design drew heavily on concepts developed by French, British and German manufacturers. Still, the Liberty engine was revolutionary, widely considered the most important American aeronautical advance of the war. Unlike most aircraft engines, which were hand-built like fine Swiss watches, the twelve-cylinder, 400 horsepower Liberty was expressly designed for mass production, with interchangeable parts that would make it easy to repair. Nearly 5,000 would be manufactured by Packard and other automobile companies before the War Department terminated production in March 1919.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Armistice of Nov. 11, 1918 had a devastating effect on American aircraft manufacturers. Within a few months, some had closed their doors while others struggled to survive. In Seattle, the Boeing Airplane Co. began making furniture and speedboats. Glenn L. Curtiss and a few other aircraft designers rolled out prototypes for commercial passenger planes, in the optimistic belief that scheduled airline service soon would follow. It did, but not in the United States. By the end of 1919, several commercial airlines were operating in Europe, including one that flew passengers between London and Paris in converted Farman F-60 bombers (another was KLM, the Dutch carrier, which is still flying today). In the months after the war, the threat of foreign domination was a recurring theme in aviation publications such as Flying and Air Service Journal, which in January 1919 ran a front-page story under the headline, “U.S. Lags Far Behind Europe in Preparations for Air Transport.”
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Mitchell and his Air Service colleagues searched desperately for ways to prove the airplane’s value in peacetime. In the spring, Army pilots began patrolling for forest fires in California, an effort soon expanded to Oregon. Aerial cameras and photography techniques developed for battlefield reconnaissance were promoted for commercial uses, such as mapping cities and advertising real estate. And in June, military pilots began flying border patrols in Texas after several incursions linked to Pancho Villa, who was still at large more than three years after Pershing’s ill-fated invasion of northern Mexico.

But Mitchell, a natural showman, wanted to make a bigger splash. And in September 1919, he announced his plan for doing just that: A transcontinental airplane race. The “Endurance and Reliability Test” was sold to higher-ups as a “field exercise” and restricted to military pilots, who would compete on a voluntary basis and only if their commanders thought they were up to the challenge. Cash prizes were banned. But nobody was fooled by its veneer of military purpose. The transcontinental race was a publicity stunt. Mitchell hoped that a successful outcome would rally the public behind his goals in Washington and also at the local level, where the Air Service was pushing towns and cities to build airfields — or “aerodromes” — as an essential first step toward commercial air service. It was industrial policy on the cheap.
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The “air derby,” as it was sometimes called in the press, was a bold and risky undertaking. More than 60 airplanes divided into two groups — one on Long Island, the other in San Francisco — would take off for the opposite coast some 2,700 miles distant, crossing in the middle and competing for the fastest flying and elapsed times.

Pilots in the contest, many of them war veterans, had never attempted a journey of such improbable length, and for good reason. Like all aircraft of the day, the surplus DH-4s and single-seat fighters they would fly were almost comically ill-suited for long-distance travel — or arguably for any travel at all. Open cockpits offered scant protection against wind and cold. Engines were deafeningly loud and occasionally caught fire in flight. Primitive flight instruments were of marginal value to pilots trying to keep their bearings in clouds and fog. But that was only part of the challenge. The route across the country was almost entirely lacking in permanent airfields — or any form of aviation infrastructure. There was no radar, air traffic control system or radio network. Weather forecasts were rudimentary and often wrong.

In the absence of electronic beacons or formal aeronautical charts, pilots would follow railroad tracks or compass headings that wandered drunkenly with every turn. Every hour or two — they hoped — they would land at one of 20 refueling stops between the coasts. Most of these “control stops” were makeshift grass or dirt airfields that had been hastily demarcated and stocked with fuel, spare parts and other supplies, sometimes just hours before the start of the race.

Despite these slapdash preparations, Mitchell and his colleagues in the Air Service decided at the last minute to double the length of the race — instead of making a one-way flight between the coasts, contestants would attempt a round-trip journey of 5,400 miles. It was as if, in the absence of anything resembling a national air transportation system, Mitchell had decided simply to will one into being. He hoped that by showing how such a system would work, even in draft form, the contest would stimulate public and private investment in aviation, starting with the preparation of the rudimentary airfields that would be used in the race itself. (Several, including Britton Field in Rochester, N.Y., evolved into modern municipal airports that are still in use today).

Americans were transfixed by the spectacle of “the greatest airplane race ever flown,” as Mitchell had described it. At some airfields along the route, crowds grew so large that police were called in to prevent them from interfering with takeoffs and landings. The press made celebrities of pilots such as Lt. Belvin Maynard, an ordained Baptist minister from North Carolina whose German police dog, Trixie, shared the rear cockpit of his DH-4 with a mechanic. The New York Times ran 30 stories on the contest, eight of them on the front page.
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In telling the story of commercial aviation in the United States, historians of the field generally have treated the transcontinental race as a curiosity, if they have mentioned it at all. Mitchell would see that as an injustice. As he liked to point out, pilots in the contest had blazed the trail for the first formal air route across the country. Just 11 months later, in September 1920, the U.S. Post Office inaugurated its coast-to-coast airmail service along essentially the same path. In the mid-1920s, the Post Office transferred its airmail operations to private companies, some of which evolved over the decades into major airlines (including American Airlines). It was on that basis that Henry H. “Hap” Arnold — a Mitchell contemporary who helped organize the race and later commanded Army air forces in World War II — described the contest as “the foundation of commercial aviation in the United States.”

Arnold’s claim contains a kernel of truth. There’s little question that the air race helped seed the ground for transcontinental airmail, hastening the development of at least some of the airfields along the route that would be used by the mail planes. On the other hand, much of the route simply followed the Central Pacific and Union Pacific railroads, which eased the distribution of fuel and supplies and served as a navigation aid that pilots called the “iron compass.” The late William M. Leary, an aviation historian at the University of Georgia, admired the military flyers for their gumption and tenacity, but he took a skeptical view of what they actually had achieved. “Associating the Army flyers with such a milestone in the history of aeronautics might sanctify to some degree the lives lost during the race, but, unfortunately, a careful study of the evidence does not support this conclusion,” he wrote. “The presence of the railroad was the key factor, not the efforts of the Air Service.”

But that is only part of the story. Though its trailblazing nature can be debated, the contest did have another, arguably more important effect: It changed the way that Americans thought about aviation. With its dozens of pilots and planes, complex logistics, communications networks, aviation-specific weather forecasts and establishment of a formal flying route, however crude, the contest was a blueprint for the future — it showed Americans what an air transportation system would actually look like.

No one who followed the race could seriously doubt that the airplane would soon join the passenger train, the steamship and the automobile as a practical feature of everyday life. As the Rockford Morning Star put it in an editorial on Oct. 23, 1919, a few days after Belvin Maynard and several others completed their round-trip crossing, “The successful journey of the racers means that airplane journeying is right here at our doors. It isn’t going to be very long before people … get into the habit of buying a ticket and taking a seat with a suitcase just as calmly as ever they do now on the local for the next town.” The Air Service officer assigned to the refueling stop at Binghamton, N.Y., reported that public libraries in Binghamton and two nearby towns had been stripped of aeronautical books, many checked out by schoolchildren. The phenomenon surely was repeated elsewhere, as Americans contemplated a future that was taking shape before their eyes.

Mitchell’s “greatest air race,” in other words, was more than just a spectacle. It was the first iteration of a new age.
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The Hare-Brained, Deadly Stunt that Helped Launch America as an Air Power

In 1919, with the future of American aviation taking a nosedive, the iconoclastic man who would later be known as the father of the Air Force proposed a solution: a brutal cross-country air race.

www.politico.com