Hatrack River Forum: Nevada Air Show Crash

This is topic Nevada Air Show Crash - Many dead, dozens wounded in forum Books, Films, Food and Culture at Hatrack River Forum.

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Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :

I'm thinking about just starting a general "Surreal Accident Thread" to put all these in. It's just bizarre the number of things that get caught on camera these days.

WW II era fighter crashes into crowd, killing many and injuring dozens

Word on the ground is that that pilot pulled up at the last second before running into the crowded bleachers. If he hadn't the death toll could have been in the hundreds.

More video

Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :

Hmmm, in this day and age with 1000s of spectators (and thus hundreds of cell phones, P&S, SLRs) and at an air race where the planes are the focus of attention, that isn't particularly bizarre.

I think the idea is that for those of us that are getting old, we grew up with the idea that it wasn't that often that our parents had cameras and they had, say, 24 exposures at a time. So it was rare that both a recording device is present and that it was pointing in the right direction. But now, we're pretty much guaranteed that a recording device is present so all we need to do is make sure that a sufficient number of people are present so that odds are one of them will be pointing them in the right direction.

I mean, we were at a wedding recently where we got to record a Bollywood-style dance in the same HD resolution that a proper al-jazeera or guardian news crew might using pretty similar (and cost-effective) equipment. It's the democratizing of news or something [Wink]

Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :

James Gosling was there. Here is his first blog update after it happened.

Here is his second blog entry about it, in which he discusses everything in more depth.

Here he does a little theorizing as to the cause of the crash.

Posted by Architraz Warden (Member # 4285) on :

I saw a picture elsewhere that actually showed the trim tab tearing off the plan (the piece missing in that last post). That sounds like an all-around horrific accident... though it does sound like it could have been much worse.

Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :

It tentatively appears from ground reports that at one point during the fatal plunge he was aimed straight dead-center for the stands, and managed to veer the plane off to the side before he crashed. A field of aviation fans seem to be producing the same story, that it appeared like it was a purposeful last-ditch effort to avoid the stands.

There's some pretty graphic videos of the aftermath on liveleak, too. If he had hit the stands directly, the death toll could have easily surpassed LeMans 1955.