Air Show, Fatal Accident
Overhead, jet fighters of the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds, the Navy's Blue Angels and the Royal Air Force's Red Arrows performed dramatic aerial acrobatics. Tragically, on the last day of the show, the Thunderbirds experienced their first fatal crash at an air show. Major Joe Howard, flying Thunderbird 3 (Phantom F-4E s/n# 66-0321) experienced a loss of power during a vertical maneuver. Although Howard ejected as the aircraft fell back to earth from about 1,500 feet (460 m) tail first and descended under a good canopy, winds blew him into the blazing crash site.
Another death occurred one day earlier during a sport plane pylon race, when during a turn about a pylon a trailing aircraft's wing and propeller hit the right wing tip of a leading aircraft. The right wing immediately sheared off the fuselage, and the damaged aircraft crashed almost instantly, killing the pilot, Hugh C. Alexander of Louisville, GA. He was a professional Air Racer.
The third, and first chronologically, accident involved a kite, i.e., a variety of hang glider. The aircraft suffered a structural failure and collapsed, killing the pilot.
Transpo Trade/Airshows were planned as recurring events here. Since these fatalities, there have been no other airshows at Dulles International Airport.
Read more about this topic: Transpo '72
Famous quotes containing the words air, fatal and/or accident:
“Then, that no region of the universe
Should remain void of life, the floor of heaven
Was peopled with the stars and godlike forms,
The seas became the abode of glittering fish.
Earth took the beasts and mobile air the birds.
A holier animal was wanting.”
—Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso)
“The novelist’s—any writer’s—object is to whittle down his meaning to the exactest and finest possible point. What, of course, is fatal is when he does not know what he does mean: he has no point to sharpen.”
—Elizabeth Bowen (1899–1973)
“A President Roosevelt comes only once in a century. I believe God knew and does know of the need of the world at this moment. I don’t believe President Roosevelt is an accident in time, or that it is an accident that he is President for a third time. I believe that Franklin D. Roosevelt truly is the voice of liberty in the world.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)