The Ramstein air show disaster is the second-deadliest air show incident (following that in 2002 at Sknyliv). It took place in front of about 300,000 people on Sunday August 28, 1988, in Ramstein, West Germany, near the city of Kaiserslautern at the US Ramstein Air Base airshow Flugtag '88.
Aircraft of the Italian Air Force display team collided during their display, crashing to the ground. 67 spectators and 3 pilots died, 346 spectators sustained serious injuries in the resulting explosion and fire.
Read more about Ramstein Air Show Disaster: Background, The Crash, Timeline, Emergency Response, Investigation, References in Popular Culture
Famous quotes containing the words air, show and/or disaster:
“There sighs, lamentations and loud wailings resounded through the starless air, so that at first it made me weep; strange tongues, horrible language, words of pain, tones of anger, voices loud and hoarse, and with these the sound of hands, made a tumult which is whirling through that air forever dark, as sand eddies in a whirlwind.”
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“He was ... a degenerate gambler. That is, a man who gambled simply to gamble and must lose. As a hero who goes to war must die. Show me a gambler and I’ll show you a loser, show me a hero and I’ll show you a corpse.”
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“The disaster ... is not the money, although the money will be missed. The disaster is the disrespect—this belief that the arts are dispensable, that they’re not critical to a culture’s existence.”
—Twyla Tharp (b. 1941)