U.S. Navy jet crashes during an air show

A U.S. Navy jet crashed during an air show, plunging into a neighborhood of small homes and trailers and killing the pilot.

Photo: U.S. Navy jet crashes during an air show

Witnesses said the planes were flying in formation during the show Saturday when one dropped below the trees and crashed, sending up clouds of smoke.

The plane was part of the Blue Angels, a non-combat, flight demonstration squadron that flies at air shows around the country. They fly at high speeds in close formations, and their pilots are considered the Navy's elite.

Raymond Voegeli, a plumber, was backing out of a driveway when the plane ripped through a grove of trees, dousing his truck in flames and debris. He said wreckage hit "plenty of houses and mobile homes."

"It was just a big fireball coming at me," said Voegeli, 37.

County Coroner Curt Copeland said the pilot was killed, but did not release a name. Copeland described the scene as horrific. Eight people on the ground suffered injuries that were not life threatening, said Capt. Sarah Kansteiner of Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort.

An investigation has begun, but Kansteiner said Sunday that she could not say anything about the cause of the crash. Several homes were damaged.

The crash took place in the final minutes of the air show, said Lt. Cmdr. Anthony Walley, a Blue Angel pilot. The pilots were doing a maneuver which involved all six planes joining from behind the crowd to form a Delta triangle, said Lt. Cmdr. Garrett D. Kasper, spokesman for the Blue Angels. One plane did not rejoin the formation.

The pilot's name would not be released until Sunday afternoon, keeping with a policy of waiting 24 hours after the death, Kansteiner said. A Navy statement said the pilot had been on the team for two years and it was his first year as a demonstration pilot.

Kasper said all possible causes of the crash are under investigation, and it could take at least three weeks for an official cause to be released.

John Sauls, who lives near the crash site, said the planes were banking back and forth before one disappeared, and a plume of smoke shot up.

"It's one of those surreal moments when you go, 'No, I didn't just see what I saw,"' Sauls said.

Saturday's show was at the beginning of the team's flight season, and more than 100,000 people were expected to attend. The team, which is based at Pensacola Naval Air Station, recently celebrated its 60th anniversary.

The Blue Angels do not wear the traditional G-suits that most jet pilots use to avoid blacking out during maneuvers. The suits inflate around the lower body to keep blood in the brain, but which could cause a pilot to bump the control stick a potentially deadly move when flying inches from other planes.

Instead, Blue Angels manage G-forces by tensing their abdominal muscles.

The 2007 team has a new flight leader and two new pilots; Blue Angel pilots traditionally serve two-year rotations.

The last Blue Angel crash that killed a pilot took place in 1999, when a pilot and crewmate were killed while practicing for air shows with the five other Blue Angels jets at a base in Georgia.