PILOT KILLED: Renowned air-racing legend Jimmy Leeward, 74, died as the World War II-era plane he was piloting crashed into spectators. (Gus mcCrea/mccreaimages.com)
A Reno, Nev., air race turned into a bloody horror show, when a speeding World War II-era airplane spiraled out of control and slammed into dozens of spectators, leaving behind a grisly scene littered with body parts and smoldering debris.
Reno police said Saturday 9 people were killed, including the pilot, at least were 50 injured.
Authorities reported “mass casualties” after the P-51 Mustang, piloted by Jimmy Leeward, 74, crashed into the VIP area in front of a grandstand at the 48th Annual National Championship Air Races and Air Show in Reno.
“I saw body parts and gore like you wouldn’t believe it. I’m talking an arm, a leg,” said spectator Maureen Higgins. “The alive people were missing body parts. It was gore. Unbelievable gore.”
Higgins, who had attended the show for 16 years straight, was sitting about 30 yards away from the crash. She watched in horror as the man in front of her started bleeding after a piece of debris hit him in the head.
“It’s just like a massacre. It’s like a bomb went off,” Dr. Gerald Lent told the Reno Gazette-Journal.
“There are people lying all over the runway. One guy was cut in half. There’s blood everywhere. One guy just said, ‘Hey, there’s another foot over here.’ ”
Shocking video from the scene, posted on YouTube, showed the plane screaming through a turn and then suddenly plummeting from the sky, sending up massive clouds of dust and debris.
Authorities say it appears a mechanical failure with the P-51 Mustang — a class of fighter plane that can fly in excess of 500 mph — was to blame. Some credit the pilot, Jimmy Leeward, with preventing the crash from being far more deadly.
Leeward was among those killed.
“If he wouldn’t have pulled up, he would have taken out the entire bleacher section,” said Tim Linville, 48, of Reno, who watched the race with his two daughters.
Reno Air Races President and CEO Mike Houghton said at a news conference that pilot Leeward was killed instantly in the crash after apparently losing control of the aircraft.
Houghton said the rest of the races have been canceled as the National Transportation Safety Board investigates.
The Ocala, Fla., resident owned the Leeward Air Ranch Racing Team and was a well-known racing pilot.
Some members of his family were at the air race and saw the crash, said Houghton.
“They obviously are devastated,” he said. “I talked to Jimmy’s son, and his wife wanted me to know that Jimmy would not want us to cancel the races.”
Leeward’s pilot’s medical records were up to date, and he was “a very qualified, very experienced pilot,” Houghton said.
A friend of the family said Leeward’s wife typically traveled to air shows with him and that he had two grown sons and two grandkids who also flew planes.
He’d been racing at the show in Reno since 1975.
Leeward, the owner of the Leeward Air Ranch Racing Team, was a well-known racing pilot. His website says he has flown more than 120 races and served as a stunt pilot for numerous movies, including “Amelia” and “Cloud Dancer.”
In an interview with the Ocala (Fla.) Star-Banner last year, he described how he has flown 250 types of planes and has a particular fondness for the P-51, which came into the war relatively late and was used as a long-range bomber escort over Europe. Among the famous pilots of the hot new fighter was WWII double ace Chuck Yeager.
“They’re more fun. More speed, more challenge. Speed, speed and more speed,” Leeward said.
Leeward talked about racing strategy in an interview Thursday with LiveAirShow TV while standing in front of his plane.
“Right now I think we’ve calculated out, we’re as fast as anybody in the field, or maybe even a little faster,” he said. “But uh, to start with, we didn’t really want to show our hand until about Saturday or Sunday. We’ve been playing poker since last Monday. And uh so, it’s ready, we’re ready to show a couple more cards, so we’ll see on Friday what happens, and on Saturday we’ll probably go ahead and play our third ace, and on Sunday we’ll do our fourth ace.”
Yesterday he was at the controls of a P-51 stunt plane called the “Galloping Ghost” in a qualifying round in the “unlimited class” division when it went down around 4:30 p.m., show spokesman Mike Draper said.
Seconds before the crash, Leeward sent out a “Mayday signal” and pulled “out of the lap” before crashing.
Tim O’Brien who attends the races every year and is chairman of an air show in Grass Valley, California, was photographing Friday’s races when the crash occurred.
He said the P-51 Mustang was racing six other planes, and was in the process of moving from third place into second, when it pitched violently upward, rolled and then headed straight down.
From the photos he took, O’Brien said it looked like a piece of the plane’s tail called a “trim tab” had fallen off. He believes that’s what caused the plane’s sudden climb.
When the aircraft hit the ground, there was a “big explosion but no fire,” O’Brien said.
“The propeller (was) spinning very fast, and there was a lot of mass coming down all at once,” he said. It was a “very violent impact.”
The National Championship Air Races draws thousands of people to Reno every September to watch various military and civilian planes race.
The FAA and air race organizers spend months preparing for air races as they develop a plan involving pilot qualification, training and testing along with a layout for the course. The FAA inspects pilots’ practice runs and brief pilots on the route maneuvers and emergency procedures.
The races have been deadly before. Two pilots died at the event in 1994. And organizers softened two of the curves pilots negotiate after two more pilots crashed into nearby neighborhoods in 1998 and 1999.
In 2007 and 2008, four pilots were killed at the races, prompting local school officials to consider barring student field trips to the event.
Planes at the yearly event fly wingtip-to-wingtip as low as 50 feet off the sagebrush at speeds sometimes surpassing 500 mph. Pilots follow an oval path around pylons, with distances and speeds depending on the class of aircraft.
Sen. Harry Reid, Rep. Mark Amodei and other officials issued statements Friday saying they were shocked and saddened by the crash.
“My thoughts are with the families of those who have lost their lives and with those who were wounded in this horrific tragedy,” Reid said. “I am so grateful to our first responders for their swift action and will continue to monitor this situation as it develops.”
With Wire Services