Beaufort, S.C. – A Navy Blue Angel jet crashed during an air show Saturday, plunging into a neighborhood of small homes and trailers and killing the pilot.
Witnesses said the planes were flying in formation at the Marine Corps Air Station and one dropped below the trees and crashed, sending up clouds of smoke.
Raymond Voegeli, a plumber, was backing out of a driveway when the plane ripped through a grove of pine 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. “It was just taking pine trees and just clipping them.”
Witnesses said metal and plastic wreckage – some of it on fire – hit homes in the neighborhood, about 35 miles northwest of Hilton Head Island. William Winn, the county emergency management director, said several homes were damaged. Eight people on the ground were injured.
The crash took place in the final minutes of the air show, said Lt. Cmdr. Anthony Walley, a Blue Angel pilot. He said the name of the pilot would not be released until relatives were notified of the death.
“Our squadron and the entire U.S. Navy are grieving the loss of a great American, a great naval officer and a great friend,” Walley said.
A Navy statement said the pilot had been on the team for two years and it was his first as a demonstration pilot. The accident was under investigation, the statement said.
The Blue Angels fly F/A-18 Hornets at high speeds in close formations, and their pilots are considered the Navy’s elite. They don’t wear the traditional G-suits that most jet pilots use to avoid blacking out during maneuvers. Instead, Blue Angels manage G-forces by tensing their abdominal muscles.
