Blue Angels to fly again during crash probe

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Blue Angels to fly again during crash probe




By Chris Amos - Staff writer
Posted : Friday Apr 27, 2007 15:49:59 EDT

The Blue Angels will resume their practice schedule next week even as an investigation continues into the crash that killed a pilot on April 21, the squadron announced Friday. The team’s five remaining F/A-18 Hornet fighters had been grounded since the accident.
The Angels canceled their performance at an air show Saturday and Sunday at Vidalia, Ga., according to squadron spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Garrett Kasper, and won’t participate in an air show May 5-6 at Offutt Air Force Base, Neb., as previously scheduled.
The Angels’ goal is to perform again by May 12 at Seymour Johnson AFB in Goldsboro, N.C., Kasper said in an announcement.
Even then, Kasper said, each of the squadron’s officers and enlisted members will need to be emotionally and physically ready for operations before the team takes to the air.
“Safety is our primary concern. [Blue Angels commanding officer] Cmdr. [Kevin] Mannix has made it very clear to the entire squadron that we will fly only when everyone in this squadron is 100 percent ready.”
Lt. Cmdr. Kevin Davis, 32, of Pittsfield, Mass, was killed April 21 when his F/A-18 crashed into a wooded residential area near Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort, S.C. He was attempting to rejoin his five squadron mates in formation at the end of an air show.
Witnesses said metal and plastic wreckage — some of it on fire — hit homes in the neighborhood, located about 35 miles northwest of Hilton Head. William Winn, the county’s emergency management director, said several homes were damaged. Eight people on the ground suffered injuries that were not life-threatening.
This was Davis’ second season with the Blue Angels. Last year, he served as narrator; this year, he was the opposing solo pilot.
Davis’ death was the 26th since the team was founded in 1946.
The most recent fatality was in 1999, when a pilot and crew member died while practicing for air shows at a base in Georgia. An investigation determined that the most likely cause of that crash was that the pilot was momentarily impaired because a recent rib injury kept him from flexing abdominal muscles, leading him to develop tunnel vision.
After the 1999 crash, the Navy’s air training chief ordered the Blue Angels to consider wearing “G” suits, which most tactical pilots wear to avoid blacking out during maneuvers. The suits inflate around the lower body to keep blood in the brain.
But that inflation could cause a pilot to bump the control stick — a potentially deadly move when flying inches from other planes, and the reason team members do not wear the suits.
Useful recruiting tool

Hill Goodsteed, a historian at the Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola, Fla., said the Blue Angels team, founded after World War II to keep naval aviation in the public eye while the Navy and Air Force clamored for rapidly dwindling defense dollars, is now a useful recruiting and public relations tool for the Navy.
“There are still a significant number of people who don’t get a lot of exposure to the military, particularly the Navy, unless they live on a coast,” he said. “The Blue Angels travel to the heartland and provide people with exposure to the aircraft that are defending our country. You have pilots from the fleet; many have flown combat operations. You get to see them in an up-close and personal way that you really can’t get from a picture and a film.”
Goodsteed, who grew up in Pensacola, said his first memory of the Blue Angels was when he was 7 years old.
“They are like our hometown team,” he said.
Fat Albert, the Blue Angels’ C-130 Hercules cargo airplane, transported Davis’ body from Dover Air Force Base, Del., to Naval Air Station Pensacola, where a private memorial service was to be held at the base chapel Saturday, Kasper said. He will be buried at nearby Barrancas National Cemetery, “per the family’s wishes, so Lt. Cmdr. Davis can watch the [Blue Angels] practice on weekdays.”
Kasper said he has not received any information that investigators have narrowed their focus, and said they have provided no deadline for the investigation to be completed.
The Aviation Mishap Board, based at Norfolk, Va., will examine videotapes and photographs, aircraft wreckage, maintenance records, witness statements, control tower and cockpit voice recordings and Davis’ medical and sleep history to determine the cause of the crash.
Kasper said the team would probably choose a pilot to take Davis’ spot from pilots who have flown in his position — solo adversary — in prior years.
“Historically, when a pilot has had to be replaced, a previous pilot who flew that position has been recalled,” Kasper said. “We need to be considerate of any potential negative impact to their career.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report


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