Air show's second day memorializes Lt. Cmd. Kevin Davis

[thedrifter]

Air show's second day memorializes Lt. Cmd. Kevin Davis
Published Monday April 23 2007
By SANDRA WALSH
swalsh@beaufortgazette.com
843-986-5538

The second part of the two-day Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort Air Show continued Sunday despite a crash that killed a Blue Angels Navy squadron pilot Saturday afternoon near Shanklin and Pine Grove roads, about 3 miles from the air station.

Lt. Cmdr. Kevin Davis, 32, of Pittsfield, Mass., was killed in the crash at about 4 p.m. Saturday during "Delta formation," a final maneuver during the air show, according to a Sunday release from the Navy.

The cause of the crash is still under investigation, according to the release.

A mile perimeter around the intersection of Shanklin and Pine Grove roads was established by police and bars public access until about 9 p.m. today, according to authorities.

Eight people were transported to Beaufort Memorial Hospital for injuries related to the crash, and the injuries do not appear to be life-threatening, authorities said Sunday.

An air station public affairs officer, Gunnery Sgt. Shannon Arledge, estimated a crowd of 30,000 during Sunday's air show, which included several other aviation acts but not the Blue Angels, who were scheduled to return to their home base of Pensacola, Fla., Sunday.

Arledge said the event drew about 90,000 people Saturday.

The Geico Skytypers squadron opened Sunday's air show with the "missing man formation," an aerial salute to pay tribute to fallen pilots.

The formation involved the six Skytyper pilots flying toward the air show crowd in a V-shape. Once overhead, one plane peeled away from the formation to honor Davis.

Skytyper Jan Wildbergh flies the No. 6 plane for the Skytypers and was picked to peel away from the formation

because Davis was also a pilot of a No. 6 plane, the opposing solo position.

Wildbergh said he talked to Davis on Saturday before the air show.

"You cannot let yourself be mentally devastated by an accident," Wildbergh said Sunday just after performing. "You have to get it out of your head ... And that's not being callous; if someone didn't want to fly, we would not make them."

Skytyper Rob Steo added that the Skytypers often travel across the country to perform at many of the same shows as the Blue Angels and that they are all well-acquainted with each other.

The Skytypers fly SNJ World War II-era aircraft, and most of the members are former military pilots, Steo said.

Beaufort resident Charles Erlandsen, 89, and his wife, Lillian, 85, sat in folding chairs under a tent to watch Sunday's show.

Charles Erlandsen, a Navy man who worked aboard an aircraft carrier during World War II, said he enjoyed the air show but that he felt "very sad" about Davis' death.

Jeanna Ciminello, 15, of Beaufort, was swarmed by national media reporters after making a tank top and wearing it to the air show.

The back of the tank top read, "No. 6: Once a Blue Angel, now a true angel."

"It wasn't a publicity stunt," an emotional Ciminello said. "It was a pretty big deal to me because I want to be a pilot -- I'm going to try to be a Blue Angels pilot."

Another crowd also formed Sunday afternoon around police blockades on Pine Grove Road and at the Food Lion parking lot on Laurel Bay Road.

Michelle Baker lives off Pine Grove Road on Burlington Circle, about 300 yards from the crash site and the nearest intersection not cordoned off by police.

Baker's sons, Quenton, 15, and Patrick, 13, leaned on their bicycle handlebars under a shade tree as Beaufort County Sheriff's Office deputies turned people away Sunday afternoon.

"I'm tired of people circling our neighborhood trying to get down there -- they can't," Baker said.

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Two men were in the path of the crashing jet
Published Monday April 23 2007
By SANDRA WALSH
swalsh@beaufortgazette.com
843-986-5538
A crash that killed a Blue Angels pilot Saturday afternoon near Shanklin and Pine Grove roads left one Beaufort resident in the hospital and another very shaken up.

Friends Jeff Cyr, 36, and Ray Voegeli, 37, were pulling out of a driveway onto West Laurel Street in separate trucks at about 4 p.m. when a fireball emerged from the woods and headed quickly toward them. Lt. Cmdr. Kevin Davis, 32, of Pittsfield, Mass., was killed in the crash.

"Blue was coming toward us; it hit the trees, it was so fast -- I just thought of me and Ray getting killed," Cyr said of the Blue Angels plane that headed toward the men after it crashed.

Cyr said he jumped out of his truck to run for cover, but a 7-foot log barreled toward him. While dodging the log, Cyr fell to the ground into a ditch and injured his back, knee and hip.

Voegeli stayed in his truck, crouched down in the seat and was not injured.

"(Cyr) yelled at me to look up, and I saw the fireball coming through the woods about 75 feet away," Voegeli said. "Next thing you know, it was on top of me about 10 feet beside me and 120 feet high."

Cyr drove himself to Beaufort Memorial Hospital. Voegeli walked to a nearby street, where a friend picked him up.

Cyr was released from the hospital Saturday night and spent the night at his home on Pine Grove Road because he said he had to feed his three dogs. Cyr said his dogs seemed to be suffering from trauma after the crash.

He added that he is a single parent and had just dropped off his 12-year-old son at the boy's mother's home an hour before the incident.

"I don't know what would have happened if he had been home," Cyr said of his son.

Cyr said his home was not damaged but that the plane came to a halt in his backyard.

He said several of his neighbors' homes had "debris stuck on them."

He added that fiberglass and pieces of transmission were scattered throughout the neighborhood.

Cyr said nearby telephone poles and dry grass caught fire.

"I keep picturing; I see parts coming toward me," Cyr said Sunday. "I just feel bad for the guy (Davis)."

Before the crash, the men had been in Cyr's backyard looking at how to fix the plumbing in Cyr's home.

Capt. Sarah Kansteiner, public affairs officer with Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort, said Sunday morning that eight structures had been damaged because of the crash. Eight people were transported to Beaufort Memorial Hospital with what appeared to be non-life threatening injuries, Kansteiner said.

Beaufort County Emergency Management Director William Winn said an American flag was placed on Davis' body when he was removed from the scene of the crash.

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Navy identifies pilot killed in Blue Angels crash; Pilot discussed his work in recent video interview

By: MELISSA NELSON - Associated Press Writer

PENSACOLA, Fla. (AP) -- Investigators looked through wreckage Sunday to determine what caused a Navy Blue Angel jet to crash during a maneuver, while the military identified the fallen pilot as a 32-year-old who was performing in one of his first air shows with the team.

Lt. Cmdr. Kevin J. Davis of Pittsfield, Mass. was in his second year with the Blue Angels, the team known for its high-speed, aerobatic demonstrations, Lt. Cmdr. Garrett Kasper said.


At Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort, the site of Saturday's crash, a somber crowd watched Sunday as six jets flew overhead in formation. Smoke streamed behind one of the jets as it peeled away from the others to complete the "missing man formation," the traditional salute for a lost military aviator.

"The spirit of the pilot is in the arms of a loving God," said Rob Reider, a minister who was the announcer for the air show.

The crash happened as the team was performing its final maneuver Saturday afternoon during the air show. The team's six pilots were joining from behind the crowd of thousands to form a triangle shape known as a delta, but Davis' jet did not join the formation.

Moments later, his jet crashed just outside Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort, hitting homes in a neighborhood about 35 miles northwest of Hilton Head Island, S.C. Debris -- some of it on fire -- rained on homes. Eight people on the ground were injured, and some homes were damaged.

The squadron's six, F/A-18 Hornets routinely streak low over crowds of thousands at supersonic speeds, coming within feet, sometimes inches, of each other. The pilots, among the Navy's most elite, are so thoroughly trained and their routines so practiced that deadly crashes are rare; the last one happened in 1999.

The Navy said it could be at three weeks before it announces what may have caused the crash. The squadron was scheduled to return to its home base of Pensacola Naval Air Station late Sunday.

Ernie Christensen, a retired rear admiral and former Vietnam fighter pilot who flew with the Blue Angels and later commanded the Navy's Top Gun fighter school in California, said he did not want to speculate about what could have caused Saturday's crash. But he said the intense flying leaves no room for human or mechanical error.

"When you are working at high speeds, close to the ground and in close proximity to other aircraft, the environment is extremely unforgiving. That is the reason they practice so many thousands of times," said Christensen.

The last fatal Blue Angel crash was in 1999, when a pilot and crewmate died while practicing for air shows with the five other Blue Angels jets at a base in Georgia. Saturday's crash was the 26th fatality in the team's 60-year history.

The Blue Angels are unique from other jet aviators because they don't wear the traditional G-suits that most jet pilots use to avoid blacking out during maneuvers that exert strong gravitational forces. The suits inflate around the lower body to keep blood in the brain, but that could cause a pilot to bump the control stick -- a potentially deadly move when flying inches from other planes.

After the deadly 1999 crash, the Navy's air training chief ordered the Blue Angels to consider wearing G-suits. An investigation determined that the most likely cause of that crash was that the pilot was momentarily impaired because of a prior rib injury. Pain from the rib injury might have kept the pilot from tensing his abdominal muscles during a turning causing him to suffer tunnel vision.

Pensacola Mayor John Fogg flew with Blue Angels in 1973 and 1974. During Fogg's tenure, the squadron had six F-4 crashes and lost three members. Congress held hearings and considered getting rid of the Blue Angels but decided the flying group was beneficial as a recruiting tool and for troop morale, he said.

Fogg, who flew more than 200 combat missions in Vietnam, said Blue Angel flying is more demanding than any other type of flying -- including dodging surface to air missiles. And he said that hasn't changed through the decades.

"It's tremendously difficult work. The only thing that compares to it is the last 4 or 5 seconds of a night carrier landing because if you do it just right you are just right at the end of the boat," he said.

Friends and neighbors of Davis in Pittsfield, Mass., where he was raised, said Sunday he was fascinated with planes from the time he was a child.

During his Navy career, he earned "Top Stick" status in his class at Fighter Squadron 101 at Naval Air Station Oceana, Va., while training in F-14 Tomcat jets. He flew missions supporting the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan and graduated from Navy Flight Weapons School in 2004.

"He was fascinated with airplanes from the time he was little," former neighbor Betty Sweeney said. "He knew what he wanted to do, and he did it. That's the only relief, that he went doing what he wanted to do."

Associated Press writer Bruce Smith in South Carolina and David Weber in Boston, Mass. contributed to this report.

View A Recent Interview

www.nctimes.com/movie/blueangel/viewer.html

Ellie