PDA

View Full Version : Wind nixes last day of Cherry Point air show



thedrifter
05-07-07, 11:17 AM
Wind nixes last day of Cherry Point air show
By Trista Talton - Staff writer
Posted : Monday May 7, 2007 11:31:08 EDT

JACKSONVILLE, N.C. — Whipping winds and tropical stormlike conditions along parts of the East Coast forced Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point, N.C., to cancel the last day of its annual air show Sunday. The show will not be rescheduled.

Early estimates indicate between 85,000 and 90,000 people attended the show, which began Friday evening.

“Considering the weather, we were actually pretty happy with that,” said Cpl. James Hamel, an air station spokesman.

Bad weather two years ago postponed the show’s opening by a day, he said.

The air station opened to the public as the Federal Aviation Administration sifted through wreckage of a refurbished Navy transport plane that crashed Thursday as it was flying to the air show, where it was to be part of a static display.

All five people aboard the Grumman US-2B Tracker were injured in the crash in a wooded area three miles south of the air station. No one on the ground was injured, and no homes were damaged.

The crash happened less than two weeks after another that claimed the life of a Navy Blue Angels pilot, who went down in a residential area outside MCAS Beaufort, S.C. The elite team was performing its final maneuver at the end of an April 21 show when one of the six planes peeled away from the others.

Lt. Cmdr. Kevin Davis, 32, was killed when the F/A-18 he was flying crashed into a residential area, injuring eight people on the ground and damaging homes. This was Davis’ second year with the group and one of his first performances at an air show.

Both crashes remain under investigation.

Ellie