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A stunned crowd watches crash, then prays for flier
'Time stood still,' a woman says after seeing the plane go down and burst into flames on the runway.
Sunday, July 29, 2007
"Where are the fire trucks? Where are the fire trucks?" is what raced through Stephanie Owens' mind after she saw the small yellow plane crash into the runway and burst into flames.
"Time stood still," she said.
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"Within a minute or two" the trucks arrived and firefighters immediately extinguished the flames with foam, she said.
"Men with silver suits" approached the plane and appeared to pull the pilot out, she said, after which he was evacuated on a helicopter.
"The crowd was solemn and respectful. Parents were asked to have their children turn away. The announcer said he had been a pastor in a former life and led a heartwarming prayer for pilot Jim LeRoy."
Owens, who lives in Kettering, had a direct view of the crash from the "Dayton Daily News" "chalet" on the grounds of air show.
The two planes had "been doing fantastic maneuvers close to the ground," when LeRoy's plane, heading west, tried to pull up "but just didn't make it," she said.
LeRoy's partner, piloting a blue plane, was heading east at the time of the crash. "By the time he circled around" the wreckage of LeRoy's plane "was in flames," she said.
John Dickerson, a engineer from Lebanon and an amateur pilot, was standing next to Owens. LeRoy was doing "a descending roll on a 45 degree angle," Dickerson said. "He pulled up too late and the plane pancaked into the ground. It looked like the fellow just tried to pull out too late."
Dickerson said there were "small flames and sparks when the plane hit, and then bounced" and there was a lot of smoke, but much of it might have been coming from a smoke machine on the plane.
But before long, the "whole front half of the plane was burning pretty good," he said.
"You can't take your eyes of it. You just watch and hope to God that the pilot survives."
More about the crash and pilot
- Government: Pilot error in fatal air show crash
- Announcer comforted crowd, wife after crash
- Memorial planned for pilot
- Tapes: Rescue crews on scene 2 minutes after air show crash
- NTSB may release crash info next week
- NTSB: Report on fatal crash by next week
- Air show pilot died instantly after crash
- NTSB takes over inquiry into fatal air show plane crash
- Crash 'a harsh reminder' of risk
- Pilot killed in crash was a full-time performer
- A stunned crowd watches crash, then prays for flier
- Many spectators shocked, silenced by air show tragedy
- What it was like to photograph crash: A dreaded scene, a sickly feeling
- Black Hawk flies pilot to hospital
- Act that included LeRoy meant to awe, thrill
- About the plane
- Statement about Sunday's air show
- Photos of crash, earlier performance
- Diagram: How the crash happened
- Spectator video of air show crash
- Raw video of crash
