Fatal Skies

摘要

It was a tough summer and fall for flying. The 2006 airshow season got off to a rough start in April when U.S. Navy Blue Angel Lieutenant Commander Kevin Davis died in a crash while performing the final maneuver of an airshow at Beaufort, South Carolina. In July Gerald Beck was killed in the collision of two P-51 Mustangs at AirVenture in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, and veteran stunt pilot Jim LeRoy died after his Bulldog Pitts crashed and burst into flames at the Dayton Air Show. Earlier, former Swissair pilot Hans Georg Schmid had died when his small experimental plane crashed in Switzerland as he attempted to break a world record for solo single-engine flight en route to Oshkosh. Then in September three pilots were killed in four days at the Reno Air Races, the first fatalities in five years at the competition.