Tommy Lee Maddox of Kennesaw had never seen anything like it before and hopes to never experience anything like the Reno air race crash again.
Maddox said Saturday he and a friend were only about 50 yards away when pilot Jimmy Leeward’s P-51 Mustang fighter plane suddenly spiraled out of control and plowed “full throttle” into a Nevada airfield Friday.
“I’ve never seen a plane crash. I’ve never seen people die,” Maddox told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution as he tried to make arrangements to get back to Georgia.
The accident at the National Championship Air Races killed at least nine people and injured more than 50 spectators. Among the dead was Leeward, of Ocala, Fla., a veteran airman and movie stunt pilot who named his plane the "Galloping Ghost."
Authorities were investigating the cause, but an official with the event said there were indications that mechanical problems were to blame.
Maddox, who flies a Cessna 172, had arrived in Reno on Thursday on a commercial flight from Atlanta to observe his first air race, a trip he had planned for several months.
The competition, which draws thousands of people to Reno every year in September, is more like an auto race in the sky. Pilots follow an oval path around pylons, with distances and speeds depending on the class of aircraft.
The race was well under way when Maddox said group of aircraft in the “ultimate class” was rounding the 7 to 8-mile track above and heading toward the end of the grandstand where he was sitting.
Leeward’s World War II era fighter plane, which can reach speeds in excess of 500 mph, was among the planes headed Maddox’s way.
“Leeward’s plane just shot straight up in the air, rolled over, kind of shimmied and came straight down toward us, and then it veered and crashed,” Maddox said. He said a few people sitting in front of him said they heard a “pop” when Leeward’s plane went up.
Leeward, 74, crashed into a box-seat area in front of the grandstand at about 4:30 p.m., race spokesman Mike Draper said.
“It was a massive explosion,” Maddox said about the impact. “No fire. It hit right where a bunch of Air Force pilots we’d met earlier in the day were sitting. They were totally wigged out. They were covered in fuel.”
He said the crash happened so fast, “we were just frozen in place. There’s no place to run and no place to hide.”
Maddox said a strong wind, blowing from behind him and toward Leeeward’s nosediving plane, probably helped nudge the aircraft away from the area where he was sitting. He said the wind was blowing very hard and officials had even warned earlier in the day that the wind would pick up.
Maddox, an attorney, said it might be some time before he attends another air show.
“We were making our plans to come back next near until this happened,” he said. “I just don’t know.”
- The Associated Press contributed to this report
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