3 Air Show Jets Collide; 46 Die : Italian Planes Hit Above Crowd at U.S. Base in Germany; Many Hurt

At least 46 people were killed and hundreds were injured Sunday afternoon when three Italian military jets collided and crashed during an aerobatic maneuver at an air show at the huge U.S. air base at Ramstein, West Germany.

The disaster was the worst in air show history involving spectators, aviation experts said.

The pilots of the three planes were among the dead in the fiery accident, which occurred directly in front of an estimated 300,000 people watching the show in a holiday atmosphere.

But the holiday mood exploded into death, terror and chaos. One of the doomed planes crashed at the edge of the spectator area, exploding in a huge ball of fire with billowing black smoke. The other two slammed into the ground nearby.

Overtaken by the Flames

Many of the victims, fleeing in terror from the area, were scorched as the flames overtook them, some burned beyond recognition. Others were struck by flying debris. A piece of metal decapitated one man.

Television cameras recorded the explosions, which showed cars catching fire from the flaming, flying wreckage and jet fuel.

The television film showed one man frantically screaming “Tanya! Tanya!” with thousands of others screaming and searching frantically for friends and relatives.

“I felt as if I was burning,” said one young woman, who suffered light burns. “I told my boyfriend, ‘Run! Run!’ ”

Another visitor, Manfred Sieger, said he saw people enveloped in flames after the burning kerosene jet fuel splashed into the crowd. “Their hair turned yellow and the skin was peeling off in bits,” he said.

‘It was Horrible! Horrible!’

“It was horrible, horrible, a huge shock,” declared the West German wife of a U.S. serviceman who witnessed the tragedy from the control tower. “It’s going to take a long time to forget this.”

The shattering accident came at the climax of an intricate aerial exercise that began with a 10-plane diamond formation of the crack Italian air force team heading skyward, almost vertically.

At the top of the climb, the team split into two sections of five planes and four planes that completed separate loops, streaming red, white and green smoke of the Italian national colors.

The two groups ended their loops by flying at each other to pass--head-on--low over the main runway in front of the audience, flying less than 200 feet above the ground. Meanwhile, the 10th jet, believed to have been that of the team leader, had made a separate loop, and it roared in at right angles to the other two formations.

The two main formations managed to pass each other safely, but the single jet slammed into the last two aircraft of the five-plane section. The lone jet burst into flames, cartwheeled and plummeted to the ground at the edge of the spectator area.

Taken to 12 Hospitals

The victims, including West Germans and Americans, were taken to 12 civilian and military hospitals, some in the backs of military trucks. Doctors said that most of the injured were treated for severe burns and broken bones.

At one hospital, a young medical assistant, Kris Kumpf, trembled and sobbed as she told reporters about the stream of victims that were brought in.

‘There are many children among the dead and injured,” she said. “And the worst of it, we are still trying to find the parents.”

The huge Ramstein base, about 10 miles west of Kaiserslautern near the French border, is the headquarters of the U.S. Air Force in Europe.

Other U.S. military bases are located nearby, making the Kaiserslautern area the largest American community outside the United States.

Earlier in the afternoon, an American jet fighter team had staged a fly-past without incident, as had aerial groups from France, the Netherlands, Portugal and West Germany, according to a U.S. Air Force official.

Last Scheduled Performance

Flying jet trainers, the Italian team--known as the Frecce Tricolori, or Tricolor Arrows--was the last scheduled performance of the show, which ended in disaster about 3:45 p.m.

West German Defense Minister Rupert Scholz asked that other military air shows scheduled for next month be called off.

Before the annual Sunday show at Ramstein, environmental groups and local officials had demanded that it be called off because of the dangers involved.

Afterward, a statement issued by the environmental Greens party in Bonn urged Scholz to ban all military air shows and low-flying military exercises.

“It is terrible when one’s fears turn into bitter truth,” the statement said.

Low-level military flights have caused a popular outcry in West Germany in recent months by citizens who complain about the noise and the danger of crashes. There have been several military crashes this year in West Germany, one near a nuclear power plant.

Low-Level Flights Reduced

Four weeks ago, Scholz ordered the number of low-level training flights reduced by 2,000 hours from the estimated 68,000 hours flown by planes of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization annually.

Ten years ago, all of the aircraft of a four-plane Italian air force team crashed during a fly-past at the Bitburg Air Base, in central West Germany.

On Sept. 11, 1982, 46 people were killed in the crash of a U.S. Army Chinook helicopter during an air show at Mannheim.

And on June 26 this year, three people were killed--and 133 miraculously survived--in the crash of a French Airbus during a low-level pass at an air show outside Mulhouse near the West German border.

Over the years, many military stunt teams have suffered fatal mishaps, including the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds and the U.S. Navy Blue Angels.

The Italian team was founded in 1930 and currently had 14 pilots, flying the Italian-built Aermacchi MB-339A, a two-seat advanced jet trainer and tactical support fighter.

The Italian air force said the three dead pilots--Lt. Col. Mario Naldini, 41, team leader; Lt. Col. Ivo Nutarelli, 38, and Capt. Giorgio Alessio, 31, had more than 9,000 flying hours among them.

In Rome, Italian Prime Minister Ciriaco De Mita sent condolences to West Germany.