F-18 Stunt That Injured Pilot Will Be Dropped From El Toro Air Show

The familiar sight of a lone Marine Corps F-18 skirting the borders of the El Toro air station, making tight turns, low passes and a giant upside-down loop in front of hundreds of thousands of gaping spectators, will not be a part of this year’s Navy Relief Air Show at El Toro.

The Marines have decided to cut the stunt from this year’s show, which is scheduled for next Saturday and Sunday, because of the near-fatal crash of a lone F-18 during last year’s presentation.

“I guess the bottom line is I’m not willing to take the chance,” said Maj. Gen. Donald E. P. Miller, commander of the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing at El Toro. “We damn-near lost one of our group commanders--and obviously we lost an airplane that cost $18 million--in front of 350,000 people. I’m not sure it’s worth the risk.”

Miscalculated Altitude

It was a year ago on a hazy, warm, Sunday afternoon during the air show that Col. Jerry Cadick brought his F-18 in low across the field at about 400 m.p.h. and shot straight up into the air to begin the big loop.

As he went over the top of the loop and started down, the highly decorated Vietnam pilot, descending at 10,000 feet per minute, miscalculated his altitude and slammed into the runway at the bottom of the loop.

Cadick survived the crash, something even his doctors call a miracle.

“It was a very moving experience for me out there on that Sunday last year,” Miller said. “When the accident happened it was so quiet it was almost eerie. I saw people with their heads bowed and people who cried after seeing the accident.

“While some might want to think that the American public would like to see somebody get bashed like at a boxing match, I don’t think there is anyone out there who would come hoping something like that would happen.”

Retired From Marines

Earlier this month, Cadick retired from the Marine Corps with a medical disability. He is still recovering from multiple broken bones and internal injuries he suffered in the crash.

Although he talked with reporters last year while recuperating in a Navy hospital in San Diego, Cadick declined to talk when contacted at his home last week.

Cadick, who said he was determined to fly again for the Marines, did not take his retirement easily, Miller said.

“Just think of the thing you like to do the most and imagine waking up one morning and they told you you couldn’t do it anymore,” Miller said.

This year’s air show--which is free to the public--will be almost like last year’s, with the exception of the Marine F-18. It will include a Soviet MIG-15 that will be flown by a former Marine helicopter pilot, and there will be skywriting, dogfighting and wing-walking acts.

As in years past, the Air Force will demonstrate its F-16 Fighting Falcon, and the Navy will fly its F-14 Tomcat.

Also, the public will be allowed to get a close look at military hardware. The displays include the free world’s fastest and sleekest helicopters, fighter jets and transport aircraft. The biggest exhibit parked along the tarmac will be the C-5A, the military’s version of the Boeing 747.

And the Blue Angels, a traditional favorite at the El Toro air show, will return.

Military officials hope this year’s air show will raise $600,000 or more from the sale of food, souvenirs and memorabilia. The money is used to help needy sailors and Marines through the Navy’s relief program.

The change in this year’s lineup at El Toro comes at a time of increasing concern over air show safety.

Last August, an air show disaster at a U.S. air base in Ramstein, West Germany, killed 70 people when three aircraft of an Italian air force aerobatics team collided, one of them then careening into the crowd. Hundreds of people were injured.

The U.S. Air Force canceled all of its air shows in West Germany for 1989, authorities announced in February.

In March, a pilot flying a T-28 military trainer in the Valiant Air Command Air Show in Titusville, Fla., was killed when the single-engine plane crashed.

Another pilot of a vintage two-engine plane was killed last October when he crashed in a Texas air show sponsored by the Confederate Air Force.

The crash last year at the El Toro air show was not the first there.

In 1985, a World War II-vintage plane flying in the air show plowed into an empty chapel on the air station. The pilot and his passenger, both civilians, were killed as about 200,000 people watched.

Gen. Miller said there has been no pressure locally to discontinue the annual air show because of its potential danger.

“I guess we the American public accept that aviation is dangerous and we are going to have crashes,” Miller said.