Pilot Killed in Air Race Crash

Errol Roberson, a 49-year-old bush pilot from Warrenton, Ore., was killed at the 26th annual National Championship Air Races Friday at Reno when his Formula One airplane flew into a thermal whirlwind, disintegrated and crashed.

Roberson’s speed was estimated at between 250 and 260 m.p.h. Witnesses said one wing and the tail of the plane broke off in the air, and that the fuselage cartwheeled along the ground until only small pieces remained.

Roberson’s wife and other members of his family witnessed the crash. The race and other events at Stead Field, a former military air base in the desert highlands 10 miles north of Reno, continued.

The accident was the eighth fatality in the quarter-century of the event. Another Formula One flyer, Pan-American Airlines pilot Errol Johnstad, died during a qualifying run two years ago.