Improper Stunt Led to 2000 Air Show Death

Two days before the 27th annual Pomona Valley Air Fair at Cable Airport, the National Transportation Safety Board released a report saying that a pilot killed during the fair two years ago was performing an unapproved stunt.

Mark Steven Madden, 40, died Jan. 8, 2000, when his experimental plane crashed into a rock quarry. No one else was injured.

The report released Thursday said Madden could not recover from attempting a “squirrel cage maneuver,” in which three pilots take turns doing stunts in the same airspace. It was not part of his normal routine, and his aerobatic examiner had not been notified of the attempt.

Investigators viewed a video of the exercise in making their findings.

“It just spun right into the ground,” said air fair spokesman Gary Hart, who witnessed the crash. “I kept waiting for it to come out, but it didn’t. Then smoke came up. . . . Terrible feeling.”

At the time of the crash, Madden held the world record for the most flat spins, spinning a level plane 87 times like a turntable while falling from 16,000 feet to 2,000 feet.

His death was the first in the history of the air fair.

Organizers have set up a pilot training scholarship fund for low-income youths in the flier’s memory.