Looking for clues in Reno air crash
As identities of some of the dead from the Reno air race began to emerge Sunday, the National Transportation Safety Board said the doomed plane had two types of recording devices that might provide clues to what went wrong.
At least nine people — pilot Jimmy Leeward and eight spectators — were killed Friday when the World War II-era Galloping Ghost veered skyward during a qualifying heat, then plunged into the box seats.
Unlike most aircraft of the same size and vintage, Leeward’s plane had a forward-facing video camera and a system that tracked the aircraft’s engine and positioning, along with other data, the NTSB said. During flight, the data was transmitted to Leeward’s racing team, which turned it over to investigators.
And in a debris field resembling the aftermath of a bomb blast, investigators unearthed several memory cards caked in oil and dirt, said Mark Rosekind of the NTSB, which is overseeing the wide-ranging investigation. The cards will be shipped to a lab to determine whether they came from the Galloping Ghost.
County medical examiners also continued to comb the debris for human remains, suggesting that the death toll could rise. Of the dozens injured, six remained in critical condition.
Officials said a preliminary report of the accident would be posted on the NTSB’s website Friday. The complete investigation will take months, they said, and probably will involve an examination of federal regulations on air races, a duty assigned to the Federal Aviation Administration.
It was clear the horrific incident had rattled the tight-knit community of aviation enthusiasts. Robert Robinson, 49, and his wife have attended the event for two decades. On Friday, the Oregon couple was seated about 70 yards from where the Galloping Ghost slammed into the ground.
“Then you saw the chairs and the blue turf everywhere,” Robinson said Sunday in the parking lot of a Reno hotel. “Just sickening, surreal. It was just graphic. … It’s something we’ll have to deal with for a real long time.”
One of the survivors gave a news conference from the Renown Regional Medical Center in Reno wearing a hospital bracelet on one wrist and his red “pit row” bracelet on the other. Ed Larson, 59, lives in both San Diego and Genoa, Nev. With a severed Achilles tendon, a serious leg wound, a dislocated shoulder and head injuries, he said from his wheelchair, “I’m really lucky to be here.”
Authorities have not identified everyone who died at the National Championship Air Races, but they included George Hewitt, 60, of Fort Mojave, Ariz; Greg Morcom, 47, of Marysville, Wash.; Michael Wogan, 22, of Scottsdale, Ariz.; and at least five others. Hewitt’s wife, Wendy, was among the missing.
Although they were the first spectators to die at what’s essentially an aerial NASCAR race, 19 pilots have been killed since 1972.
The victims were among the aviation enthusiasts who huddled close to the airfield, some in white folding chairs reserved for VIPs, their eyes trained skyward at souped-up planes that thundered around an air track at up to 500 mph.
George Hewitt and his wife had been seated in a box reserved for the Cascade Warbirds Squadron 2, a group of 1940s-era warplane owners and their aficionados. He had flown as a pilot for Air Canada for more than 40 years and retired as a Boeing 777 captain, the Seattle Times said. He owned a small Navion propeller plane, which had been produced by the maker of the P-51 Mustang that crashed into the box seats.
Morcom was a construction worker making his first trip to the Reno air races. His brother, Ron Morcom Jr., told Seattle’s KOMO-TV that Greg was killed instantly when the plane plunged into the box seats. “There was no suffering,” he said.
Wogan attended this year’s race with his father, Bill, who lost his right eye and some fingers in the accident. The younger Wogan had congenital muscular dystrophy, as did two of his three brothers, and was sitting in the VIP boxes on the tarmac. He had recently graduated from Arizona State University with a degree in business and finance, the Arizona Republic reported, and had started a social media marketing company.
His brothers called him the Boss, and Wogan dreamed of buying a condo and creating a “man cave” where they could all hang out.
“Love you mikey,” Wogan’s brother Jonny wrote on Facebook. “My heart is filled with peace right now knowing where you are and the suffering you left behind.”
In Reno, family members of the missing sought help at a support center in an airport hotel. There, health and law enforcement officials were interviewing people and taking DNA samples to help identify remains from the crash site. The severity of the accident complicated the process.
“Because of the nature of the incident, it takes time and attention to scientific detail,” said Mark Malcolm, Washoe County’s fatality management consultant.
The local community continued to volunteer, with one blood bank turning away donors because they had reached capacity. Churches dedicated their Sunday services to the disaster.
A few blocks from the airfield, at St. Michael’s Catholic Church, the Rev. Thomas Babu offered a message of hope to a packed house, recounting in his homily how he had hurried to the crash site Friday and prayed with a group of people who had lost a family member amid the carnage.
“Tragedy makes us closer as human beings to help out and reach out to people who are in need,” he said in an interview. “It is hard to face death like this and accidents like this, but once again we are being told by God that if we are survivors of this incident, there is something good we can do in this world in our remaining lifetime.”
Powers and Mishak reported from Reno and Lopez from Los Angeles.
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