
James Gosling witnesses and blogs Reno airshow crash. - Krylez
http://nighthacks.com/roller/jag/entry/i_m_alive
======
tansey
I know this is the internet and everyone (including me) watches every video
link to any event, but please seriously consider whether you really want to
watch the links people are posting here.

Effectively what happens is the plane is being followed by the camera, then
when it crashes the camera loses focus for 2s, then refocuses in on a dead
body, pans around to a few dead bodies, and zooms out to show you a bunch of
bodies and some wreckage. Like Gosling says in his post, there are no flames,
no gore, not really even any smoke. What makes it so disturbing is that it's
just lifeless bodies, instantly killed... just lifeless, no blood or
explosions. I suppose that some of them may be unconscious, but just knowing
that Gosling said most were dead or uninjured kind of makes me think
otherwise.

~~~
mattdeboard
Interesting to contrast Mr. Gosling's account to this one:
[http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_AIR_SHOW_CRASH?SIT...](http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_AIR_SHOW_CRASH?SITE=7219&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2011-09-16-21-13-11)

A lady ~90ft (or nearly twice the distance from the disaster as Mr. Gosling)
from the accident said, "I saw body parts and gore like you wouldn't believe
it. I'm talking an arm, a leg," Higgins said "The alive people were missing
body parts. I am not kidding you. It was gore. Unbelievable gore."

I'm inclined to believe both of these are true, but I would not be surprised
if one of these witnesses, in their understandable shock, had their minds fill
in the blanks in their memories, wiped clean by stress. I've been through a
firefight or two myself and IMO these life-and-death situations are a mix of
crystal clarity and swiss cheese memory. Sometimes the brain puts things there
that weren't.

~~~
BasDirks
I have seen the videos, and there were plenty of missing limbs. Don't watch if
you're sensitive to that.

------
culturestate
Here's the post, since his blog is getting hammered by Reddit right now:

I'm alive Friday September 16, 2011

Just fucking barely. I'm at the air races in Reno with a bunch of friends and
a horrific accident just happened. One of the very high end racers, going
about 500 mph, lost control and nose dived straight into the audience. The
news is currently saying that the plane missed the grandstand, but that's only
technically true: in front of the grandstand there are several rows of box
seats. It impacted right in the middle of them. I was in a box seat with my
friends only 50 feet from the impact. I was watching the plane as it lost
control, so I saw the whole thing. The impact happened so fast, there was
hardly any sound: just one huge shock wave. No fireball. The plane, and many
people, disintegrated instantly, right in front of me. There were bodies
everywhere. No crash you've ever seen in a movie is even remotely authentic.

Update: it's already on YouTube. I was in the middle of the dust cloud you see
around the impact. They're saying "30 serious injuries" but I know that's a
long way from the truth. At least that many died instantly in the impact. I
suspect that there were not a huge number of serious injuries. It was not a
small airplane. You either died or you didn't. I didn't. My brother and I are
still shaking.

Another Update: They're now officially calling it a "mass casualty situation".
The plane was Galloping Ghost, piloted by Jimmy Leeward. It was a very cool,
highly modified, P51 mustang with a very unusual approach to engine cooling. I
doubt that this was at all connected to the accident - it looked like a
control system failure.

~~~
ENOTTY
Coral cache: <http://nighthacks.com.nyud.net/roller/jag/entry/i_m_alive>

------
kragen
As a counterpoint to the various people arguing that we shouldn't see this,
that you shouldn't watch the video, etc., I want to argue that the modern US
aversion to contemplating death has become pathological. Death is the one
unavoidable fact about life, the only thing you are guaranteed to do, and the
sooner and more deeply a person understands that, the better. It's difficult,
it's unpleasant, but it's necessary.

Ten of the traditional forty subjects of Buddhist meditation are the _asubha_
, the "repulsive subjects", corpses in different states. Meditating on these
is intended to help you come to terms with your own mortal nature, and to
prevent you from coming to worship things of the body as if they deserved it.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamma%E1%B9%AD%E1%B9%ADh%C4%81n...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamma%E1%B9%AD%E1%B9%ADh%C4%81na#Forty_meditation_subjects)

In many Buddhist areas of the world, you can buy sets of cards with images of
all forty, to be used as a meditation aid. (It's easier to hold your attention
on a subject when you're looking at a picture of it.) Imagine the righteous
indignation of the preserve-your-ignorance squad here if such a thing were to
be displayed.

------
Mithrandir
Here's the whole video (it happens about 39 minutes in.) Please note it's
somewhat disturbing:

[http://www.livestream.com/loadedtv/video?clipId=pla_b2efcd7d...](http://www.livestream.com/loadedtv/video?clipId=pla_b2efcd7d-ed04-4edf-89e8-f21ff436ccb4)

This is really tragic.

------
citricsquid
This is the fourth fatal air show accident/crash I've seen in less than a
month:

[http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/21/us-kansas-
airshow-...](http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/21/us-kansas-airshow-
crash-idUSTRE77K04T20110821) <http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-14602900>
[http://www.wxyz.com/dpp/homepage_showcase/accident-at-
selfri...](http://www.wxyz.com/dpp/homepage_showcase/accident-at-selfridge-
air-show)

------
webXL
My wife and I had air race tickets for tomorrow and Sunday right in that
general area. They were box seats. That (likely) malfunction in Galloping
Ghost could have happened when we were there, so we're counting our blessings
tonight. But we feel awful for those involved. As stupid as these races seem,
everyone loves them here. Part of me hopes they can continue.

~~~
9oliYQjP
Auto racing used to be a lot more dangerous for spectators than it is today.
We're only 30 years or so removed from a time when bails of hay and waist-high
walls were all that separated crowds from the track. Go back a little bit
further and you'd see things that would be laughably unsafe by today's
standards like gigantic trees lining the sides of several race tracks.

I'm not even sure where you could begin improving safety for crowds at air
racing events without forcing them to move much further back from the action.
With cars you can move back 50 feet, put up a barrier, and improve your safety
tremendously. For planes, you'd probably have to move the crowds way further
back than they are now. I imagine being up close and in front of the action is
part of the spectacle though.

One unorthodox approach could be restricting these events to landscapes where
the crowds could be on an elevation above the planes. I watched the video and
in the background are hills/mountains where crowds could safely be located
above the planes.

~~~
toast76
If something's going to go wrong in big uncontrollable way, it's most likely
going to be in (or coming out of) a corner. These races should see fast turns
being made way outside of the viewing area. Quite simply, an aircraft should
never be in a situation where it is flying towards a crowd.

------
cubicle67
for those not wishing to see the videos (I'm in that group) here's two photos
showing exactly what happened minus the gore

immediately prior: <http://imgur.com/QuAnm>

impact: <http://imgur.com/CcS91>

~~~
jpdoctor
One amazing thing about the 2nd photo: The self-preservation instinct of the
audience still hasn't kicked in. Spectators are craning their necks to see
what's happening, and photography dude is just manning the camera.

~~~
nosequel
You have to realize how fast it happened, I'm sure their brains have barely
had time to process what happened let alone telling the rest of their body to
get the hell out of there. 400-500mph is REALLY fast.

~~~
bane
Here's a video from a different angle that really shows how fast it happened.

<http://edition.cnn.com/2011/US/09/17/nevada.plane.crash/>

------
andrewtbham
Here is a clear version of the youtube video.
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ybgd0EfxWCI>

------
walru
I'm never watching any videos of this nature. Life is too precious to glorify
losing. I'm weep for all those involved in this tragedy.

------
27182818284
This is disaster porn. You can't learn from it. It is just to see what it
looks like when an airshow goes horribly wrong.

~~~
DanielStraight
Well... unless you consider gratitude and empathy worth learning.

------
geuis
The youtube video linked on his story has been removed by Youtube for "content
violations".
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCNePeKn3Tg&feature=playe...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCNePeKn3Tg&feature=player_embedded)

~~~
zck
Here's a currently-working video; I'm not sure if it's the same one:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYaEh9h5aM0> .

There's a Wikipedia article about the crash, with a bunch of news links:
[https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/2011_Reno_Air...](https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/2011_Reno_Air_Races_crash)

Another angle, showing the plane climbing high into the sky before turning
over and diving: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndd9PVDM3jU>

Assorted photos of the crash and aftermath (no gore, but beware):
[http://www.rgj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/gallery?Avis=J7&Dato=20...](http://www.rgj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/gallery?Avis=J7&Dato=20110916&Kategori=EVENTS05&Lopenr=109160802&Ref=PH)

~~~
condiment
To give the uninitiated an idea of what happened, whenever a plane at the Reno
races experiences a mechanical problem, the pilot points the aircraft vertical
and bleeds off all their forward speed. Once they're high enough, they level
off and glide to the runway for a landing.

For the 'Unlimited' class of race aircraft, this typically occurs once a day
during the races. These aircraft are running 3000hp engines, and race at
speeds around 500mph.

Link #3 has the best angle on this maneuver. It looks like the pilot lost
control shortly after pulling the plane vertical, after which it rolled 180
degrees and pitched straight to the ground.

~~~
logjam
Watching link #3, it look like an accelerated maneuver stall: the left wing
appears to drop (which I think would be normal stall/spin behavior for
clockwise rotating prop) after the abrupt pull up, the aircraft rolls
inverted, and there isn't sufficient altitude to recover.

~~~
ktsmith
Here's a pic of the plane right before the crash:
[http://cessnateur.blogspot.com/2011/09/reno-crash-trim-
tab-t...](http://cessnateur.blogspot.com/2011/09/reno-crash-trim-tab-to-
blame.html)

~~~
logjam
The left elevator trim panel looks gone. By itself I wouldn't think that would
cause loss of control, but could have precipitated events in a chain often
seen in air accidents.

~~~
gvb
It is probably fully deflected. If it were deflected inadvertently, it would
be very difficult to recover control of airplane pitch at the speeds and low
altitudes where this occurred.

Another possibility is that the elevator control itself was lost and the pilot
is desperately attempting to regain control using the trim tab to control
airplane pitch.

~~~
ktsmith
There's a new picture of the plane (though I can't find it not embedded in
video) showing the tab detaching. In the best picture I've seen the tab is
perpendicular to the tail and then in the next frame is completely gone.

------
vaksel
pretty bad, but could have been a lot worse.

i.e. like the Sknyliv disaster(really recommend not watching the video of that
one)

------
0x12
An article about the plane and the pilot:

[http://www.thestarpress.com/article/20110917/NEWS01/10917033...](http://www.thestarpress.com/article/20110917/NEWS01/109170334)

------
workhorse
Terrible tragedy.

[http://www.rgj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/gallery?Avis=J7&Dato=20...](http://www.rgj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/gallery?Avis=J7&Dato=20110916&Kategori=EVENTS05&Lopenr=109160802&Ref=PH)

Photo 7 is very peculiar. The pilot is not visible. I am familiar with this
cockpit, and there is no where to go backwards, so he must be all the way
forwards out of view.

In photo 38, you can see how visible he is when taxiing out.

Just absolutely terrible. My thoughts are with all involved.

~~~
smokestack
Photo 7 is very strange. Would the seat harness have allowed his body to move
this far forward? This probably also would have pushed the stick forward which
isn't consitent with the way the airplane maneuvered, AFAIK. Any ideas?

