Video: Plane crashes at Reno air show

By Terri Rupar

The Associated Press is reporting that a plane crashed into the stands at the National Championship Air Races.
According to the races’ Web site, the event started Wednesday and goes through Sunday. The site describes it as an event for the “World’s Fastest Motorsport,” with speeds of more than 500 mph.
The Post’s Steve Hendrix reported earlier this week that Heather ”Lucky” Penney and her father were at the races in Reno. Penney was one of the first fighter pilots in the air over Washington on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001; she was prepared to ram the 757 that was feared headed for Washington. It was a United plane, and at the time, her father was a United pilot.
The pilot of the plane was identified as Jimmy Leeward. “We’re as fast as anyone in the field, or maybe a little faster,” he told an interview in a video posted on liveairshowtv.com. The segment on Leeward starts at 2:24.

Mass casualties US air show plane crash

LOS ANGELES - Dozens of people were injured and possibly some killed Friday when a vintage aircraft crashed into the ground at an air show in the U.S. state of Nevada, a spokesman and video images showed.

Initial reports suggested 60 people were injured, 30 of them seriously, after the crash at the Reno National Championship Air Races, in which the small plane smashed almost headlong into the ground.

"We're being told that there are likely fatalities," race spokesman Mike Draper told CNN, adding that there were "mass casualties" in the crash, amateur video of which was posted on YouTube and shown on the news network.Stephanie Kruse, a spokeswoman for the Regional Emergency Medical Service Authority, said 25 people were critically injured and another 25 people were seriously injured in the crash.
She says the critically injured were considered to have life-threatening injuries. She says more than 25 other people were treated for minor injuries.Besides the Federal Aviation Administration personnel already there to assist the National Transportation Safety Board in any investigation, the show's spokesman said that National Guard members -- who were on-site practicing before the incident -- are helping emergency personnel to clear the area.The competition is like a car race in the sky, with planes flying wingtip-to-wingtip as low as 50 feet off the sagebrush at speeds sometimes surpassing 500 mph. Pilots follow an oval path around pylons, with distances and speeds depending on the class of aircraft.

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