10 Times Air Shows Went Terribly Wrong!

10. Flugtag 88
This tale of an air show disaster happened in 1988 in West Germany at Ramstein Air Force Base. The Italian Air Force was hired to do a special show for over 300,000 people, but little did anyone know what was about to happen.

9. Reno Air Races Crash 2011
Of course, the tragedies don’t stop there. In Nevada, there was the Reno Air Races crash that happened less than a decade ago in 2011.
The main cause of this accident was pilot James Leeward, who went and flew a highly customized P-51 Mustang, a very classic aviation machine for those who know aircraft.

8. Paris Air Show TU-144 Crash
What makes this particular air show crash so odd is that the plane in question, Tu-144, wasn’t a special aircraft meant for air shows. Rather, it was a Russian Passenger Liner. It was Soviet Made and was a model that was in their airways until 1999, which clearly meant it could do its job.

7. 2007 Blue Angels Crash
There are all sorts of piloting groups out there that have name recognition, and in the United States, the Blue Angels are revered to be the best of the best in many aspects. That makes the crash that happened in South Carolina back in 2007 all the more curious and tragic.

6. Transpo 72 Crash
Joe Howard was the pilot who was involved in this crash. He was part of the US Air Force Thunderbirds, another very well known and very well respected group of pilots. However, at an air show in Washington, things went wrong.

5. 2015 Shoreham Air Show Crash
In August 2015, a pilot was attempting to do a special aerial maneuver at an air show in Shoreham, but things went wrong and he crashed instead.
One of the problems of the maneuver was the height at which the pilot started the attempt. Of course, it was hugely risky in that he was at 200 feet (60m) above the ground when he attempted it, but that meant there was literally no room for error because if one small error did occur, the plane would definitely crash.

4. Golden West Sport Aviation Air Show Crash.
Arguably one of the deadliest air show crashes happened in 1972 in Sacramento, California at the Golden West Sport Aviation Air Show.
This crash involved an F-86 Sabre, which is a single-engine Jet Fighter and was constructed to be used by the Royal Canadian Air Force.

3. Biggin Hill 1977
At the annual air show at Biggin Hill back in 1977, things were going as smoothly as one could hope. Folks were so confident in their safety that a helicopter was flying people around the airfield to give them a better look at the place.

2. 1952 Farnborough Air Show Crash
This event in the United Kingdom is still discussed as one of the deadliest air show crashes of its kind. A prototype jet fighter was engaged in an aerial maneuver, one where the plane dove and then rose high to the air at 40,000 feet (12500m) before returning to the crowded area.

1. Sknyliv Air Show Disaster
On July 27th, 2002, an air show in Ukraine would become the deadliest air show incident in history. A jet fighter was performing a move at a low altitude, and the result of that was the jet’s wing hitting the ground and causing a crash to happen. While the pilots were able to get out, the plane went and hit a nearby aircraft that caused the plane to further cartwheel and shoot towards a crowded area. This resulted in the deaths of 77 people and over 100 others were hospitalized.