NTSB beefs up rules for safer air races
11 died in Sept. crash in Reno
RENO — The National Transportation Safety Board made safety recommendations Tuesday designed to make the National Championship Air Races safer for pilots and spectators.
Recommendations included more rigorous pre-race inspections of aircraft modifications, dry runs by pilots before participating in certain competitions and changes to the course design to protect the crowd.
“We are not here to put a stop to air racing; we are here to make it safer,” NTSB Chairman Deborah Hersman said.
The investigation into the crash Sept. 16 at the Reno National Championship Air Races, which killed 11 people and seriously injured more than 70 spectators, is ongoing, Hersman said.
Air race pilots should receive special G-force training and perhaps wear G-suits to help them deal with race conditions, Hersman said. The Federal Aviation Administration needs to fix its rules to clarify whether spectators must be 500 feet from the flight path or 1,000 feet, and race officials need to change their system to make sure that problems found during pre-race technical inspections are fixed and documented, she said.
“Our investigation revealed that this pilot in this airplane had never flown at this speed on this course,” she said, referring to pilot Jimmy Leeward, 74, whose modified P-51 Mustang, The Galloping Ghost, crashed into the front row of box seats in front of the main grandstands. “We are issuing a safety recommendation to ensure that pilots in their modified airplanes are put through their paces prior to race day.”
Mike Houghton, president and CEO of the Reno Air Racing Association, said his board would look at each of the NTSB’S suggestions to determine what can be implemented right away and which might take more time. Some, including the Gforce training, have already been implemented, he said.
“I don’t think any of these would have had an impact on the tragedy we experienced,” Houghton said. But the association is open to changes that lead to a safer event, he said.
The Reno Air Racing Association is already selling tickets for this year’s event, scheduled for Sept. 12-16. There are other air shows, but the Reno Air Races is the only remaining event of its kind, where planes of various categories fly wingtip-to-wingtip around an oval, aerial pylon track, sometimes just 50 feet off the ground and at speeds that can top 500 mph.