{"id":7438,"date":"2026-05-18T12:01:35","date_gmt":"2026-05-18T12:01:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/siliconvalleymovingpost.com\/?p=7438"},"modified":"2026-05-18T12:01:35","modified_gmt":"2026-05-18T12:01:35","slug":"4-crew-members-eject-safely-after-two-navy-jets-crash-during-air-show-in-idaho","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/siliconvalleymovingpost.com\/?p=7438","title":{"rendered":"4 crew members eject safely after two Navy jets crash during air show in Idaho"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p><strong>By REBECCA BOONE and MATTHEW BROWN<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>BOISE, Idaho (AP) \u2014 All four crew members ejected safely after two Navy jets collided and crashed Sunday during an air show at the Mountain Home Air Force Base in western Idaho, officials said.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/siliconvalleymovingpost.com\/?p=7436\">Hantavirus-stricken cruise ship docks in the Netherlands for disinfection<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The collision involved two U.S. Navy EA18-G Growlers from the Electronic Attack Squadron 129 in Whidbey Island, Washington, said Cmdr. Amelia Umayam, spokesperson for Naval Air Forces, U.S. Pacific Fleet.<\/p>\n<p>The aircraft were performing an aerial demonstration when the crash occurred, Umayam said in a statement. The four crew members from both jets safely ejected and the crash was under investigation, she said.<\/p>\n<p>The crew members were in stable condition, base officials said.<\/p>\n<p>Nobody at the military base was hurt, said Kim Sykes, marketing director with Silver Wings of Idaho, which helped to plan the air show.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEveryone is safe and I think that\u2019s the most important thing,\u201d Sykes said.<\/p>\n<p><span><iframe allowfullscreen=\"true\" class=\"youtube-player\" height=\"360\" loading=\"lazy\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/65GVoy3z6S4?version=3&amp;rel=1&amp;showsearch=0&amp;showinfo=1&amp;iv_load_policy=1&amp;fs=1&amp;hl=en-US&amp;autohide=2&amp;wmode=transparent\" style=\"border:0;\" width=\"640\"><\/iframe><\/span><\/p>\n<div>\n<\/div>\n<h4>Planes fell to the ground together<\/h4>\n<p>The base said in a social media post that it was locked down immediately following the crash. The remainder of the air show was canceled.<\/p>\n<p>Videos posted online by spectators showed four parachutes opening in the sky as the aircraft plummet to the ground near the base about 50 miles (80 kilometers) south of Boise.<\/p>\n<p>The EA-18G Growler is a variant of the F\/A-18 Super Hornet fighter jet with sophisticated electronic warfare systems.<\/p>\n<p>Shane Ogden said he was filming the two jets as they came close together. A video he captured shows the two aircraft appear to make contact and then spin in tandem as the crew members eject and their parachutes open. The planes then fall together, exploding into a fireball upon impact as the crew members drift to the ground nearby.<\/p>\n<div>\n<\/div>\n<p>\u201cI was just filming thinking they were going to split apart and that happened and I filmed the rest,\u201d Ogden said in a text message. He said he left soon after the crash because he did not want to get in the way of emergency responders.<\/p>\n<p>Organizers said the popular air show that includes flying demonstrations and parachute jumps is a celebration of aviation history and a look at modern military capabilities. The U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds demonstration squadron headlined the show both days.<\/p>\n<p>The National Weather Service reported good visibility and winds gusting up to 29 mph around the time of the crash.<\/p>\n<h4>Little room for error<\/h4>\n<p>It was remarkable both crews were able to eject from their planes, and aviation safety expert Jeff Guzzetti said that may have been possible because of the way the planes collided and appeared to remain stuck together in midair before falling to Earth. Crews usually don\u2019t have a chance to eject in a midair collision, he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s really striking to see,\u201d Guzzetti said. \u201cIt looks like they struck each other in a very unique fashion to cause them to remain intact and kind of stick to each other and that very well could have saved them.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/siliconvalleymovingpost.com\/?p=7430\">3 young people arrested in series of random shootings across Austin that left 4 injured<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt appears to be a pilot issue to me. It doesn\u2019t look like it was a mechanical malfunction,\u201d he added. \u201cRendezvousing with another airplane in formation flight is challenging, and it has to be done just right to prevent exactly this kind of thing.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Aviation safety expert John Cox, who is CEO of Safety Operating Systems, said the pilots who perform at air shows are among the best, but there is little room for error.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAir show flying is demanding. It has very little tolerance,\u201d Cox said. \u201cThe people who do it are very good and it\u2019s a small margin for error. I\u2019m glad everybody was able to get out.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>This year\u2019s Gunfighter Skies event was the first at the base since 2018, when a hang glider pilot died in a crash during an air show performance.<\/p>\n<p>In 2003, a Thunderbirds aircraft crashed while attempting a maneuver. The pilot, who was not hurt, was able to steer the plane away from the crowd and eject less than a second before it hit the ground.<\/p>\n<p>The air show industry has been working to improve safety for years at the roughly 200 events held each year in the U.S. The last fatal crash at an air show came in 2022 when two vintage military planes collided at an event in Dallas and killed six people.<\/p>\n<p>John Cudahy, president and CEO of the International Council of Air Shows, said that there used to be an average of about two deaths a year at a U.S. air show. But over the past decade, the average has been closer to one death per year, he said. There were no air show deaths in 2025 or 2024, and a spectator hasn\u2019t been killed at an air show in the U.S. since 1952.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSafety wise we\u2019ve enjoyed really an unprecedented term of few accidents,\u201d Cudahy said.<\/p>\n<p>Investigators may be able to quickly get an idea of what happened in Sunday\u2019s crash because the crews of both planes survived and will be able to tell investigators what they saw and experienced before the collision. The Navy will lead the investigation, so there won\u2019t be as much information shared publicly as in civilian crashes.<\/p>\n<p>The Iran war has led to the cancellation of some air shows this year at bases where military units are flying missions related to the conflict.<\/p>\n<p><em>Brown reported from Billings, Montana. Associated Press writers Josh Funk in Omaha, Nebraska, and Christopher Weber in Los Angeles contributed.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/siliconvalleymovingpost.com\/?p=7428\">Angel City FC holds Portland scoreless in draw<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Four crew members ejected safely after two Navy jets collided and crashed during an air show at Mountain Home Air Force Base in Idaho.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7437,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7438","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-facts","category-news"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>4 crew members eject safely after two Navy jets crash during air show in Idaho - 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