Joe writes in the comments attached to Josh’s earlier post about the Blue Angels crash in South Carolina…
I think the headline is referring to all the handwringing that comes out of some quarters of Seattle whenever SeaFair rolls around. There are a bunch of people who are terrified one of the Blue Angels is going to fall on their heads (or just object to them on principle but use this as an excuse). The reality is that far more people will die in fiery wrecks in the Seattle area every year while minding their own business — they’ll just be in cars.
Well, speaking as handwringer, my concern that the Blue Angels will fall on our heads someday is genuine, not merely an objection to the noise, waste, and freakin’ pointlessness of it all. (Although I object to all that too.) But whenever I’m like, “One day one of those fucking planes is going to plow into something — a neighborhood, a house, Columbia Tower,” I’m told that It Can’t Happen Here. That the Blue Angels never crash, that there are better things to worry about. (Who says I don’t worry about other things too? Can you only worry about one thing at a time?)
Blue Angel fans are very dismissive when anyone expresses any concern about the potential for a crash—and if one should crash, the loss of life could be pretty spectacular. A jet slamming into an office building or, say, a densely packed neighborhood really can’t compare to a fiery car wreck that kills one or two people.
There’s a reason air shows are held in big empty fields in the middle of freakin’ nowhere. Because it can happen — and despite what we worries have been told over and over and over again, it can happen here.
Now just imagine this…
A Navy Blue Angel jet crashed during an air show Saturday, plunging into a neighborhood of small homes and trailers and killing the pilot, the county coroner said. Witnesses said the planes were flying in formation during the show at the Marine Corps Air Station and one dropped below the trees and crashed, sending up clouds of smoke. At least one home was on fire.
Raymond Voegeli, a plumber, was backing out of a driveway when the plane ripped through a grove of pine trees, dousing his truck in flames and debris. He said wreckage hit “plenty of houses and mobile homes.” “It was just a big fireball coming at me,” said Voegeli, 37. “It was just taking pine trees and just clipping them.”
…happening at Broadway and John or First and Pike.