Kuss represented the best and brightest of Naval Aviation,” Vice Adm. A cloudy day, tactical errors and - investigators concluded - fatigue were to blame for the accident that claimed the 32-year-old pilot’s life in Smyrna, Tennessee, according to the Navy investigation released Thursday. The truth is, by the time he realized what was happening and tried to eject, it was too late. Others were sure he had sacrificed himself and stuck with the jet to make sure he didn’t fly it into a populated area. At the time, rumors flew on social media and blogs that Kuss must have gone unconscious because he hit the ground at such a high speed. He called in over the radio that he’d turned off his afterburners, but he hadn’t. But he was flying too fast and too low, according to a new Navy report. Jeff Kuss, the opposing solo pilot, initiated a Split-S maneuver. 6 on June 2, the day he split off for a routine maneuver and crashed into a field during an air show practice. In response to condolence messages on her Facebook page, Rumpel's wife, Barbara, wrote on the platform Sunday night: "My family is gone, my daughter and granddaughter.Something was not right with the Marine flier at the stick of Blue Angels jet No. Public records showed the aircraft was registered to Florida-based company Encore Motors of Melbourne, whose owner John Rumpel told the Post his daughter, a grandchild and her nanny were on board. US authorities have yet to officially identify those on board, but comments by two relatives of people believed to have been on the plane provided some information. President Joe Biden, who was at the White House and also played golf Sunday, was briefed on the incident, an official said without specifying whether any emergency precautions were implemented. The Post said contact with the plane was lost about 15 minutes after its departure from Elizabethton and the aircraft may have continued to fly for hours on autopilot before exhausting its fuel and crashing. The Cessna had taken off from Elizabethton, Tennessee, bound for Long Island MacArthur Airport in New York, the FAA said.īut it turned around after flying over Long Island and headed back south over Washington and into Virginia, climbing as high as 34,000 feet according to flight tracking website Flightradar24. "No survivors were located," police said in a statement. Virginia State Police said first responders reached the crash site near the town of Staunton by foot some four hours after the Cessna plummeted to the ground. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and National Transportation Safety Board said they were investigating Sunday's accident. In that case, the Learjet, which was on a flight from Florida to Texas, flew for thousands of miles on autopilot before eventually running out of fuel and crashing in South Dakota. "The NORAD aircraft were authorized to travel at supersonic speeds and a sonic boom may have been heard by residents of the region," NORAD said.Īviation experts speculated that the pilot of the Cessna may have become incapacitated due to a depressurization of the aircraft, which can cause a rapid loss of consciousness at altitudes above 10,000 feet (3,000 meters).Ī loss of cabin pressure was blamed for a high-profile 1999 Learjet accident that killed golfer Payne Stewart and four other people. The F-16s triggered a sonic boom across Washington and its suburbs, startling residents and rattling windows for miles. "NORAD attempted to establish contact with the pilot until the aircraft crashed," it said in a statement. NORAD said flares were deployed to try to draw the attention of the pilot but there was no response and the private plane eventually crashed near the George Washington National Forest in Virginia. According to The Washington Post, the pilot of one of the F-16s could see the pilot of the Cessna slumped over in the cockpit - suggesting a loss of consciousness due to depressurization of the aircraft.
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