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Stunt Plane Crash At Austria Air Show Caught On Video, Third Crash In August [Watch]

By Maat van Uitert
Published on: 23:23 PST, Aug 31, 2015

Witnesses in Austria were horrified when they saw a stunt plane crash during an air show, killing the pilot. The plane, which was entertaining the onlookers at the Friesach-Hirt air show in Carinthia in Austria, suddenly plummeted towards the earth in a streak of smoke. As witnesses looked on, horrified, they saw the stunt plane crash into the ground. The pilot died at the scene due to his injuries.

The horrifying scene was caught on video by a witness just yards away from the crash. In the video, witnesses can see the stunt plane crash after attempting a loop-the-loop maneuver, reports The Mirror. The crowd of stunned onlookers included around 500 people, including small children. The plane was a Pitts S-2B, a popular air show stunt plane, which is an acrobatic biplane designed to seat two people.

The Mirror reports that Friesach-Hirt police chief Marianne Makoru, in an interview with the Austria Press Agency, said that “no other people were in danger” from the stunt plane crash.

This is just the latest crash by a stunt plane. Only eight days before, a stunt plane in Sussex plummeted to the earth, killing 11 people. In that case, experts said the stunt plane might have had a “flameout” according to The Mirror. The stunt plane devastated the crowd of onlookers, making it difficult to identify bodies.

Although police informed the families of the 11 victims that their loved ones were “highly likely” to have been killed in the Shoreham air disaster, the chief constable of Sussex Police also admitted that he didn’t know if all the victims could be positively identified based on forensic evidence at the scene.

Similarly, in the United States, a pilot was practicing for an air show in Atlantic City when witnesses saw his plane crash in New York. The pilot died on the scene. According to Press of Atlantic City, Andrew Wright of Austin, Texas was practicing maneuvers in his Giles 202 stunt plane when his plane plummeted to the earth last Friday. Wright was expected to perform in the first-ever New York Air Show in Orange County August 30.

Following the crash, authorities were not sure who was flying the plane, which was said to be owned by Wright according to the FAA, reports the Poughkeepsie Journal. However, later that night, the New York air show confirmed via Twitter that the deceased pilot was Andrew Wright.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnBx_rTcSkk

[Image credit: Bryn Lennon/Getty Images]

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