Blue Angel Air Show Follow-Up: Death Has Claimed Three Participating Aviators

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Death has claimed three aviators who participated in the April 21 Blue Angels air show in Beaufort, South Carolina.

The first pilot to die was Lieutenant Commander Kevin Davis, whose F/A-18 Hornet jet crashed on the afternoon of the show.

Three months later, Jim Leroy -- an aerobatics pilot -- died in a Dayton, Ohio air show when his biplane crashed.

And on September 7, Jim Wildbergh of the GEICO Skytypers Squadron died in a practice flight of his World War II airplane at the Naval Air Station Oceana at Virginia Beach, Virginia. He had flown in the "missing man" formation in honor of Kevin Davis a day after the South Carolina accident in April.

2007 has been an unusually unlucky year for air show pilots, with six fatalities. Over the past 15 years, there had been an average of 2.8 crash deaths per year.

Source: Ryan, Jason. "Blue Angels Crash Led Spate of Deaths." The Beaufort (SC) Gazette, http://beaufortgazette.com/local_news/story/6698237p-5971392c.html. October 15, 2007. Accessed on October 15, 2007.