MARTINSBURG - Thousands of people went silent Saturday afternoon because there was little to be said in the moments after the Trojan Horsemen aircraft, flying so near the ground and the crowd on a passing maneuver that you could see the pilot, quickly rolled and crashed into a nearby runway during the Thunder over the Blue Ridge airshow.
There just wasn't any chance the pilot had survived. We had all just witnessed a man's death. We didn't know his name, weren't sure which of the six planes - all uniquely decorated - he had flown, but we all knew we had seen the end of his life in a brief and sudden explosion.
In the moments before his plane struck the ground and burst into in a ball of flames, we had been "oohing" and "aahing" at the aerial maneuvers of the T-28 Trojan Horsemen and the other planes featured at the airshow.
Cooler temperatures and a cloudy, threatening sky had put something of a damper on the afternoon crowd, which was certainly more laid-back than boisterous. The applause was polite and steady at best as the emcee announced the acts and spoke about the planes and pilots.
Even in the VIP section, with its refreshments and special seating, the mood wasn't really festive. After watching morning coverage of fatal air race crash in Reno, Nev., on Friday afternoon, the inclement weather almost forebode tragedy. There wasn't a lot of conversation - or, if there was, it was quiet and private - about Friday's crash of a World War II-era plane into the VIP seating section at the airfield in Reno.
Still, being seated in the VIP section at Saturday's airshow as planes flew just hundreds of yards away, it was impossible not to think about the ease with which such accidents can occur.
After watching several single-plane performances, the appearance of the six T-28 Trojan Horsemen notched up the excitement. Seeing those planes in formation, circling in the distance, had the crowd pointing and paying attention.
There had been several passes of the Horsemen before the two planes passed belly-to-belly. The emcee had changed before that performance, and now a woman's voice told about the planes and the maneuver. The two aircraft, one coming east and the other going west, rolled to a vertical position and passed belly-to-belly in front of the crowd's center. As the eastbound plane rose into the sky, and the crowd gave a collective wow, the westbound plane rolled and crashed into the ground.
For moments after the sound of the crash and the explosion, a few people moved closer to the fence while most questioned each other about what had happened and expressed disbelief and sadness while wiping tears.
And then it went silent. The entire crowd moved about slowly in silence, perhaps mumbling a few words, but the shock of it all seemed to make the air thick and unresponsive to sound. We watched emergency crews and National Guard personnel quietly hurrying about.
And then it was over. There just wasn't anything else to say or do, but go home. People began picking up their belongings and moving toward the exits long before the announcement or the polite young National Guard members started encouraging everyone to clear the base.
A man had died and we had watched.
With two fatal crashes on consecutive days, it's hard not to wonder about the future of such airshows.
Oddly enough, shortly before the T-28 Trojan Horsemen performance, I had been on the telephone leaving a message for a friend, telling him that next year, he and his wife would have to come to Martinsburg for the airshow. On the trip from the airfield, we called and left another message: There had been a crash and we had not been hurt.
That's true, but I doubt anyone who was at the airshow Saturday will ever be quite the same.
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