'All I saw at this point was the propeller pointing straight at us'. National Championship Air Races and Air Show, Reno Stead Field, Reno, Nevada. N79111, P51 Mustang.

http://www.faa.gov/Accident_incident/preliminary

EUGENE, Ore. - Lynda Staples snapped a photo her daughter with family friend Jimmy Leeward in Reno that might be the last photo of the ill-fated pilot alive. "The plane started behaving really erratically, and at that point people knew he was in trouble," said Staples, "and you can hear the cries of the crowd and you can hear people screaming 'oh no oh no.'" The plane nosedived into the crowd.

Staples, a nurse at RiverBend Medical Center in Springfield, instinctively hurried over to help the injured.   "There was clothing and broken chairs and people's possessions and drinking cups and pieces of the plane and dirt everywhere," she said.  The tragic crash at the Reno Air Races touched people in the aviation community across the region. The crash claimed the lives of three Washington state residents.

Trevor Schultz of Albany witnessed the crash.   "All I saw at this point was the propeller pointing straight at us. I knew he was going to crash," said Schultz, a pilot himself. "I saw people laying around alive, missing both their legs, screaming in pain."

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