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Crash under investigation

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published April 23, 2007

PENSACOLA - Investigators looked through wreckage Sunday to determine what caused a Navy Blue Angel jet to crash during a maneuver, while the military identified the fallen pilot as a 32-year-old who was performing in one of his first air shows with the team.

Lt. Cmdr. Kevin J. Davis of Pittsfield, Mass., was in his second year with the Blue Angels, the team known for its high-speed, aerobatic demonstrations, Lt. Cmdr. Garrett Kasper said.

At Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort in South Carolina, the site of Saturday's crash, a somber crowd watched Sunday as six jets flew overhead in formation. Smoke streamed behind one of the jets as it peeled away from the others to complete the "missing man formation," the traditional salute for a lost military aviator.

The crash happened as the team was performing its final maneuver Saturday afternoon during the air show. The team's six pilots were joining from behind the crowd of thousands to form a triangle shape known as a delta, but Davis' jet did not join the formation.

Moments later, his jet crashed, hitting homes in a neighborhood about 35 miles northwest of Hilton Head Island. Debris - some of it on fire - rained on homes, damaging some. Eight people on the ground suffered injuries that were not life threatening, said Capt. Sarah Kansteiner of the air station.

His parents were in the crowd when the plane crashed, said Tom McGill, a former Pittsfield neighbor.

The squadron's six, F/A-18 Hornets routinely streak low over crowds of thousands at supersonic speeds, coming within feet, sometimes inches, of each other. The pilots, among the Navy's most elite, are so thoroughly trained and their routines so practiced that deadly crashes are rare; the last one happened in 1999 at a base in Georgia.

The Navy said it could be at three weeks before it announces what may have caused the crash.

The squadron returned to its home base of Pensacola Naval Air Station late Sunday.

Lt. Cmdr. Kevin J. Davis

Age: 32

Hometown: Pittsfield, Mass.

Family: Single; youngest of three sons.

Education: Graduated with honors in 1996 from Embry Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach.

Military: Entered officer candidate school at Naval Air Station in Pensacola in September 1996. Earned Top Stick status in his class at Fighter Squadron 101 at Naval Air Station Oceana, Va., while training in F-14 Tomcat jets. Flew missions supporting the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan. Graduated from Navy Flight Weapons School in 2004.

Blue Angels: Joined in September 2005. This was his first year as a demonstration pilot.

[Last modified April 23, 2007, 01:36:00]