amazing Thunderbirds crash photo - how it happened

Lee_Teschler — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 11:40:00 GMT

The folks at avweb did a good job looking up the origins of this photo and turning it into an interesting video. It is a good analysis of how aerobatic accidents can happen.

(http://www.avweb.com/eletter/archives/avflash/1028-full.html#196908)

When we first saw the photo of Capt. Chris Stricklin's ejection from a doomed U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds F-16 a few years ago, most of us here at AVweb thought it was a fake. But the more we looked at it, the more it seemed possible that someone had actually snapped Stricklin's moment of truth in what must be one of the greatest aviation photos ever shot. Well, it wasn't long before we learned that Staff Sgt.

Bennie J. Dennis III had actually captured the drama at an air show at Mountain Home Air Force Base in Idaho. In this week's AVweb original video, Video Editor Glenn Pew looks at the circumstances surrounding the dramatic accident -- combining still photos, in-cockpit and outside-of-cockpit video, and narration including the investigation's findings and changes in procedure for the T-birds.

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http://www.avweb.com/eletter/archives/avflash/1028-full.html#196908