![]() Twenty World War II veterans will be at the show, Geier said, including some who flew missions on D-Day. ![]() This year’s show commemorates the 75th anniversary of the invasion of Normandy during D-Day. Fatal plane crash in Norco prison yard involved one-of-a-kind plane from Chino.No distress calls came from pilot of vintage plane before it crashed in Norco.Pilot in fatal plane crash in Norco is identified as Chino man.“To see these aircraft static here,” Geier said, walking through the museum’s main hangar, “it’s like looking at a bald eagle in a cage.” Related links Geier said Vopat, like other volunteers, loved the museum’s collection of historic military aircraft, especially getting them out of the hangars and into the air. “If, during this airshow, there’s anything the pilot doesn’t think is 100 percent, they just won’t fly that day,” he said. ![]() It had safely flown several hundred hours since that first flight, according to a museum news release.Īlthough the cause of Monday’s crash is not yet known, Geier said all the museum’s pilots make safety their highest priority, even if that means occasionally disappointing audiences. The N9MB had been restored over a 13-year period and flew its first post restoration flight in 1994. The planes were one-third scale test aircrafts built to develop a long-range heavy bomber. The Planes of Fame’s N9MB was the only one remaining of four flying wings built for flight testing in 1944. Vopat was also certified as a flight instructor for single and multi-engine airplanes and rated as a mechanic able to work on both airframes (the mechanical structure of an airplane) and its powerplant. He was authorized to fly both multi-engine airliners and single-engine airplanes, along with several models of experimental aircraft. “He was part of the Planes of Fame family … an all-around good person.” “He’s a fantastic person,” Geier said of Vopat, switching between the present and past tense as he spoke. “As Dave would have wanted, it’s going to go on as planned,” Harry Geier, the museum’s director of marketing, said Wednesday.Ī tribute to Vopat will be added to the museum’s website and he will be honored with a missing man formation flyover during the airshow. The fatal crash occurred just less than two weeks before the museum’s annual airshow, planned to take place May 4 and 5. Vopat made no distress call before the plane went down. The National Transportation and Safety Board is investigating what caused the crash of the restored vintage plane. The crash led to a major pileup in traffic on 91 Freeway, which was backed up many miles for several hours as police officers blocked all main lanes.Outside Chino’s Planes of Fame Museum the American flag was at half-staff Wednesday, following the plane crash this week that took the life of one of the museum’s pilots.Ĭhino resident Dave Vopat, 51, was the lone occupant of a 1944 Northrop N9M Flying Wing when it crashed Monday, April 22, in the prison yard of the California Rehabilitation Center in Norco. "(We’re) very fortunate today that the traffic was light, and the pilot appears to have made some good landing navigation that avoided what could have been a very bad tragedy." "The pilot claims to have experienced possible engine failure on their final descent to Corona Municipal Airport," California Highway Patrol Capt. The plane, a single-engine Piper Cherokee PA-32, had an unspecified "engine issue" while flying to Corona Municipal Airport, according to the FAA. NTSB: Southwest flight attendant fractured back in landing so hard she thought plane crashed As long as you don’t panic, you get the best outcome." "We were 4 to 5 feet in the air when the plane stalled completely and fell to the ground. Your training kicks in, and you do the right thing. "It felt like a hard bump, hard to describe," Cho told the outlet. The pilot, Andrew Cho, told Los Angeles television station KTLA his training allowed him to land semi-successfully in traffic. Dashcam video footage, obtained by USA TODAY, circulated on social mediacaptured the moment when the small aircraft weaved in between cars to land. Video footage shared by the department showed firefighters quickly put out the flames. The incident occurred on the highway 45 minutes east of downtown Los Angeles.Īccording to the Corona Fire Department, which promptly arrived on the scene, the plane broke apart after clipping the truck and ignited on impact around 12:30 p.m. The two people inside the plane were unharmed, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. Watch Video: Dashcam captures plane landing on a highway, bursting into flamesĪ single-engine plane carrying a pilot and one passenger crash-landed on California's 91 Freeway after an engine malfunction, striking a truck and igniting into flames, according to authorities. ![]()
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