FAIRFIELD, Calif. — A 77-year-old pilot was killed when his vintage biplane crashed on a runway Sunday while he was performing an upside down stunt at a Northern California air show.
The San Francisco Chronicle reports (http://bit.ly/1j02Wav) that the plane caught fire and a plume of black smoke poured from the craft in an open field away from spectators at 2:05 p.m. at Travis Air Force Base in Solano County. An estimated 100,000 spectators witnessed the fatal crash. No one else was injured.
An Air Force statement identified Edward Andreini of Half Moon Bay as the killed pilot; Federal Aviation Administration records show him to be the registered owner of the 1944 Stearman biplane. The World War II-era aircraft was commonly used to train pilots.
Col. David Mott, 60th Operations Group commander at the base said the plane was trying to perform a maneuver known as “cutting a ribbon” where it inverts and flies close to the ground so that a knife attached to the plane can slice a ribbon just off the ground.