(AP Photo/Becca Cullison-Burgess). Smoke billows from the crash of a Blue Angels F/A-18 fighter jet in Smyrna, Tenn., Thursday, June 2, 2016. Killed was the pilot, Marine Capt. Jeff Kuss, a husband and the father of two children.
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A deadly plane crash killing a Blue Angel pilot Thursday in Tennessee is a devastating reminder to other pilots about the possible dangers of their jobs. On their almost hourlong ride together, Kuss showed Gerckens the tricks and maneuvers the powerful jet could do.
Since the eatery is only several hundred years from the crash site, she heard the “boom” and the power went off as the plane tore through power lines before hitting the ground.
Great Tennessee Air Show organizers announced Friday that a portion of the proceeds from ticket sales will be given to the family of Marine Captain Jeff Kuss. “This was his dream since he was a child, to be an aviator, a flier”.
According to the Blue Angels, Capt. Kuss is a native of Durango, Colorado.
“The Navy’s Flight Demonstration team will conduct a one-time flight back to Naval Air Station Pensacola at which time they will begin a stand down [operational pause] for an undetermined amount of time following this mishap”, a Navy spokesman said in the release. Kuss was in his second year on the Blue Angels and his first year as a demonstration pilot.
“His favorite toys were jets, and he wanted to be a Blue Angel since forever”, his mother, Janet Kuss, told The Durango Herald in 2014.
Captain Kuss had served in Afghanistan before joining the Blue Angels.
“Instead, I just saw this big orange explosion”, she said.
Organizers of The Great Tennessee Air Show said the show would continue as scheduled, but that the Blue Angels would not perform. “They were fantastic. It actually inspired me and probably nearly everyone else to somewhat go Naval aviation because it’s an wonderful route”, Midshipman Lauren Greenberg said.
The Blue Angels and the Thunderbirds were launched at the dawn of the jet age in 1946 and 1953, respectively.
“I’m shocked and saddened to learn of the death of a Navy Blue Angel pilot who crashed just a few miles outside of Nashville, and just hours after the Blue Angels flew over downtown Nashville”. “But we really just try to invoke that fire in their belly to go out and do what they want to do that makes them happy and successful in life”.
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Baldor reported from Washington.
