Flames erupt from a stunt plane after it crashed during a wing walker's performance at the Vectren Air Show, Saturday, June 22, 2013, in Dayton, Ohio. The crash killed the pilot and the wing walker instantly, authorities said.
Credit: AP
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DAYTON, Ohio (TheBlaze/AP) -- A plane carrying a wing walker crashed Saturday at an air show and exploded into flames, killing the pilot and stunt walker instantly, authorities said.
Flames erupt from a stunt plane after it crashed during a wing walker's performance at the Vectren Air Show, Saturday, June 22, 2013, in Dayton, Ohio. The crash killed the pilot and the wing walker instantly, authorities said. (Credit: AP)
Dayton International Airport spokeswoman Linda Hughes and Ohio State Highway Patrol Lt. Anne Ralston confirmed the deaths to The Associated Press.
The crash happened at around 12:45 p.m. at the Vectren Air Show near Dayton. No spectators were injured.
ED'S NOTE: GRAPHIC CONTENT - A stunt plane with a wing walker crashes during a performance at the Vectren Air Show, Saturday, June 22, 2013, in Dayton, Ohio. (Credit: AP)
ED'S NOTE GRAPHIC CONTENT A stunt plane with a wing walker crashes during a performance at the Vectren Air Show, Saturday, June 22, 2013, in Dayton, Ohio. (Credit: AP)
Smoke rises from a stunt plane after it crashed during a wing walker's performance at the Vectren Air Show, Saturday, June 22, 2013, in Dayton, Ohio. (Credit: AP)
The show has been canceled for the remainder of the day. The names of those killed weren't immediately released, but a video posted on WHIO-TV showing the flight and crash identified the performer as wing walker Jane Wicker. A schedule posted on the event's website also had Wicker scheduled to perform.
A man who answered the phone at a number listed for Wicker on her website said he had no comment and hung up.
One of the pilots listed on Wicker's website was named Charlie Schwenker. A post on Jane Wicker Airshows' Facebook page announced the deaths of Wicker and Schwenker, and asked for prayers for their families.
A message left at a phone listing for Charles Schwenker in Oakton, Va., wasn't immediately returned.
The video shows the plane turn upside-down as Wicker sits on top of the wing. The plane then tilts and crashes to the ground, exploding into flames as spectators scream.
"All of a sudden I heard screaming and looked up and there was a fireball," spectator Stan Thayer of Wilmington, Ohio, told WHIO.
Another spectator, Shawn Warwick of New Knoxville, told the Dayton Daily News that he was watching the flight through binoculars.
"I noticed it was upside-down really close to the ground. She was sitting on the bottom of the plane," he said. "I saw it just go right into the ground and explode."
According to the newspaper, the show will go on as scheduled Sunday.
Wicker's website says she responded to a classified ad from the Flying Circus Airshow in Bealeton, Va., in 1990, for a wing-walking position, thinking it would be fun. Her full-time job was as a budget analyst for the Federal Aviation Administration, according to her website.
She told WDTN-TV in an interview this week that her signature move was hanging underneath the plane's wing by her feet and sitting on the bottom of the airplane while it's upside-down.
"I'm never nervous or scared because I know if I do everything as I usually do, everything's going to be just fine," she told the station.
Wicker wrote on her website that she had never had any close calls.
"What you see us do out there is after an enormous amount of practice and fine tuning, not to mention the airplane goes through microscopic care. It is a managed risk and that is what keeps us alive," she wrote.
In 2007, veteran stunt pilot Jim LeRoy was killed at the Dayton show when his biplane crashed and burned.
Organizers were presenting a trimmed-down show and expected smaller crowds at Dayton after the Air Force Thunderbirds and other military participants pulled out this year because of federal budget cuts.
The air show, one of the country's oldest, usually draws around 70,000 people and has a $3.2 million impact on the local economy. Without military aircraft and support, the show expected attendance to be off 30 percent or more.
CONTENT WARNING: The following video contains disturbing images.
The following is the interview with Wicker before the crash via WDTN-TV:
This post has been updated.
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