the press is describing him as a well known racing pilot. his website says he has flown in more than 120 races. he also served as a stunt pilot in numerous movies. the associated press digging up an interview that he did with the ocala star banner last week describing 250 planes that he has flown and he has a fondness for the p-51 mustang. this is the plane that he appears to have crashed in tonight. his quote to the ocala star banner, they re more fun. more speed, more challenge. speed, speed, and more speed. again, as mackenzie is describing, this really is, can you think of this as a car race in the sky. a car race involving airplanes. they fly close to each other and at very low altitude at speeds that sometimes do surpass 500
galloping ghost, qualified for the competition going 465 miles-an-hour. that is awful quick and it is awful dangerous. sean: wing tip to wing tip, 50 feet often ground, just short of 500 miles per hour, it seems like a recipe for disaster. angelo, i understand this is a p-51 mustang that crashed in the brock s seat area of the grandstand. yeah. sean: get. let me just tell you what i saw. let s get down to it. i am a private pilot. i always dreamed of maybe one day flying one of these high powered aircraft. come out here and we saw the aircraft doing their little left turn, very quickly, that is very true. almost like the extreme edge of flying. these pilots know that they are pushing airplanes to about as far as any can go.
events like this? and have there been recent events at air races that should make us worry about them in terms of their safety? well, this is really the only type of air race of its kind in the world. there are other types of high-speed events, the redbull pylon racing. this type of race is really one of a kind. there have been a lot of safe guards built into this racing over the years from lessons learned from past incideacciden. you can never mitigate the risk to zero because, you know, when you have an aircraft moving at 400, 500 miles an hour, things happen very quickly. the altitude of the aircraft is very low. so any kind of reaction time that the pilot may have or if you have a mechanical problem may not allow the safety margins that are typically built into the normal part of the racing course. we re told that this was a vintage aircraft that crashed. a p-51 mustang.
are responding. the pilot was a gentleman named jimmy leeward, flying a p-51 mustang. we don t have official confirmation of anyone s injuries or status. we are confident to announce that the pilot did die in the crash. and in fact we ll have a memorial for the pilot tomorrow at 1 p.m.. greta: mike, do you know there was any reported trouble with that plane earlier? any unusual maintenance work done on that plane in the last couple of days? i don t greta. as many air race fans might know all these planes are highly modified. as far as i m aware, there were no difficulties or troubles that had been reported either earlier the day or leading up to this. greta i suspect that the racing group is pretty well know each other it is pretty close.
describes the crash as, quote, a mass casualty situation. but the number of injuries and possible fatalities is not yet known. the plane is reportedly a world war ii era fighter plane. a p-51 mustang. according to the local nbc affiliate, krnv. the pilot is 80 years old. his condition is not known. the event is being held at the national championship air races. it draws thousands every year to watch both civilian and military planes. we re going to show you this shocking video again. this is a vintage world war ii plane at an air show in nevada. it crashes near the audience. early reports said it crashed in the stands. we can see in this video that it was near the stands but did not actually hit the stands where