Ghost Squadron Close Call Ft Lauderdale Airshow 12 May 2024 

thanks for using my footage!!

Thanks Juan. Great video. For future reference if you want to slowly go through a video you can use "." (period) to go forward 1 frame and "," to go back one frame. Useful for this type of analysis.

"How close do you fly to each other?" "Negative one inch."

If you want to know more about the guy behind Polaris Dawn there’s a Netflix documentary called ‘Countdown’ with some great footage of Jared flying his MiG 29. He’s going to be first private individual to do a space walk later this year.

When airshows go right, they're great. When they go wrong, its horrible. This was very close to going bad

As much as I love them, it's hard not to start feeling like Air Shows are simply too dangerous, too much risk.

Never a good idea to touch tips. Glad everyone was okay!

This was as close as close calls get. Inches from disaster.

I love these air shows so much but I wish they would stop putting the lives of these pilots in danger with some of these close maneuvers …as a fan I am just as happy to see them do non risky maneuvers because we love our pilots so much

Near Death Experience.

I saw them at Sun N Fun last month. Beautiful formations and aircraft. Glad everyone is ok and will all fly again.

Juan, isn’t the no. 4 usually in a step down position behind the lead no 1 to avoid engine exhaust and show smoke for improved visibility? My cousin Capt Howard Tarbet followed my Dad into the RCAF (I couldn’t ☹️) and he flew no. 7 with the Snowbirds in 1986/87. Far outboard position and difficult to fly. He had a teammate lose a wingtip tank with a wee bump with another teammate’s wingtip while flying cross country to their next show. No aircraft went down and all were able to land safely. The Snowbirds are a superb demonstration team with 9 aircraft in close, really close formation. Glad to hear all Ghost team members land safely. Pushing the envelope is what these demonstration pilots do and rarely accidents happen. The important th😅ng is to analyze what happen, and learn from it.

I don't need planes to fly this closed to make me happy. Stop.

I was there with my son and I accidentally yelled a profanity when I saw this. Don't think most others noticed the emergency formation breakaway so I looked like a psycho yelling the f bomb

They don’t need to pretend to be the Blue Angels or Thunderbirds, unless they’re willing to commit full-time to it the way they do. This is a perfect example of why.

you can use keyboard keys comma , and period . while a youtube video is paused to move one frame at a time back and forward, better than using space i think

Nice to see they didn't do anything more than that. Remember when those two jets touched during one of the heats at Reno a few years ago? That happened so fast, if you blinked you missed it. Thankfully nobody was hurt that time either.

At 25 seconds in I can only assume such a manuever was practiced and prepared for. All pilots knew which way to escape. Top airmanship.

Juan, you can step through the frames on RU-vid with the period and comma keys. Much better than clicking with the mouse.

Those guy's are some of the best! It goes to show you how quick things can happen! Nice recovery, very professional! Live and learn! Just glad no injuries or major damage!

Civilian pilots flying military jets equiped with ejection seats.That sounds familiar. It can't happen until it does happen. The accident at the Thunder Over Michigan accident should have put an end to this insanity. The credibility of the entire Airshow community in regards to vetting and hiring these acts is in question. Too many fatal accidents last year and now this situation which could have been a catastrophe.

Not hugely relevent, but surely the number 2 is on therightofthe formation and thr bnumber3 on the left? The inside(of a turn ) wingman sliding in towards the box ac is quite common and if he is also a bit low ( which makes it easier for him to see the leader), he can touch the boxman.

Tip: use the . and , keys (if you’re european) or < and > keys (if you’re american) on your keyboard to skip a youtube video frame by frame.

Good work Juan. Anyone else see it a strange coincidence Juan Guthmiller suddenly deleted his video of his dubious L39 formation full of poor airmanship flying head down whilst in close number two. Lose objects all over the cockpit yet the seats marked culminating with a run in and break at a civil airport aligned with the in correct runway the same day Juan posted this.

My wife was on a southwest flight the week before last and has video of what I understand is a canoe fairing wobbling in the airstream. This looks just like the part reported missing today from a United 737-800.

I have just spent ten minutes with Google and Bing trying to figure out what the heck the "Ghost Squadron" is. I can't tell which is more annoying - AI or private spaceflight ventures. Glad nobody died.

Disaster averted for sure. Great reactions by the pilots to get out of the formation and get clear. Thanks Juan!

In 2021 the Finnish Air Force air acrobatics team ”Midnight Hawks” were practicing when two Hawks touched wing-tips mid-air. Everyone landed safe and there were only slight scratches on the aircraft.

Good job, lot happened extremely fast. Glad they pullrd the right manuvers without really thinking about it . All too often that isn't the case as the damage is too servere. Seems No. 4 almost had the canopy up in the exhaust. Hard to tell but damn close to death. Fortunate to live to discuss it

Maybe they should take that out of the airshow.

Thank you FROG RAIL FANNING.

From what I saw, #2 hit the lead and not #4. #4 is set lower in the formation than #2 and #3. Usually in a diamond formation, when doing a topside pass infront of the crowd, 4 is shifted over a bit so when the diamond is seen from the top, it still looks symmetrical to the crowd.

Hi Juan just a tip for slow motion replay on RU-vid, the video can be ffw or rwd frame by frame using > or < on your keyboard after pausing the video with spacebar. Hope this helps. Thanks for sharing!

Nice coverage Juan!

Having seen it I figured the tip tank contacted the #1 elevator turning it up causing the #1 to nose up and out avoiding what could of ended up being worse if it contacted elsewhere.

Close quarters, Military flying maneuvers in civilian air show settings. What could possibly go wrong.

And that is why formation flying is such a PITA. And a good 'pucker factor' for pilots.

The guys flying these L-39s (and Alpha Jets and the MiG) are all very good friends. Some are former USAF, some are former USN, a couple have flown with the Thunderbirds, and one's already been up in space. Many have flown together in 2011-2012 as the Heavy Metal Jet Team, which became the Black Diamond Jet Team. They're absolute professionals and while I do text back and forth with a few of them on a semi-regular basis - and have done so since the date the video was shot - out of respect I have not asked about this, any investigation(s), or if they'll still be at Oshkosh, Atlantic City, or NAS Oceana later this year.

Glad they're all good. Have seen them a few times they put on a really good show

I love it when you get to report on good endings. Best Regards.

thanks

To close for missile ...and to close for the gun too!! I switch wing !

This was sooo close to being a tragic disaster!!! Thank God they all were able to excape safely with all landing safe!!! I bet that got their attention level maxed out!

thanks Juan, always the best videos❤

Superb situational awareness and spectacular avoidance skills! It'll be interesting if there's a report on details. Thank you, sir!

Great video - thanks!

Wow,that was indeed close. Amazing footage Juan.

Good thing these Albatrosses have the wingtip fuel tanks. And also are overbuilt as is known. Let them roar, little buggers!

JUAN! In RU-vid, you can press the comma (,) or period (.) keys to go backwards on forwards a single frame in the video, respectively. No need to rapidly, skilfully double-click the play button to advance a little bit in the video, possibly skipping frames or losing your place.

Juan always does a great job. Thx.

Cudos to all pilots, Their escape maneouver was excellent. I think they have a rule where either pilot can shout "Touch" and all will initiate their respective escape maneouver.

Just shows how much precision goes into flying these shows

Thank you, keep working.

Hope we can hear more details about this incident.

Tip: You can use the angle-bracket (comma and period) keys to scan frame-by-frame in youtube videos.

To change speed of playback using keyboard press Shift < to incrementally decrease speed and Shift > to increase playback speed.

If you look at 0:15 the right tip tank of the #2 jet clearly impacts the the lead jet (#1) elevator on the way up (#2 rolling left) as one or two frames later a change in the pitch of the lead jet can be seen looking at the lead jet's engine exhaust. The lead jet pitches up. The tip tank then contacts the lead jet a second time (#2 rolling right) going down and sustains the final damage. To me, either the lead jet pilot felt the first hit on the elevator /horizonal stab and pulled up or it deflected the stab tail end up resulting in the pitch up. At least from what I see. Cheers

I was at the Saturday show. Great performance!

Sent here from “What’s going on in shipping “. I’ve only heard the first 10 seconds about “narrowly avoiding disaster “ and it’s a great start

I got great photos of Saturday’s show, u could tell they were giving the mig plenty of space thru the routine “getting the rust knocked off”. I was very excited to see the Fulcrum fly. Who would’ve thunk MiG29 in a friendly sky.

Thank you Captain Jaun Brown

aaaaand - one more reason I'll never do aerobatics again or fly in formation. Those days are over. It was great fun while it lasted though!

Great video

I always have wondered the purpose of being so tight. Why risk lives for entertainment? Spread out a bit and its still an amazing spectacle.

I would love to have been a fly on the, uh, wall on the ramp after that one. Bet the air was blue.

I was not directly at the air show at Fairchild in 94 but out on the tractor mowing are field and was watching the B52 and was saying to myself that who is ever flying that B52 is going to get people killed because of his high bank turns he was doing and 5 minutes later all i saw was a fireball and smoke. I drove to the house to watch the news. And it was actually the wing commander who was a out of control reckless pilot with a record of unsafe actions as a pilot. He should have been grounded but they still let him fly. The Airforce didn't do their job and it cost the lives of his crew.

FYI You can jog RU-vid videos frame by frame on your PC by pressing the period or comma.

Good eye from Blancolirio. This should be good reminder of dangers of close formation flying. Who knows, they may try next the Kolvoord Starburst with five Dragons...

Thankfully no fatalities Juan ,safe flights mate,🙏🙏👋👏👏👍🇦🇺

Thunderbirds put on an uneventful show? I know what he means, but that's not the greatest choice of words. The Thunderbirds are always an incredible event, a spectacular show! They've been my favorite team since I was a lil bitty boy. (Props to the Snowbirds!) I don't mean to be critical so much as I wanna give a huge shout out to the mighty T-birds.

Trading paint... phew! That will fill the shorts. Glad it worked out

Should make for an interesting post show debrief. Would be good if Isaacman informs publicly what is going to be put in place to prevent a re-occurence. More training/more formation hours might be a good start plus more separation.

It’s OK, they are all wearing FLIGHT SUITS!

I OBSERVED THE ( # 2 received two strikes the ruder it looks damaged and the tip fuel tank ) VERY SCARRY SITUATION. SALUDOS AVIATOR

If you want actual frame by frame advance forward and backwards use the < or > keys

I saw them fly in Oshkosh, they put on a nice performance.

I was at the Airshow both Saturday and sunday ..Didn't see the incident but noticed they didn't finish their routine and that all the L-39s flew away separately. Funny enough when the T-birds did their demonstration at one point the #3 jet broke away from the diamond formation and took a little while to rejoin .

Not important, but Thumbnail image says "April" instead of "May" Very glad the pilots were skilled enough to handle the bump and come out alive. Best possible result: everyone ok.

The best air show stuff I've seen are solo. I've seen a GEE BEE do a show and a sail plane also. They were great. Also I saw a F15 come off the end of the runway in Everett WA Paine field when I was getting off work back in 93 when the gear was up it turned straight up and went out of sight. That was'nt a show. It was to me!!

I checked their website and saw very little about the Pilots and their Experience.

Good to hear that the pilots all landed safely.

Closer than close

Can't get any closer than that, to disaster 😲 Hats off to the pilots to recover from that tho

Thanks for posting this Juan. That was close

Juan, do you think more of these types of close calls and accidents are happening than before? Or are we simply being exposed to them more often with social media and video cameras everywhere? I’m happy that this one was just close call and everyone got home safe.

I've spent a season doing this type of display flying. It appears to me, although it is difficult to be sure with parallax, that there is probably no initial contact between #2&#4. The L39's horizontal stab is above the wing line, so that if aircraft are reasonably 'in plane' #4's eye position would be above #2's right tip to have #4 left wing tiptank to #2 right stab contact. Of course, we can't be sure, but it may be that #2 gets a bit shallow [vertical reference] and gets caught by #1's wingtip vortex causing an uncontrollable roll to the left with subsequent contact. This would be in #4's direct line of sight, who by commencing a controlled bugout to the right which causes his/her's left tiptank to enter Lead's efflux. Hopefully we'll find out - thanks Juan!

A definite Flight-Suit-Stainer, that one!

✈️ JUAN BROWN ✈️

A jet driver's diamond formation understatement of the day..' 2, you're a little too close'...high consequences, indeed..

Hi Blan, you can use the period and comma keys to go frame by frame in a RU-vid video.

#2 should be more forward

Looks like the lead aircraft slowed down unexpectedly causing the two trailing aircraft to scrunch up into him.

To me, it looked like the number 1 lead jet was slowing down for some reason which the right plane sees and the rear plane did not see. Then the right plane (reading the revits) started slowing and then the two planes bumped as the lead continued to slow and bumped the right. But that's all what I see from the angle. Anyway just a thought.

On youtube, the comma key (to the right of m) and the full stop key (to the right of the comma key) can be used to go backward and forward by single frames, no need to try to catch the exact frame using pause-unpause using a mouse.

Snivilians pulled it off‼️ Amazing‼️

I recall Louis Whitnell in "Engines Over London" relating how a squadron from another airfield joined their Hurricane formation. They got very close, and in the moment of tension their leader, in a laconic voice, comes over the R/T: "Touch me and you have to marry me..."

As a result of 4 hitting 2 the wingtip tank of 2 then hits the tailplane of the Lead which is why the lead pulls up suddenly too. 4 is to blame here but super scary all the same.

Thank you! Hopefully we do see something about this. Always learn good stuff from your presentations.

a bit of a "fender bender" I am surprise the tank bent up that much.

Great job pilots for getting the birds down safely.