T6 Crash NTSB Report and Animation 

I was 1/2 mile north and heard the initial impact and saw both planes hit the ground. Something I will never forget. Rest in peace both pilots. 40 years of racing ends in bad situational awareness. Good life lesson.

I think there are two schools of thought regarding callouts and separation : Some people may think that the standard calls are enough for spacing, while I’m in the camp that standard calls only aid in locating the other aircraft visually then that becomes the spacing. If I’m calling downwind and someone behind me is calling crosswind, I’m expecting them to visually locate me because they are behind me, not simply determine that we are in different parts of the pattern and good enough. If everybody idents the aircraft in front of you then visual separation works fine. If I'm in a pattern and can't find the person in front of me, that means they aren't where they claim to be or I can't see them, so I'll start asking questions, and if I don't get good answers, I'll turn 90* away from the pattern and announce leaving the pattern to the at .

You got it. We were standing right behind you when this happened. I had eyes on both planes 5-10 second before the collision.

Nice visualization. Trying to make sense of a catastrophic event is never just one thing. Human nature being in play and the fact everyone has different training even in the same flight characteristic. Loss of life for the two pilots is devastating, and not taking any on the ground is a god send. Keeping alert from start up to wheels down is just so important. Thank you for your work in trying to show just what may have happened.

Great work and commentary Brian. I was at the cul de sac not far behind you and got photos of the initial impact and afterwards. I turned them in to the NTSB. My first photo is at the same time as the one you showed but from our point of view. My prayers go out for the families of both pilots. It was a sad day.

Thank you. This really helped me understand in three dimensions what may have happened in this crash. Very well done, and I bet Juan will be impressed, too😉

Chilling animation, thank you for sharing. My initial reaction to hearing the crash audio was the lack of uniform spacing between aircraft and the imprecise nature of the callouts. Only 50 clearly indicates he has the aircraft in front in view and is following in line, perhaps because he is aware of the close separation (based on the short time between 88s call and 50s call for downwind). If the pilots in the air don't have traffic in sight and there's no ground control monitoring position (I'm thinking of Oshkosh landing control), how can you assure positive spacing and speed? See and avoid only works when you first see the traffic, there has to be either positive control from the ground or a bailout option to escape the pattern if you can't see the plane ahead.

Thanks so much for all the hard work you put in to help the rest of us understand. We all really appreciate it!

Right on! Great work with the visualisation software. I feel your speculation on individual circuit variation is on the mark. You are a great storyteller with good descriptive skill. Adding visuals is just icing on the cake to complete the picture, as it were. Thanks, Brian

Thank you for your hard work in visualising and constructing that animation. We found it very helpful in giving us some understanding of how such a thing can happen to experienced pilots. It is a warning to us all.

We were on Lemmon Drive parked at the transformer right at the airport gate. The second animation is closest to what we witnessed.

I like how the animation allows, that if one of them had been 15 ft higher, it would have just been a close call.

Nicely done visualizations. Thanks for the way you compile the evidence and reports and make it understandable and not to technical. You are very good at accident investigation. Thanks for the update.

Great visualization, Brian... it definitely helped me make sense of what might have happened. I was at the far west end of the pit area and the impact itself was blocked by a hangar... I only saw a brief erratic flash of Baron's Revenge above the hangar after the collision.

Someone on another thread gave me a hint that pressure is on finished racers to get on the ground so race control can start the next race. Don't know if that pressure was self-imposed or by race control but the absence of any cool down with everyone randomly entering a "downwind" seems as though they wanted to expedite getting the gaggle on the ground. The garbled transmissions we hear in your recordings might actually be race control giving landing clearance. I found this online for the sport class: "There are also specific radio calls to be made by each pilot during recovery. These radio calls are: • “Sport XX, Leaving Cool Down” (at the Cool Down exit point and beginning descent to the pattern) • “Sport XX, Downwind Abeam” (on downwind, abeam the Race Control tower for 8 or 26, or midfield downwind for any other runway) • “Sport XX, Base - Gear” (on the base turn) Timing of these calls may need to be adjusted slightly for pattern calls by other racers during the recovery. Use professional comm discipline and comm brevity. When Race Control has control of the airport, during the PRS or NCAR waiver period, each aircraft will be given an interval for landing advisory call by race control. Each aircraft will be cleared to land by Race Control when the pilot makes the “Sport XX, Base-Gear” call. However, clearance to land during a PRS or NCAR recovery is assumed, meaning this landing clearance is not mandatory, and does not require a reply. Reply is at the pilot’s discretion, and pilots should land, whether the clearance is received or not (unless a safety hazard exits that requires a go-around)". There is a diagram in that document that shows a consistent cool down circuit and would have everyone exiting in a consistent location. What the heck was everyone doing in the tower?

Love and appreciate these reports. Keep them up

Love the visualisations. This look to me like pilots that were communicating with the tower, but were not situation aware, now were talking to the other pilots. Dan Grinder has a video about lack of talking to other aircraft. We, as pilots, not only need to know who is around us, but also what they are doing / going to do.

GREAT animation! I was near the finish line during this race and didn’t see the post race collision. I had a pit pass and saw the sad sights in the pits after this incident, blue skies to both aviators.

Great video, with the animations. The only thing I would be critical on, is the location of the base leg of the pattern. The planes were on base that day farther to the west more over the houses. That, Sunday was a long day. I was at my brother's house (last house on Coyote Run Court) watching the racing, but the race had finished so wasn't really paying attention. Heard a loud initial bang looked up to see Barons Revenge in a steep left bank (tail section separating from fuselage) and Six Cat's prop impacting and appearing to sever the tail section on Baron's Revenge. Six Cat immediately made a hard right into a barrel roll over my brother's house and impacted while inverted near vertical 250 yards behind the house. The neighbors behind my brother on White Owl Drive had been up on their roof watching the races and had debris land in their yard. Barons Revenge went down behind the trees so I couldn't tell at the time if it hit any of the houses on Osage or not. Baron's Revenge's tail was recovered from the backyard area of the houses on Osage between Coyote Run Court and White Owl Drive. It appeared Six Cat had "all four corners of the aircraft" and the engine was "turn-in and burn-in" as it went over my brother's house upside down. I'm wondering if Nick had been in-capacitated by the impact from the tail section that separated from Baron's Revenge. The still photographs of Six Cat's wreckage show my brothers house and shop in the background. Sad to see the races end this way.

Nice work! Thanks for posting this.

Excellent visuals..... really gives the big picture on what happened

I was standing right next to you when they crashed and I was watching them as they hit each other. I think you did a great job in this video. I would add one thing that I observed immediately after the accident. I looked at the angle that I saw Six Cat as he collided and notice that his attitude of flight would have put the sun right in front of him. I am guessing the sun made it so that Six Cat couldn't see the lead plane and since the radio call was quite a bit earlier, I bet he assumed he was much further ahead of where he was in the pattern.

This is very interesting. Thanks for doing this. It really helps.

Very impressive work. And very sobering.

Awesome work... I was there with you when it happened... on line... Keep at it! Cheers from Normandy.

Well done and helpful, thank you.

Very well done. Thank you.

Simply Brilliant Brian!

Awesome video, loved the animation. THANK YOU for sharing. CYQT 👍👍

Well done! A valuable tool no doubt about it.

Interesting analysis. It seems inexplicable that there wasn't a defined recovery pattern procedure in terms of ground track, altitude, and speed.

Great job with the graphics and narration.

Thanks Brian👍🏻

Brian. Very nicely done. We were in the culdesac with you when the accident happened. Appreciate your thoroughness on this. I handed you the cold bottle of water while you were doing your live stream.

That was good, thanks for sharing.

Well done sir 👏

We were in the main seating stadium, front row seats almost directly across from the checkered flag pylon. When the first T-6 birds crossed the finish line and immediately pitched up for altitude cool-down, we decided to depart the stadium and walk down to the STOL DRAG pits. My scanner headphone was hanging down, but when we arrived at the pits, I stuck it back in my ear. I heard two references to a “crash” on two different channels (not on the race channel) but I really didn’t understand the context.

It's obvious from timing of the real-time audio that at least the first five aircraft went straight into the pattern to land following completion of the race. We'll probably never know, but perhaps Chris (Barron's Revenge), finishing 1st with a good lead over the rest, intentionally flew a wider than normal circuit/pattern to afford more spacing so he could go straight into the circuit/pattern and land after the last aircraft crossed the finish line (and also to gain a good visual reference on the other aircraft before descending). Your animation illustrates just how much time can be made up by simply flying a tighter pattern (estimate 10-15 seconds by Six Cat in this case). While i wont place blame on any single individual, i believe it's important to grasp the purpose of those radio calls (downwind abeam, base/gear) is so that other aircraft in the circuit/pattern know where to look to visually acquire you, particularly aircraft in front of you; that responsibility lies with everyone in the circuit/pattern. Thank you for the animation, i believe it's a fairly accurate (and logical) representation of patterns actually flown, and you did a great job illustrating how a varied pattern versus a fixed pattern (ground-track) can cause a conflict.. My condolences to both families, sad day in air racing history, and may Chris and Nick both rest in peace.

Very interesting, and well written.

Excellent video! This is the first of your videos I have ever seen and I just now subscribed to your channel as a result. As a pilot and flight simulation enthusiast I am very curious to know what software you used to create the animations? Sorry if this is a topic you have already covered in a previous video! If so, point me to the right video... :)

Very well done.

It looks very similar to the B-17 accident at the airshow in Texas. He hit him in the tail while obviously not seeing him. Tower guidance might have averted this, even without radar, by allowing only one plane on each leg at a time. There should be no rush to land in the cool-down.

Thank you

a very decent first effort. keep fine tuning your work.

Very good visuals. I agree that see and avoid does not work, which is why I always take flight following. Sometimes I will get ATC telling me there's traffic but for the life of me I will not be able to see it. Same with ADS-B traffic showing up on my screen.

Thanks for your videos, they answered a lot of questions about how this terrible tragedy happened. One thing you touched on that seems strange is why was there really no cool down? It seemed like these guys were in a hurry to get down. We were on the boundary rail in front of the T6 pits. From engine start up to taxiing to last chance, waiting for the A-10 demonstration to end seemed to take 20-30 minutes. I’m not sure how much fuel they are carrying for the race but is it possible they could have been running low after sitting running for so long?

That photo of the crash is chilling. RIP.

The visualizations were great but here in the US I wish we could standardize with the use of miles ( 1 mile left base, 2 mile final, etc.) instead of meters and call the pattern a pattern instead of circuit. To me this accident was an example of everybody doing something different and/or just whatever they wanted. I bet they have a tower controller giving instructions at the next race.

Great work.. I agree with what 50 stated “downwind behind 88” they would both know where each other was… 6 should have followed 14 or gone high for a cool down which it appeared no one shown here did after the completion of the race. It looks like 6 went wider on downwind after completing the race and 14 made a sharper turn after and since trailing 6 caught up and lost sight of him. These two pilots knew each other very well and perhaps 6 did something different this time. 14 never inquired where 6 was on base either but I’m sure both heard they were on base which is a little confusing because 14 was for sure but 6 flew into the side of 14 so he wasn’t on base yet by the video..

One thing to note, the reno recovery is not a standard pattern. They fly a sort of circling break approach like a military approach, the abeam call is referencing the numbers if I recall correctly.

I was in the Valley of Speed in the lot adjacent to the lot, where 14 crashed. I'm a professional videographer and I have the entire midair on video. I gave the footage to the lead NTSB investigator Monday morning at Stead.

What program did you use to make the animation? Awesome job!

I like it

Nice job, and I'm glad you went through the effort to simulate this. I have a theory related to the Wings over Dallas collision (December 2022) between the P63 and the B17. I believe that, had the B17 not been in the way of the P63 that was accelerating, turning, and descending, the P63 would have contacted the ground and tumbled into the crowd. If the inertia of the P63 would indeed have resulted in that tragedy, andargument can be made that the B17 saved the lives of spectators, even at the cost of their own, and unknowlingly. It would be interesting if you were able to simulate that collision as well.

So in my five decades of competing in professional motorsports, it always seems to be the cool down lap where the competitor breaks concentration in the adrenaline of the eventhat's when most of the gear gets torn up after the checker flag

I thought the pilots were not to lose sight of the plane in front of them and were to land in the same order that they finished the race.

Here in Australia the T6 is not considered suitable for air races due to its slow speed and sluggish reaction to control surfaces. Racing them was banned 40 years ago. It was a trainer when new, not a warbird, and not a very good one either. Lots of students died due to its need for 10,000 feet to recover from a stall. Thats even in the flight manual.

I Don't understand how none of this would be covered by the pre brief and agreed pattern.. why would anybody taking a shorter inside track, makes no sense And with this amount of planes, they could have agreed seperate altitudes for the pattern.. like 100 foot seperation each

Where were the other T-6s flying their downwind?

You in Boulder?

I'm surprised that no one has mentioned that there's going to be a 2024 Reno Air Races. Any updates on that?

rlly nice report about it"!!! and keep makin vids using flight simulator to get us that perspective

Great commentary, Brian! Only thing I disagree with is your comment that "see and avoid just doesn't work". It works pretty well if everyone flying takes it seriously. Especially if they don't get overly enamored with their cockpit gadgets that keep their heads and eyes more on their instrument panels than outside the cockpit. Having a basic setup in my RV-4 I have no reason to spend hardly any time looking inside the cockpit.

I wonder if the pilot of six cat had a medical issue. Because there's no way he could have missed seeing the other airplane.

Just found out the other day that my neighbor had been friends with Nick Macy for years. Such a tragedy.

There must be a standard pattern to follow ...did someone go off pattern

They completely disregarded any and all safety procedures. It seems that this, and the Dallas, Texas disaster has to happen to wake up the pilots still flying. But somehow, the carelessness will continue on.

Second major air boss failure in a year. There should have been very clear instructions on where the planes were to fly to return from the race.

So you’re Canadian, eh? Was hoping you’d slip up and call the T6 a Harvard 😉 🇨🇦 Greetings from the Toronto area.

I think your MOST telling bit of video was from 8:50 to 9:10, and I think you may have swerved into the problem, perhaps unwittingly. I believe your ground tracks are probably accurate. I have around 750 hours flying T-6/SNJs, and a thing you may not realize it that, with experience in ANY airplane, you, as the pilot, find it less and less necessary to fly your pattern over the same distances from the runway....that is to say, when you are first getting comfortable with a type of ship, you TRY to fly each pattern consistently in terms of distance from the runway and touchdown point as you become familiar with your airplane. But after a few hundred hours in a type, you become very comfortable approaching the runway from just about ANY direction, with your before landing routines being so comfortable to you that a "disciplined" pattern isn't really a necessity for you like it is in the beginning. What you show in the aforementioned 20 seconds of simulation is something that is deadly in just about ANY scenario, and that is the concept of "constant bearing, decreasing range," which absolutely IS the formula for a collision. Even the most experienced pilots will only "notice" APPARENT motion in their peripheral vision, and two airplanes approaching on a "constant bearing" have NO apparent motion to each other. Here we have two HIGHLY experienced aviators, fully expecting each other to be watching out for all of the others, so, I suspect that element of faith in the other pilots caused a somewhat lax "lookout doctrine" in each cockpit in that pattern. And, here, we have a bunch of guys coming out of a high-intensity period, and there was probably a few of them that were still taking a few deep breaths to "come down" off of that adrenalin overload...NO ONE would expect this or be really watching out for it. Adrenalin also gives you a kind of "tunnel-vision" to the tasks required to stay in the game, and, I believe, it's quite likely that these guys still had some of that working against them. They were approaching each other on the "constant bearing," so, with all of the ground clutter visible in that, as you point out, 300' AGL pattern, even with an airplane as big as a T-6, it would actually still be pretty easy to miss seeing it until you were RIGHT ON TOP OF IT. And, by that point, obviously it would be too late to do anything about it. AND we have NO IDEA what was going on in each one of those cockpits....flying low and fast doesn't give you a lot of time to analyze your instruments, and one of these guys could have been looking at some "abnormal" engine perimeter or, something else you do in a T-6 is you look through small windows in the upper surfaces of your inboard wing to verify that each main gear is locked in place...EITHER ONE of the "accident pilots" could have seen something that appeared unusual to them, and that very easily could have drawn their attention away from the developing conflict between the two airplanes. It seems like THE LEAST LIKELY MOMENT for an accident like this, but THAT is EXACTLY WHY these things happen, because we let our guar down for a CRUCIAL few seconds. Just ALWAYS remember...there, but by The Grace of God, go you or I. NEVER NEVER NEVER let yourself fall into the TRAP of thinking "THIS COULD NEVER HAPPEN TO ME." Because it CAN. Godspeed our lost friends.

The aircraft that crashed into the lead plane was flying westward...yes? Where was the sun at that time and did it play a part in making the midair happen? Of course with people flying different paths one being wide with the other cutting off the corner so to speak....a collision for sure was possible. One would think that they would have been flying a more disciplined pattern...but I guess it's too late now.

Race Control could have and should have resolved this when Race 6 called downwind abeam. I worked in Race Control for 10 years. No excuses…

I still blame the air boss sorry i was there as well

I was prob .5 miles to 1 mile in front of the wreck I was in front of the runway on the outside of the fence and walked watched the collision and them crash and walked to the wreck and got pictures and my parents were guiding traffic and fire trucks and police cars

Key fact everyone is ignoring is the cuty if Reno allowing residential building to closely encroach on the air field. Go outside the ever tightening borders and get harshly fined by the FAA for it. After the T 6 crash into a house years ago the city should have stopped allowing any new housing there. Instead, they increased it and booted the races out to help the developers. This crash shows just how wrong they are.

Brian, the Jet pattern is tight and not wider at all at RENO . Our downwind bisects 14/32 right in the middle using both 8 or 26. Being predictable is key to the race recovery pattern working. Our pattern is tight. Wide is unsafe as you can imagine. All our downwinds should be the same so everyone should be able to find the other planes in the pattern. We also clear by radio secondary p. Visual is primary as in all traffic patterns. One thing you are missing is the tower’s participation. As we sequence ourself and clear our self’s for landing, we use the tower as a back up…and that failed us this year. Still looking into that perspective. You have a Langley tower controller in Delta BC. who worked in the Reno tower the last 7 years but due to her and the tower manager not seeing eye to eye, she has not volunteered to work Race control this year. She was the absolute best and we all thought that. Most pilots believe she could have prevented the towers failure in this case as here perspective of the patterns and understanding of the flow made here the best controllers there. Secondary note. Please rise above the “white Lilly guy😅” blanco conclusions are marginal at best and his conclusions are not accurate in many of the presentations. He jumps the gun and in a case I am close to, he totally missed it and I cannot comment on possible outcomes. I do not want to see you falling into his camp. There are other issues but I do not have up to date info and will not comment on them as they do not involve any operation I am part of. Cheers and very nice presentation. More facts are being uncovered daily as you can imaging. -Jets-

NO ADS-B in racing!!!!!!!!!

Unreal that the pilots didn’t communicate with each other

boys and toys

As a non aviator I am still baffeled as how pilots with that many hours could make such a mistake without any outside intervention, be it electronic or human. Something needs to change in this day and age

If we would have said “wide abeam” it would have clued in #2 to look right. Remember these guys are tired from the race.

Should have never happened with 2 experienced aviators. They just didn't communicate with each other. Position reports are not communicating.

From what I’ve seen over the years, Reno Air Races was a dangerous mix of pushing limits (personal, engineering, airmanship, regulation etc) to win. It was never worth a single human life. Oshkosh gives a similar vibe.

Hey let’s copy the Dallas air show. LoL

When a race ends,each pilot should keep the plane in front of him in sight at all times all the way for landing,this never would have happened..in 4 words,more money than brains..

TOP GUN WAS SO UNREALISTIC, EVERYONE KNOWS TOM CRUISE CANT REACH THE CLUTCH ON A MOTORCYCLE

Too much talking.

what a downgrade

It was Trumps fault.

Maybe after RARA finds a new location (because of too many deaths at the event), we can have a pool to buy/lay any given pilot living/dying in the race? Now, before everyone reflexively responds "that's sick! you should be ashamed of yourself", keep in mind the families of these racers (or people on the ground) could participate in the betting pool which would offset the burial costs and lost income these men provided. Actually, come to think of it, there's obviously a _diversity_ angle to this, how come all the deaths have been white men? Maybe we need to have compensatory measures in place to even out the tragedies so that all races/genders suffer equally? Why not? Leave your response in the comments below. Smash that like button!

What a waste of time and video. If someone has a video of it, show it. Stop this partial explanation crap. As a former flight instructor there’s a lot to be shared from instructor to student! Pattern work is important and this can be a great learning tool for a new student. Prayers for the families.

skwappo!!! classic case of more money than ability.