Good, Bad, and Ugly

Nevada wreckage yields memory cards, possibly from downed plane

They also said they had found no indication yet that the pilot of the plane sent out a distress call before his sleek silver jet plunged nose-down into the tarmac at the Reno Air Races on Friday, killing nine people.

Pilot Jimmy Leeward, a 74-year-old real estate developer well known in air racing circles, was at the controls of “The Galloping Ghost” fighter jet when it slammed into a box seat area in front of the grandstand.

Leeward had said in a June video that his crew cut 10 feet off his plane’s length and made other modifications to improve its aerodynamic abilities and reach speeds of 500 miles per hour.

The current version of the story repeatedly calls the P-51 a “jet”, when it’s clearly a propeller driven fighter plane.

The story also mentions modifications having cut nearly “10 feet from the airplane’s length”, which is also incorrect. The 10 feet was removed from the aircraft’s wingspan, 5 feet off each wing, thus it’s “width” was narrowed by nearly 10 feet.

Mike A.

This article, taken from Yahoo Monday morning, twice describes the plane that crashed as a “jet.”

It is not. Rather, it is a propeller-driven aircraft, just like all American aircraft of the WWII era.

P.K.

A number of readers noticed our reference to the P-51 as a “jet” in several stories.

We corrected those, as well as the information about the plane’s length: GBU Editor

Visitors look at P-51 Mustangs sitting on the tarmac at Rickenbacker International Airport at The Gathering of Mustangs and Legends in Columbus, Ohio, September 27, 2007. REUTERS/Matt Sullivan

Join the Good, Bad, Ugly Facebook Blog Network