The fatal crash that killed two racing pilots in Reno last weekend is confounding aviation experts.
The first and second-place winning pilots, both Californians, crashed Sunday at the National Air Race Championships, possibly because of an aircraft blind spot, glare from the sun or even a brief moment of lost focus, experts said.
Both pilots made brief radio transmissions just before colliding, so a health episode seems unlikely. Telling described the victims, Chris Rushing of Thousand Oaks and Nick Macy of Tulelake, as skilled, expert pilots. Rushing was the defending champion in the race he won Sunday. Macy, the runner-up, had won six times.
After racing at high speeds, a few feet from each other and 50 feet off the ground, it’s a place pilots circle more than 2,000 feet above. That’s to allow their planes to slow and cool while their own adrenaline lowers before descending to about 1,000 feet on a looping, landing approach.
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