BOISE, IDAHO – All four crew members escaped safely after two Navy planes collided and crashed Sunday during an air show at Mountain Home Air Force Base in western Idaho, officials said.
The commander said the collision involved two US Navy EA18-G Growlers from the 129th Electronic Attack Squadron on Whidbey Island, Washington. Amelia Omayam, spokeswoman for Naval Air Forces, U.S. Pacific Fleet.
Amiam said in a statement that the plane was conducting an air show when the accident occurred. She added that the four crew members from the two planes exited safely and are being evaluated by the medical staff. She added that the incident is under investigation.
No one at the military base was hurt, said Kim Sykes, marketing director for Silver Wings of Idaho, which helped plan the air show.
“Everyone is safe and I think that’s the most important thing,” Sykes said.
The base said in a post on social media that it was closed after the incident.
Videos posted online by onlookers showed four parachutes opening in the sky as the plane touched down on the ground near the base about 50 miles (80 kilometers) south of Boise.
Shane Ogden said he was photographing the two planes as they approached each other. His video shows the two planes touching and then rotating side by side as the crew members eject and their parachutes deploy. The planes then fall together, exploding in a fireball on impact while the crew members fall to the ground nearby.
“I was just filming thinking they were going to break up, which is what happened and I filmed the rest,” Ogden said in a text message. He said he left shortly after the accident because he did not want to get in the way of emergency responders.
Organizers said the popular air show, which includes flying displays and skydiving, is a celebration of aviation history and a look at modern military capabilities. The USAF Thunderbirds Demonstration Squadron headlined the show on both days.
The National Weather Service reported good visibility and wind gusts of up to 29 mph (47 km/h) at the time of the accident.
This year’s Gunfighter Skies event was the first at the base since 2018, when a hang glider died in a crash during an air show.
In 2003, a Thunderbirds plane crashed while attempting a maneuver. The pilot, who was not injured, was able to direct the plane away from the crowd and eject less than a second before it hit the ground.
The air show industry has been working to improve safety for years at the nearly 200 events held each year in the United States
The last fatal accident at an air show came in 2022 when two vintage military planes collided at an event in Dallas, killing six people.
There was an average of about two deaths a year at a U.S. air show, said John Cudahy, president and CEO of the International Air Show Council. But he added that over the past decade, the average has been closer to one death per year. There were no deaths at air shows in 2025 or 2024, and no spectator has been killed at an air show since 1952.
“On the safety side, we’ve really enjoyed an unprecedented period of very few incidents,” Cudahy said.
Investigators may be able to quickly get an idea of what happened in Sunday’s crash because the crews of both planes survived and will be able to tell investigators what they saw and experienced before the collision.
The Iran war led to the cancellation of about 10 air shows this year at bases where military units carry out air missions related to the conflict. But most air shows were able to go ahead as planned.
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