ATLANTA,None — Tommy Lee Maddox of Kennesaw had never seen anything like it before and hopes to never experience anything like the Reno air crash again.
Maddox said Saturday he and a friend were only about 50 yards away when pilot Jimmy Leeward's P-51 Mustang fighter plane suddenly spiraled out of control and plowed "full throttle" into a Nevada airfield Friday.
"I've never seen a plane crash. I've never seen people die," Maddox told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution as he tried to make arrangements to get back to Georgia.
The accident at the National Championship Air Races killed three people and injured more than 50 spectators. Among the dead was Leeward, of Ocala, Fla., a veteran airman and movie stunt pilot who named his plane the "Galloping Ghost."
Authorities were investigating the cause, but an official with the event said there were indications that mechanical problems were to blame.
Maddox, who flies a Cessna 172, had arrived in Reno on Thursday on a commercial flight from Atlanta to observe his first air race, a trip he had planned for several months.
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