It was the perfect Sunday afternoon. Great weather, great time to be with family, and watching airplanes fly in the perfectly blue sky, why not. Until something went totally wrong. And what was supposed to be the greatest weekend getaway, became an atrocious day, with one fatality and many injured.
The pilot, Ladislao Tejedor Romero, 35, an experienced jet pilot and assistant to Defense Minister Pedro Morenes, died of his injuries in the burns unit of Getafe hospital.
A young woman who suffered first and second degree burns was taken to a local hospital, as was a 57-year-old man who suffered an anxiety attack. Another rescue worker suffered from smoke inhalation and received aid at the scene.
Around 3000 people gathered in Cuatro Vientos airfield to watch a showcase of aerial acrobatics and vintage aircraft when a plane, one of the first jet-propelled planes to be manufactured in Spain, crashed, sending a fireball and thick black smoke into the air.
The plane, a HA-200 Saeta, was built in the 1950s as an advanced jet trainer by Hispano Aviacion, ministry spokesman Alfredo Florenza said. It was later given an attack capability.
Florenza said the cause of the crash was not known.
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