Nancy Lynn, Stunt pilot, 50 (plane crash)
deb...@comcast.net
By DONNIE JOHNSTON Free Lance Star (VA)
Date published: 10/16/2006
The pilot of a stunt plane that crashed during an air show at Culpeper
Regional Airport Saturday has died.
Nancy Lynn died yesterday morning at the University of Virginia
Hospital, according to hospital spokeswoman Mary Jane Gore.
Lynn, 50, of Annapolis, Md., was burned over much of her body after her
German-made Extra 300-L single-engine plane crashed when it failed to
complete a snap roll maneuver.
After the left wing hit the ground and the tip broke off, the left
wheel apparently hit at an angle, causing the aircraft to skid and roll
about 200 yards down the runway. It burst into flames as it came to
rest upside down.
Lynn, a nationally known aerobatic instructor and motivational speaker,
had to be cut from the two-seater plane after Culpeper County
Administrator Frank Bossio, himself a retired Navy fighter pilot,
flipped the burning fuselage with his bare hands.
Bossio is recovering from burns on both hands.
Lynn's 18-year-old son, Pete, was the public address announcer during
his mother's final flight and tragic crash.
Taking the microphone as Nancy Lynn was being loaded into a helicopter
to be taken to U.Va., her son was optimistic about his mother's
condition and asked the Culpeper Airfest crowd to pray for her.
The Lynns operated Lynn Aviation. Nancy, who had appeared on CBS Sunday
Morning, was considered one of the country's top female stunt pilots.
"Nancy has spent years intentionally pushing the envelope--both
physically and aerodynamically--to achieve perfection of the most
stunningly difficult aerobatic maneuvers in the realm of competition
and air show flying," her site says.
She had been a business executive but turned her attention to being a
stunt pilot after her husband died several years ago of brain cancer.
Some of her stunts were so difficult that they were termed "unlimited
aerobatics."
Lynn also gave motivational speeches to business executives, school
children and pilots, according to her Web site.
The fuselage of Lynn's plane was taken to a vacant Culpeper Regional
Airport hangar late Saturday afternoon where it is being examined by
investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board.
No official cause has yet been determined for the fatal crash.
deb...@comcast.net
Brian
>Stunt-plane pilot dies from injuries sustained in crash
>By DONNIE JOHNSTON Free Lance Star (VA)
>
>
>Date published: 10/16/2006
>
>
>
>The pilot of a stunt plane that crashed during an air show at Culpeper
>Regional Airport Saturday has died.
>
>Nancy Lynn died yesterday morning at the University of Virginia
>Hospital, according to hospital spokeswoman Mary Jane Gore.
>
>Lynn, 50, of Annapolis, Md., was burned over much of her body after her
>German-made Extra 300-L single-engine plane crashed when it failed to
>complete a snap roll maneuver.
Here's a little more. I feel sorry for the son.
Stunt pilot dies at Va. air show
Maryland aviator Nancy Lynn was no stranger to air tragedies during
her lifetime
By Nicole Fuller
sun reporter
Originally published October 16, 2006
In past years, aerobatic flyer Nancy A. Lynn had wanted to perform at
the Culpeper Air Fest in Virginia the loops, rolls and spins she had
so perfected. But one year, she was thwarted by mechanical problems,
and in another it was inclement weather that kept Lynn at her
Annapolis-area home.
On Saturday, sometime after performers from the Bealeton Flying Circus
walked along the wings of a plane in midair, she made her debut at the
Air Fest, as a crowd of about 3,000 watched. Lynn's teenage son Peter
Scott Muntean was there at a microphone, her show's announcer.
They witnessed a tragedy.
In her German-built Extra 300 L Standard, Lynn began a classic
aerobatic trick - the snap roll, a series of rapid, horizontal spins.
But suddenly her plane crashed, then skidded and erupted in flames
about 1 p.m. on a grassy area of the north side of the Culpeper
Regional Airport's runway, officials said.
Lynn was flown by helicopter to the University of Virginia Medical
Center in Richmond, where she died about 11:45 p.m., said Sgt. F.L.
Tyler of the Virginia State Police.
Spectators, including Culpeper County Administrator Frank T. Bossio,
rushed to the burning aircraft in a rescue attempt.
"I just looked back over my left shoulder and I saw the aircraft just
coming down," Bossio said. "The wing tip caught the ground, tipped
over and caught on fire. I ran over there and the airplane was on
fire. ... I just began ripping pieces off the airplane. Some other
folks came with fire extinguishers."
Bossio was treated at an area hospital for second-degree burns to his
hands. Yesterday, he said he could only think of Lynn's son, who
calmed the crowd after the crash.
"He told the crowd, 'OK, we had an incident, calm down,'" Bossio said.
"If you can imagine ... watching your mother crash in an airplane. He
showed wisdom, maturity and courage well beyond his years."
The state medical examiner in Richmond will perform an autopsy. The
National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the cause of the
crash, Tyler said.
It was not the first crash in Lynn's family, nor the only tragedy.
In August 2000, Lynn's husband and fellow pilot, Scott E. Muntean,
died of brain cancer.
It was on an airplane flight to Baltimore from Utah in 1979 that the
two first met. They married in 1983, and together they owned Lynn
Aviation at the Bay Bridge Airport on Kent Island, where they taught
new pilots.
Scott Muntean lost his left eye in a plane crash in a cornfield in
Queenstown in 1993, while practicing loops. He went back to flying six
weeks later.
After her husband's death, Lynn kept the business going, teaching
scores of pilots the tricks she had mastered.
In October 2003, her business partner, Mark D. Damisch, 37, of
Arlington, Va., died in a plane crash over a soybean field on the
Eastern Shore.
Before her flying career, Lynn, a native of Dayton, Ohio, worked as a
manager for Procter & Gamble Inc. In 1997, she won second place in the
International Aerobatics Club's East Coast advanced division.
In 1988, her Web site says, she discovered aerobatic flight while
studying for her pilot's license. "One spin and her entire life turned
'upside down,'" reads a brief biography on the Web site. "She has been
passionate about the aerial ballet ever since. After a year of taking
aerobatic instruction, she cashed in her Procter & Gamble profit
sharing to buy a Pitts S2B aerobatic biplane. Her aerobatic career was
launched!"
In a 1998 article in The Sun, Lynn took a reporter on a flight,
soaring 2,000 feet over the Bay Bridge. She maneuvered the plane in
dips and swoops - then it surged upward at a 45-degree angle. She
nudged a stick to her left and the plane flipped upside down.
"Why do I like doing this?" she asked. "Because I like to see the
earth from a different perspective."
TheThunderChild
afterwards she was very friendly with her fans, signing autographs and
spending alot of time talking with them.
She was so tiny...not much over 5 feet, if even that, but she sure was
a good pilot. And she was doing what she loved.
This is shocking news, and very sad. RIP, Nancy.