All four crew members ejected safely after two U.S. Navy jets collided and crashed on Sunday during an air show at Mountain Home Air Force Base in western Idaho, officials confirmed.
Incident Details
The collision involved two EA-18G Growlers from the Electronic Attack Squadron 129 based in Whidbey Island, Washington, according to Cmdr. Amelia Umayam, spokesperson for Naval Air Forces, U.S. Pacific Fleet. The aircraft were performing an aerial demonstration when the crash occurred. All four crew members ejected safely and are in stable condition. No injuries were reported on the ground at the military base, said Kim Sykes, marketing director with Silver Wings of Idaho, which helped organize the event.
“Everyone is safe and I think that’s the most important thing,” Sykes said. The base was locked down immediately after the incident, and the remainder of the air show was canceled.
Eyewitness Accounts
Videos posted online by spectators captured four parachutes deploying as the aircraft plummeted to the ground near the base, located about 50 miles south of Boise. Shane Ogden, who was filming the jets, said he saw them come close together before appearing to make contact. His video shows the planes spinning in tandem as the crew ejected, followed by a fireball upon impact. “I was just filming thinking they were going to split apart and that happened,” Ogden said. He left the scene to avoid interfering with emergency responders.
Aircraft and Conditions
The EA-18G Growler is a variant of the F/A-18 Super Hornet, equipped with sophisticated electronic warfare systems. The National Weather Service reported good visibility but winds gusting up to 29 mph around the time of the crash.
Safety Context
Aviation safety expert John Cox, CEO of Safety Operating Systems, noted that air show flying is demanding with little margin for error. “The people who do it are very good… I’m glad everybody was able to get out,” he said. The Gunfighter Skies event was the first at the base since 2018, when a hang glider died during a performance. In 2003, a Thunderbirds pilot ejected safely after a crash. The air show industry has improved safety, with fatal accidents declining from an average of two per year to about one over the past decade. No air show deaths occurred in 2024 or 2025, and the last spectator fatality was in 1952. The 2022 Dallas crash, where six people died, remains the most recent fatal incident.
John Cudahy, president and CEO of the International Council of Air Shows, said, “Safety wise we’ve enjoyed really an unprecedented term of few accidents.” Investigators expect to benefit from the surviving crews’ accounts of the collision.
The Iran war has led to the cancellation of about 10 air shows this year at bases involved in related missions, but most events have continued as planned.
