IAC President, Vicki Cruse, Perishes

ANN is monitoring the details surrounding the tragic accident that has claimed the life of aerobatic pilot Vicki Cruse. In a competition flight at the Silverstone Grand Prix site, her Edge 540 impacted the ground on a downline with an immediately fatal result. The flight was apparently being conducted for the World Aerobatic Competition and was reported to have taken place at 1212 local time.

No cause is known for the accident at this time, and the UK's AAIB will investigate. As is the practice at such events, the airplane used was a UK based aircraft, shared by a number of competitors in order to alleviate the costs of transporting their airplanes across the Atlantic for competition in such pivotal events. ANN will report more pertinent info as soon as we have it.

E-I-C Note: After decades of having to deal with accident reports, some of people known or close to me, this one is literally as tough as it gets.

Vicki and I were husband and wife a half-a-life ago, though it did not last the lifetime we had hoped for... her first aerobatic lesson was one of our early dates (in Jim Moser's SF260) -- well before we were married, I helped select and then delivered her first aerobatic airplane (a Christen Eagle) on a wild flight that started on the West Coast and ended here in Florida a few days later -- where she found out that she was going to need to adapt the aircraft to fit her diminutive stature even more than we expected. Like many marriages, it ended when our collective dreams diverged from what they once were, but for many years afterward, all I cared to think about was the amazing few years we had together -- punctuated by the sight of her coming up a walkway in her wedding dress -- a vision that literally took my breath away -- and yes, thinking about it even now, it still does.

During a short and unexpected chat a few weeks back, we finally managed a few small smiles about all that had passed and promised to try and chat again about it at a later time. Vicki was an amazingly smart, talented, dedicated woman who was the center of my world for a few short years... who then went out to be a huge part of the aerobatic world that she embraced and loved so much. That world, today, is a much smaller, sadder place than it was a few hours ago. -- Jim Campbell, ANN Editor-In-Chief

FMI: www.aaib.gov.uk