What to know about a midair collision between 2 Navy jets at an Idaho air show

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — After the two Navy jets collided in midair, the planes sandwiched together, all four crew members were able to eject and deploy their parachutes, floating down to safety as the aircraft careened into a field, exploding into a fireball.

The collision happened Sunday during the “Gunfighter Skies” air show at the Mountain Home Air Force Base some 57 miles (92 kilometers) southwest of Boise.

Here are some things to know about the crash.

Just one crew member was injured

Only one of the four crew members on the two planes was injured and was being treated at a hospital, Cmdr. Amelia Umayam, spokesperson for Naval Air Forces, U.S. Pacific Fleet, said Monday. The injury was not life-threatening.

The fact that all four were able to safely eject and make it down without landing in the wreckage is “truly remarkable,” said Billie Flynn, a former F-35 senior test pilot and demonstration expert.

“It is astonishing considering the way the airplanes impacted each other — incomprehensible even,” Flynn said.

The two U.S. Navy EA18-G Growlers were from the Electronic Attack Squadron 129 in Whidbey Island, Washington. Each held two crew members.

The EA-18G Growler, measuring just over 60 feet (18.5 meters) long, made its first flight in August 2006 and was the first newly designed electronic warfare aircraft produced in more than 35 years, according to the Navy.

The planes appeared sandwiched together before falling

Videos taken by spectators show one of the jets was slightly behind the other before impact, and the two aircraft then appeared to become sandwiched together, with the belly of one jet just behind and to the side of the top of the other jet.

The jets then twisted and rocked together, pointing straight up for a moment before turning downward and diving to the ground. The impact resulted in a fireball and sent black smoke skyward.

The crew members ejected quickly, their parachutes opening just as the jets were pivoting toward the ground.

The cause of the crash is not yet known

Videos of the collision suggest human error is to blame, Flynn said. Before colliding, Flynn said the video shows they were trying to line up closely — wing tip to wing tip — but failed to safely rejoin in formation, a routine maneuver.

Officials have not yet released any information about what may have contributed to the crash. Umayam said the investigation is ongoing amid efforts to recover the damaged aircraft.

“Our priority is to ensure the safety and well-being of our personnel, as well as security of the aircraft during the recovery,” Umayam told The Associated Press in an email.

The skills used in air show performances are different from those used in day-to-day routine flying or flying in combat, Flynn said. He calls it “the difference between showmanship and airmanship.”

That’s why most military air show crews are assigned to just do display flights during the show season, he said.

The Growler display flight crews are all flight instructors from Whidbey Island. Their core duties generally include training pilots and electronic warfare officers from the Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force.

Ejecting is a complicated process

Ejection seats use a complex system of motors and parachutes to propel crew members away from a plane in an emergency. First the canopy is pushed away from the aircraft with a blast so it poses no danger to the crew. Then the seat is launched upward and out of the plane, using solid rocket motors, before the parachute deploys and the seat drops away as the crew member descends to the ground.

“You’ve got to have enough altitude, you’ve got to be clear of any obstacles and then even after all that’s successful, you can injure your back,” said aviation expert Jeff Guzzetti. “Just the massive, propulsive force of the ejection seat can compress the spine, or your limbs may flail.”

Guzzetti said ejections are sometimes not possible during midair collisions because the damage to aircraft can be too extensive. But the way the two Navy planes came together may have allowed the opportunity to eject, he said.

“If they had hit each other at a faster speed, they would have done structural damage and the airplane would have come apart,” he said.

The two Growlers were using a seat manufactured by the U.K-based company Martin-Baker, the company said. Martin-Baker described itself as the leading manufacturer of ejection seats, including seats used by the Navy since 1958. The company says its seats have saved the lives of more than 2,000 Navy crew members since then.

The explosiveness of an ejection puts tremendous force on the crew member — as much as 20 times the force of gravity, said Michael O’Donnell, a former Federal Aviation Administration official who also worked on ejection seats in the Air Force. That’s enough force to temporarily make a person up to an inch shorter after ejection, he said.

“A really, really bad roller coaster ride is not even close to that,” O’Donnell said.

The Growlers are irreplaceable

The plane remains the Navy’s most advanced airborne electronic attack tool, according to the Electronic Attack Squadron (VAZ) 129’s website. The squadron is stationed at the Naval Air Station Whidbey Island, where it maintains 55 of the specialized planes.

But Boeing stopped building new Growlers several years ago.

“These are invaluable national assets,” Flynn said. “There is no newer version of these — they are a very special, very powerful electronic warfare platform, and there’s never enough of them. And now we’ve lost two.”

Air shows are inherently dangerous

Pilots who perform at air shows are among the best, but there is little room for error, said aviation safety expert John Cox, CEO of Safety Operating Systems.

“Air show flying is demanding. It has very little tolerance,” Cox said. “The people who do it are very good and it’s a small margin for error. I’m glad everybody was able to get out.”

The air show industry has been working to improve safety for years at the roughly 200 events held annually in the U.S. The last fatal crashes at an air show came in 2024 when two people were killed in separate accidents at different events.