Today’s Cannon-like Yet Truly Morbid Fact!
In 1980, a 7-year-old boy died from injuries he received in a freak Fourth of July accident that injured 10 other spectators during an air show at the Willow Grove Naval Air Station in Pennsylvania.
John Pigford of Philadelphia was admitted with head injuries and critical burns after he accidentally ejected himself through the canopy of a Navy jet on display.
He died at 4:15 p.m. at Children’s Hospital in Philadelphia.
He was sitting in this little stubby thing – an S-3 Viking. Isn’t it cute?
Seats in fighter jets are ejected from the aircraft by a cannon-like device that fires an explosive charge. A Navy spokesman said it takes a complicated series of maneuvers to arm the seat, then another maneuver to fire the device.
“How the child was able to carry it out, I do not know,” the spokesman said.
… hacking fighter planes
The other people were injured when the explosive charge in the ejection seat ignited. Authorities said all 10 were taken to local hospitals where they were treated and released. One of the injured was Pigford’s brother, Steven, 8.
Navy spokesmen declined to say whether the ejection system of the silver S-3 Viking jet should have been disarmed for the air show [Duh. – DeSpair], where an estimated 100,000 spectators, under military supervision, spent the day climbing in and out of various aircraft.
According to officials and witnesses, about 15 people, mostly children, were lined up at the short stairway to the cockpit of the jet when the ejection occurred. The explosion hurled the pilot’s seat and the boy more than 50 feet into the air.
Culled from: Monday, July 7, 1980 issue of The Spokesman-Review
Generously submitted by Amos Quito
Vintage Crime Scene Du Jour
New York Crime Scene Photograph culled from Harms Way. (Sadly, no explanation provided. But isn’t that linoleum fabulous???)
If people were climbing in and out of it all day, it’s very likely that several people managed the ‘complex manuevers’ over time and the victim only carried out the last step
I was the ejection seat technician from our squadron sent to put the aircraft back together, very sad. Truly a very tragic event.
I was 10 years old and a couple hundred yards from the event. I remember it as being the loudest sound I’ve ever heard in my young life and burning debris falling from the sky and when I finally was able to turn around and look I saw the parachute landing.
My immediate thought as well.
@ALM – My immediate thought as well, that it was a group effort to prime the pump and bellows the kid into the Blue… I have to admit, i did not read the story and immediately think that I was the technician who put the aircraft back together!
When this happened my brother and I were sitting in the copilots seat. The boy came out of nowhere, sat down and then within seconds he was gone. How my brother and I weren’t hurt is beyond me, but that is a day we will never forget.
I was there. Right next to the plane when it happened. Over forty years later and I can still see it in my head. It was a hot day and so many people were sitting under the planes for shade. It was mass above, people running everywhere. I saw what I thought was fire shoot into the air. I found out later it was the parachute. I was nine years old. I have never gone to another air show since not did I ever allow my kids to go to one
I was there and spoke with him before it happened. I didn’t think he was going to do it but he did anyway. He fully intended to do it, and it is my belief that others intended for him to do it so much they set the wheels in motion to get him to ‘pull up’. His relatives all came after our family and it kicked off the worst case of abuses ever inflicted on kids.
John’s last words to me were “Do I look evil to you?” as he smiled as he is doing above in the photo. He asked me if I knew how to fire the ejection seat. “Pull up on the yellow stick” I told him and told him about the detent bar having to swing out. I also told him not to do it and to allow me to get away from the craft first. The stick looks kind of like a yellow baseball bat with the handle pointing up at the pilot. He called me back over to him and he said “it’s not working”. He asked me again if I thought he looked evil. I told him him goodbye and got away from the aircraft. He tried calling me back over to him and I flat-out refused to as I thought he was trying to take me with him at that point. At some other point, the ejection happened. I didn’t realize he had somehow closed the canopy, or someone else had done it for him. I looked up and thought I saw the chute blossomed. “Yeah John!! Get some!!” I screamed up at the the sky but there was burning debris raining down all over the place and we got away further. Parents started freaking out and people were screaming. As tragic as it was it was not a freak accident. John fully intended to pull up and he finally managed it.
John was my grandmother’s nephew. It was such a sad story in the family! It’s a shame his dad was never able to deal after his death.
I remember when this occurred. Willow Grove NAS in Horsham, PA was about a mile and a half from where I grew up (my in-laws lived South of the air base, about 1/4 mile away). A couple of my friends from the neighborhood were in attendance when this occurred and told me about it before we heard about the incident on the local news.
We used to look forward to the air show every year, which usually coincided with the end of the school year in mid-to-late June, to see the Blue Angels. We could see and hear the Blue Angels from our yards and houses, especially when they practiced in the days leading up to their performance at the air show. I remember some folks watched from their roofs. There was also a fatal F14 Tomcat crash at the air show in June of 2000, which was one of last air shows they held there. They closed down the air base in 2011.