Pilot killed in Quad City Air Show crash

DAVENPORT-- A pilot was killed when his plane crashed during an air show in eastern Iowa, authorities said Saturday.

The Soviet-era retired military jet was performing in the Quad-City Air Show in Davenport when the crash occurred. Authorities said the jet was flying in formation with other jets when it failed to pull out of a 45-degree bank and crashed into a field north of Interstate 80 around 1:25 p.m. Saturday.

Assistant Davenport Police Chief Don Schaeffer did not identify the pilot, but said he was not from Davenport. Schaeffer said at a news conference that the plane flew directly into the ground.

"He never had an opportunity to come out of it," he said.

Nobody on the ground was hurt, but crowds watching the show saw the plane go down and erupt in flames.

Davenport police and federal investigators planned to comb the field Saturday for widely scattered wreckage from the plane.

Schaeffer estimated parts of the plane were strewn over an area up to 220 yards, or a tenth of a mile.

Schaeffer said he had no information about what may have caused the crash. Officials from the Federal Aviation Administration were at the scene, but they did not take part in the news conference.

The crash investigation was expected to resume Sunday morning, Schaeffer said.