Snowbird Pilot Ejects Safely At Atlanta Air Show

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A member of the Royal Canadian Air Force Snowbirds ejected safely from his aircraft when something went wrong just before the team was scheduled to perform at the Atlanta Air Show early Sunday afternoon. Capt. Kevin Domon-Grenier, Snowbird 5, landed safely and the aircraft crashed in an unpopulated area and there were no injuries. His wife, Capt. Sarah Dallaire, was in the same formation with Domon-Grenier when the incident happened. She flies the no. 2 aircraft. The remainder of the show was canceled. 

It’s not clear what happened and the incident occurred away from the airshow venue. The team does a warm-up before each performance and may have been doing that when the mishap occurred. The no. 5 position is second line astern, in the middle of the formation. The Snowbirds announced the happy ending on its Facebook page and all the usual investigations are underway.

Russ Niles
Russ Niles is Editor-in-Chief of AVweb. He has been a pilot for 30 years and joined AVweb 22 years ago. He and his wife Marni live in southern British Columbia where they also operate a small winery.

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4 COMMENTS

  1. BTW: The CT—114 Tutor, a 55-year-old plane used by the Canadian Air Force and the Snowbirds aerobatic team will be kept flying until 2030.

  2. Having worked for the FAA many years ago as a Center Controller, Towr Controller, FSS Pilot Weather Briefer, and in a FSDO as a APS and Assistant POI I got to see what makes up an inspector. At that time there were managers who were highly ranked military who “promoted from within”, in other words it was military over civilian. I personally saw VN Helicopter pilots with no fixed wing experience being hired on, trained in FW and then given Principle Operations Inspector positions and type ratings over superior qualified Civilian trained pilots. The Discrimination was obvious as the Regional Manager was politically Military promoted to a BG and protected by the same Senator or Congressman. Civilian trained inspectors actually feared the man as he was known as being harsh and vindictive on those who he did not like while promoting his boys.
    Today I hear the FAA has changed and now is completely different though. Hopefully that aspect is gone and everyone who walks through the door is treated the same.

  3. Oops, hit enter before I meant to.
    This may explain why some FAA individuals in the past made very poor decisions which lead the Public to not trust them or dislike them. For a while the FAA use to use a hammer but found that doesn’t work. Today they use reeducation as a tool and that is working. The aviation community is starting to benefit from this change which I welcome.

  4. “It’s not clear what happened and the incident occurred away from the airshow venue.” (Copied from the article).
    Wasn’t the pilot asked what happened??? That surely would make it clear.

    Scratching my head wondering what the relation Dave Bs comment has to do with the Snowbird article.

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