Tragedy in the air, the eve of an air show in the Poconos.
A GEICO Skytypers pilot died during a practice on Friday at Wilkes-Barre / Scranton International Airport.
The pilot has been identified as Andy Travnicek, a graduate of the United States Air Force Academy and a commercial and military pilot who flew to Afghanistan.
GEICO Skytapers Airshow Team said the victim of today’s plane crash was Andy Travnicek. He graduated from the United States Air Force Academy, served in the United States Armed Forces, and was also a commercial airline pilot.@ 69News
– Bo Koltnow (@BKoltnow) August 20, 2021
The airport has reopened.
Carol Pupst witnessed the tragedy of the Travnicek fatal plane crash.
“The third group of two took off. Then we all looked up and saw how the flames were firing,” Pupst said.
The FAA says at 12:36 pm the Travnicek SNJ-2 plane took off from Runway 4 at Wilkes-Barre / Scranton International Airport and then crashed on Runway 28 and caught fire.
He was the only person on board.
The day before I flew with three team members during a media tour. Travnicek was not one of them.
The Long Island, New York-based team is known for flying super-narrow formations and writing messages at 1,000 feet in the air.
They fly World War II vintage planes built between 1939 and 1940. Travnicek and the team were to fly to this weekend’s Pocono Airshow, one of 15 events the team had planned for this year.
This is not his first fatal flight. A pilot died in 2018 after crashing in eastern New York.
The cause of this accident has not been determined.
The Pocono Raceway says that after consulting with the Skytypers, the air show will continue as planned this weekend, with the Skytypers flying.
Both the track and the team offer their deepest condolences to the family.