Maple Valley resident witnessed Reno Air Race crash and assisted incident commander

Published 2:42 pm Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Maple Valley resident Sean Kelly went to Reno last weekend to enjoy his third trip to the annual National Air Championship Races.

Instead he witnessed the worst accident in its history on Friday, Sept. 16, when a vintage World War II fighter plane crashed into the main grandstand, with dozens injured and 10 confirmed dead as of Tuesday.

Up until the last moment before the crash occurred nothing seemed to be out of the ordinary.

“We weren’t expecting it at all,” Kelly said.

Kelly, who was sitting approximately 150 yards away from the main grandstand with King County SWAT Capt. Robert Mendel, stated they noticed something was wrong as the P-51 Mustang was coming around for a pass. Normally, Kelly explained, when a plane has problems, they veer off, whereas the Mustang flew toward the stands just before it plummeted to the ground.

“We were kind of watching it go up and then it drove straight down,” he said.

Watching it crash through the grandstand, Kelly said he was in a state of shock.

“We were sitting there, watching,” he said.

Quickly, the loudspeakers told everyone to remain calm, while a call was made for any doctors and medical personnel to come down and help the injured.

At first, Kelly and Mendel remained where they were in the stands.

“We kind of just stayed there because it was a medical situation,” Kelly said.

When another plea for help came five minutes later, Kelly and Mendel spotted a mobile command center and felt the desire to do whatever they could.

“There was a guy looking really stressed out,” Kelly said. “We saw he was pretty shook up, so we went down and helped him.”

That man turned out to be Peter Dolan, the Reno-Tahoe Air Authority fire chief, who was dissatisfied with the position of the mobile command center.

Looking for a way to help, Kelly and Mendel assisted Dolan in moving it over to the tarmac.

At that point, Dolan approached Kelly for a critical task. A scribe was needed to keep record of everything which was said or done at the scene.

“He said, ‘you guys don’t have to do this, but if you can we really need your help,’” Kelly said. “He told me to ‘document everything that happens,’ and ‘stay on my heels the whole time.’”

Remaining within two feet of Dolan for the next four hours, Kelly took down seven pages worth of material based on what he saw and heard. Mendel, meanwhile, was tasked with the safety of the area and assisting medics, many of whom were visibly shaken.

For Kelly, it was a surreal experience as well. A man he had spoken to only hours before had been killed. A deep crater was all that remained of the World War II fighter plane.

“It was like being in a war zone,” Kelly said. “There was people all over the place. Even the medical staff were shocked. They had to get chaplains for them afterwards.”

Despite the experience, Kelly said he intends to return to the event next year.

It is not yet known what caused the plane to crash.