And what are the statistical chances of one of the hundreds of planes taking off from area airports every day crashing vs. the Blue Angels once-a-year performance? Or the Blue Angels vs. crossing the street?

Imagine if there were an international airport right outside for Seattle, and hundreds of jets fly right over the city each day. So many people would die in a crash.

Ah, just imagine.

Dans a parent guys, he doesn't have to understand statistics now that his kid exists. Safety first!

I'm more bothered by our government wasting millions of dollars using weapons of death and destruction as a form of entertainment. More often than not, the sound of military jets shrieking through the air is accompanied by terror and raining hellfire.

But yeah, the prospect of witnessing someone's fiery death when a flyby stunt goes wrong doesn't make them any more endearing.

No "fact" can reduce my love for the Blue Angels. As with my passion for smoking cigarettes, and my impressive arsenal of handguns that I use to protect my family, your "facts" only obscure the truth that God loves us and wants us to be free.

Or a 747 flying over Seattle on approach to Seatac.

I tend to think most aviation is corny, but I love the Blue Angels because of how it gets people's panties in a bunch.

As for military planes on foofy missions crashing into populated areas in Seattle, that's already happened.

http://www.historylink.org/index.cfm?Dis…

And it's happened during non-foufy wartime missions also....

http://www.seattletimes.com/life/lifesty…

Was the pilot on his cellphone? Because drivers on their phones scare me a hell of a lot more than the Blue Angels do.

I wouldn't miss the Blue Angels at all, but you're never going to remove them from Seafair.Too many aircraft-making people and buck-toothed planes nerds not to mention the military gung-hos. They would rise up and storm ever beer mart in Seattle.

It's a lost cause. If you hate it or can't stand it, just get out of town while the BA's are in town (Pride Week in Vancouver, for instance).

a Thunderbird crashed today, too. IT'S AN EPIDEMIC.

@1, The statistical chances of an airplane in an air show crashing is actually quite high. It happens fairly often, as do Blue Angels crashes.
Commercial airliners do crash occasionally on approach, but almost always within very close distance of the runway if not on it so they really don't pose that much of a threat to the city of Seattle. Even outside of war and stunt flying, military jets have a much higher accident rate than jet liners so you could actually make an argument to not have them flying over the city all the time. Most of the Blue Angels high risk maneuvers are done over Lake Washington, but during the show there also happens to be a lot of boats on that lake too so not sure if that really makes it that much safer.
You can like the Blue Angels show and that's fine, just don't try to argue that it's completely safe. It's not. The Navy knows it's not, but they like the recruiting power it has so they keep doing it.
BTW, we did have a year without Blue Angels recently. Remember the Sequestration?

From what I hear many residents of the neighborhood that hosts seafair are running away for their lives during that weekend.
After all roads to their homes are blocked, blue-hell-angels fans park in their driveways, military recruiters jump on innocent high schoolers, babies and pets freak out, and when it’s all finally over the fans feel obligated to pee on the tomato plants just before they drive away.

Sadly only a catastrophic accident will stop this madness. And no, I don’t want any.

@8 - Crazy, I never knew that story. So many fascinating details; the homeowners on vacation, the force of the ejection seat altering the trajectory of the jet, the casualties were both born in the 19th century and killed by an early symbol of the jet age.

@10: "Too many aircraft-making people and buck-toothed planes nerds"

What makes you think that Boeing and military hardware enthusiasts have anything to do with the Angels' presence?

I imagine it's more a right wing power obsession that keeps them here.

12: True, but, as far as I can determine, nobody except the Blue Angel pilot(s) involved have died due to crashes in their 70 year history, while something like upwards of 260 million people have seen them. I'd say that's a pretty good record for non-pilots.

"What makes you think that Boeing and military hardware enthusiasts have anything to do with the Angels' presence?"

Well, for starters, the Blue Angels fly Boeing planes. Whether that is a "right wing power obsession" is up for debate, but they are the home town team, buck-tooth plane nerds and all.

(And let me just murmur quietly that it is the era of the buck-toothed plane nerd that most people recall when they mourn the "old Seattle")

Wow it's almost like true safety doesn't really exist because the universe is unpredictable and uncontrollable and like it or not death is inevitable for all things that live.

Dan - the number of sex advice columnists who've died from air show crashes during the last 42 years is zero. None. Try to relax.

@21, You know that Dan wants to leave Seattle, It's Terry that doesn't want to leave the area. But now since their kid is about college age I wonder if that could change?

@12, and @18 both make valid points.

Air shows ARE dangerous. Treating them as comparable to commercial aviation in terms of safety makes no sense whatsoever.

And yes, as 18 pointed out, Dan does occasionally suffer from "worst case scenario fixation syndrome." He inherited if from his Mom.

On the whole....the Blue Angels should probably be retired. The cock of the walk Top Gun stuff, its just so Reagan-era, so Top Gun, so Tom Cruise. Like keeping orcas in captivity, or casting white people as people of color, or daylight savings time, its an anachronism, silly dangerous stuntwork that should no longer be "a thing."

@21: Trumpoid spotted.

@ 21
What's so exciting about the jets even when crash-free?
Why should taxpayers finance all this (and I assume on both the federal and municipality/county levels?)

I don't have to work hard to imagine. In September of 1972, I was at a birthday party with friends at Farrell's Ice Cream Parlor in Sacramento, CA, located across the street from the Executive airport. A privately-owned Canadair Sabre jet, piloted by Richard Bingham, failed to take off while leaving the air show at the airport and, instead, crashed into the ice cream store. Twenty-two people died and twenty-eight were injured. Some 44 years later, I still have the occasional nightmare about those moments. Fortunately, our party was to the back and our injuries were minor. A quick thinking parent picked up a chair and broke open the window and we clamored outside as the place filled with smoke, fire, and the screams of those dying and injured. Today, the location is the police headquarters and a statue stands at the spot the plane entered the building in memoriam of those who died.

At the time it was the worst aircraft accident in the United States involving victims on the ground, and would not be surpassed until the Green Ramp disaster in 1994.

Why are people referencing passenger aircraft when those flight paths are designed to avoid populated areas? Why am I commenting on a post that's this old? The world is full of mysteries.