The Blue Angels have an astonishingly deadly history

Since its inception in 1946, fewer than 300 people have served as Blue Angels pilots. It’s one of the most prestigious roles in the Navy, so competitive and coveted that it doesn’t offer higher pay than other active-duty military.

But the position carries a remarkably fatal risk: An astonishing one in 10 Blue Angels pilots have died on the job. 

Over the course of its history, 26 pilots and one crew member have died in crashes. Most of them were the result of human error. When the Blue Angels are wingtip-to-wingtip in their signature diamond formation, they’re just 18 inches apart. Flying at up to 700 mph, the smallest mistake can be deadly. 

The Blue Angels had barely launched when the first pilot died. In the aftermath of World War II, a crew of elite Navy combat pilots were selected for the traveling exhibition team. The squadron, then as now, was intended to be a recruiting tool for the military and to serve as the Navy’s community envoys. In September 1946, Ross “Robby” Robinson, a 24-year-old combat veteran, was performing for a crowd of 5,000 in Jacksonville, Florida, when his plane plunged out of the sky, breaking apart on impact. A month later, the Blue Angels were back performing for huge crowds across the nation.

Two pilots died in the 1950s and six in the 1960s — and four more died in combat missions in Korea and Southeast Asia — before the squadron’s most tragic span. Fresno-born Lt. Larry Watters, 29, dreamed of becoming a Blue Angels pilot, but in February 1972, he was the team’s seventh man. He spent shows with his feet on the ground, narrating the Blue Angels’ maneuvers on the PA system. But he was starting to practice for a role in the skies, and during an upside-down trick, he smashed into the Superstition Mountains near El Centro, California, dying instantly. 

Seventeen months later, the Blue Angels arrived at Lakehurst Maxfield Field in New Jersey, best known as the site of the Hindenburg disaster. With an air show planned for the upcoming week, the pilots, as they always did, began a survey of the area. Racing around at nearly 400 mph, four of the two-seater F-4 Phantom jets coalesced into the diamond formation. As the back jet peeled off, its wingtip made contact with another plane. The planes hit the ground so hard, the Courier-Post reported they “disintegrated.” 

“The only signs that humans were involved in the wreckage was a blue, leather-and-denim shoe lying on the road,” the Courier-Post wrote. “The police and fire personnel apparently missed picking up the shoe.”

Killed were Lt. Cmdr. Skip Umstead, Capt. Mike Murphy and jet engine mechanic Ron Thoma. Remarkably, Petty Officer 1/C Gerald Harvey managed to eject in time and parachuted to safety. In less than two years, four men and three of the six jets had been lost. The Blue Angels went dormant for the rest of the year, although a Navy spokesperson told the Asbury Park Press it was due to the oil crisis driving up fuel costs. In the meantime, new pilots were recruited and the Blue Angels switched to the slower A-4F Skyhawks. 

There have been two fatal crashes in recent history. In April 2007, the Blue Angels were wrapping up a show in Beaufort, South Carolina, when one of the jets failed to meet up with the pack. At first, the other pilots continued performing, assuming Lt. Cmdr. Kevin Davis was having a minor issue. But he failed to check back in over the radio, and then several pilots saw a huge, black plume of smoke rising from the ground. The fiery debris from the jet hit several homes in the neighborhood, injuring eight people on the ground. Davis, 32, was dead; his parents were in the crowd of onlookers that day.

A Navy investigation determined that Davis was likely “going faster than normal to make up time.” Unlike other military pilots, Blue Angels do not wear G suits; G suits have components that inflate when g-forces become dangerously intense. The inflated suit is tight around the extremities, keeping blood pooled in the upper body to prevent the pilot from passing out. Because the confines of the Blue Angels’ cockpits are so small, and the maneuvers require so much precision, an inflating G suit has the potential to nick a control, causing the plane to crash. Blue Angels pilots train their bodies with special breathing and abdominal exercises to keep from passing out.

That day, though, Davis’ speed may have caused him to momentarily black out, become disoriented and lose track of how close he was to the ground. By the time he tried to pull up, it was too late. The official determination for the cause of the accident was pilot error.

“The culture of the Naval Flight Demonstration Squad (NFDS) is that they constantly strive to perform a perfect show, every show,” a Navy training chief wrote in the report. “I believe that LCDR Davis was simply trying to meet this standard, just as he would have at any other show.”

On June 2, 2016, Capt. Jeff Kuss took off for a practice run near Smyrna Airport in Tennessee. Before takeoff, Kuss made a few uncharacteristic mistakes on preflight paperwork. “Capt. Kuss was viewed as one of the most meticulous and professional Blue Angels pilots by his teammates, but leading up to the mishap flight, he committed errors that appear out of his norm,” a Navy report would later comment.

Once aloft, Kuss began a low-altitude maneuver. Like Davis, he realized too late that he was rapidly descending. Kuss was unable to correct his error, and his jet crashed in a field near the airport. Kuss was 32. 

His death was crushing for his colleagues, who gathered for an emotional memorial service a few days later. “In losing Jeff, we gain inspiration,” Lt. Matt Suyderhoud said through tears. “We gain a guardian angel, a wingman. A wingman that will always be there.”

“It’s hard to put into words right now but it’s beautiful that a person can live and die engaged in their life’s pursuits,” Kuss’ grandfather told reporters. “This was his dream since he was a child.”

A Navy investigation found the demands of being a Blue Angels pilot had likely played a role in Kuss’ crash. It pointed to fatigue and pilot error in the series of decisions that led to the accident. Kuss was already flying too fast and too low, and then he forgot to turn off his afterburners, which made his jet go even faster. The Blue Angels do not have backup pilots; because of the amount of practice needed, the Navy says, “a substitute pilot would not have enough time in the formation to do this safely.” Kuss may have been exhausted, the report found, but he knew the team needed him.

“The pressure to not let the team down and miss a performance, although unspoken, is tremendous,” the report wrote.

Among the recommendations made were to institute regular breaks in the show season. In 2023, the Blue Angels will average three or four shows a month. This week, they’ll arrive in San Francisco, zipping low past rooftops and piers packed with onlookers; after a practice on Friday, they’ll do air shows on Saturday and Sunday.

The Blue Angels have performed without incident since Kuss’ death in 2016.

Editor’s note: This story originally ran in Oct. 2022.