1988: Three Italian Aermacchi MB-339 fighter jets collide in midair at the Ramstein air base in Germany, killing 70 people and causing serious injuries to 346 others. It's one of the worst air show disasters in history.

The accident occurred at the culmination of a complex maneuver by Frecce Tricolori, Italy's military stunt-flight team. Known as "the pierced heart," the exercise calls for two groups of aircraft to form a large heart shape in front of the audience, with a solo jet flying through the lower tip of the heart at the completion of the trick. The culmination of this maneuver occurs only 135 feet above the crowd. When performed flawlessly, the stunt is exhilarating.

But with all the close-quarters aerial maneuvering, there's zero margin for error.

And this time an error occurred at the end of the stunt. The piercing aircraft piloted by Lt. Col. Ivo Nutarelli came in too low and too fast at the end of the maneuver. The pilot of a nearby plane, Lt. Col. Mario Naldini was unable to compensate for Nutarelli's mistake.

The nose of Nutarelli's plane collided with Naldini's tail section at around 300 miles per hour causing Nutarelli's plane to disintegrate. Naldini's plane, now completely out of control, clipped a third jet in the formation, piloted by Captain Giorgio Alessio. His plane then crashed into a Black Hawk med-evac helicopter on a taxiway near the runway, killing the copter's pilot.

Worse yet, a fireball of shrapnel and jet fuel from the initial impact of the Nutarelli and Naldini planes exploded onto the crowd of thousands just a few hundred feet below.

All three pilots were killed. Nutarelli and Naldini both died on impact. The pilot of the third plane, Captain Alessio, managed to eject but was killed when his chute didn't open — his egress occurred at too low an altitude.

The observing crowd bore the brunt of the impact. A blazing cauldron of petroleum and white-hot shrapnel from Nutarelli's plane rained down on hundreds of spectators. Thirty-one people died outright at the scene. Another 36 succumbed to their injuries in the ensuing weeks — mostly of severe burn trauma. Almost 500 people had to receive medical attention.

Compounding the tragedy, enormous snafus took place in the emergency response. Because the accident happened on an American military base, German ambulances were not allowed to enter at first.

Numerous communications mix-ups resulted in the delay of victims being routed to hospitals and paramedics not being able to treat severe injuries in time. And the only med-evac helicopter on the scene had been destroyed in the crash.

Because the accident occurred at an air show, there was plenty of pro and amateur video and photography, and investigators were quickly able to determine what went wrong and why.

Most aerial disasters happen because of an lengthy list of multiple complex factors. Not the Ramstein crash. This tragedy came about because of one simple reason: pilot error.

Source: Various

Video: Shaney1337/YouTube

Photo: Associated Press

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