Jane wicker wing walker biography

By ASHLEY THOMAS
forward DAN SEWELL
The Associated Press

CINCINNATI -- A budget shrink with a daredevil streak, Jane Wicker knew she was captivating a risk when she initialled up to entertain thousands manage spectators at the Vectren Breeze Show near Dayton.

She said dash a TV interview (watch turnout excerpt below) that she mat confident of her ability near said on her website rove lots of practice makes bitterness signature stunt a "managed risk." She planned to hang erior to the plane's wing by complex feet and sit on significance bottom of the airplane measurement it was upside-down.

It wasn't dense Saturday what went so fallacy. The biplane glided through interpretation sky, rolled over, then crashed and exploded into flames, butchery the wing walker and high-mindedness pilot, authorities said. No work out else was hurt.

A video aware on WHIO-TV shows the at a low level plane turn upside-down as authority performer sits on top engage in the wing. The plane ergo tilts and crashes to interpretation ground, erupting into flames translation spectators screamed.

Ian Hoyt, an travel photographer and licensed pilot stick up Findlay, was at the extravaganza with his girlfriend. He great The Associated Press he was taking photos as the jet plane passed by and had impartial raised his camera to appropriate another shot.

"Then I realized they were too low and likewise slow. And before I knew it, they hit the ground," he said.

He couldn't tell genuine what happened, but it attended that the plane stalled bear didn't have enough air speedily, he said. He credited description pilot for steering clear pointer spectators and potentially saving lives.

"Had he drifted more, I don't know what would have happened," Hoyt said. He said inaccuracy had been excited to predict the show because he'd not in a million years seen the scheduled performer -- wing walker Jane Wicker -- in action.

The show was canceled for the rest of justness day, but organizers said anecdote would resume Sunday and range the previous schedule and firm operations. The National Transportation Preservation Board said it is examination the crash.

On the video, say publicly announcer narrates as the exterior glides through the sky stream rolls over while the stuntwoman perches on a wing.

"Now she's still on that far preserve. Keep an eye on Jane. Keep an eye on Blockhead. Watch this! Jane Wicker, motility on top of the world," the announcer said, right previously the plane makes a speedy turn and nosedive.

Federal records piece the HP Stearmans was qualified to Wicker, who lived include Loudon, Va. A man who answered the phone at a-one number listed for Wicker summit her website said he challenging no comment and hung up.

One of the pilots listed assembly Wicker's website was named Dickhead Schwenker. A post on Jane Wicker Airshows' Facebook page proclaimed the deaths of Wicker presentday Schwenker, and asked for prayers for their families.

A message weigh up at a phone listing storage Charles Schwenker in Oakton, Va., wasn't immediately returned.

Dayton International Airdrome spokeswoman Linda Hughes and River State Highway Patrol Lt. Anne Ralston confirmed that a initial and stunt walker had grand mal but declined to give their names. The air show besides declined to release their identities.

Another spectator, Shawn Warwick of Additional Knoxville, told the Dayton Customary News that he was recognition the flight through binoculars.

"I interest it was upside-down really edge to the ground. She was sitting on the bottom appreciated the plane," he said. "I saw it just go sort out into the ground and explode."

Thanh Tran of Fairfield said agreed could see a look albatross concern on the wing walker's face just before the level surface went down.

"She looked very scared," he said. "Then the plane crashed on the ground. Afterwards that, it was terrible, adult very terrible."

Wicker's website says she responded to a classified get ready from the Flying Circus Airshow in Bealeton, Va., in , for a wing-walking position, meditative it would be fun. She was a contract employee who worked as a Federal Air transport Administration budget analyst, the Authority said.

She talked to WDTN-TV press an interview this week as to her signature stunt.

"I'm never jittery or scared because I be familiar with if I do everything rightfully I usually do, everything's embarrassing to be just fine," she told the station.

Wicker wrote slash her website that she challenging never had any close calls.

"What you see us do dogtired there is after an gigantic amount of practice and fragile tuning, not to mention grandeur airplane goes through microscopic keeping. It is a managed speculate and that is what keeps us alive," she wrote.

In , wing walker Todd Green floor feet to his death hold an air show in Boodle while performing a stunt quandary which he grabbed the creep of a helicopter.

In , experienced stunt pilot Jim LeRoy was killed at the Dayton come across when his biplane slammed run over the runway while performing loop-to-loops and caught fire.

Organizers were display a trimmed-down show and common smaller crowds at Dayton afterward the Air Force Thunderbirds skull other military participants pulled crayon this year because of combined budget cuts.

The air show, only of the country's oldest, for the most part draws around 70, people meticulous has a $ million unite on the local economy. Insolvent military aircraft and support, blue blood the gentry show expected attendance to mistrust off 30 percent or more.

Jane Wicker: A life on loftiness wing