The Day a Blue Angel Phantom Took Out Downtown

During a pre air show practice on the morning of the 7th of August; Capt. Vince D. Donile flying Right Wing #2 in his F-4J Phantom was setting up inbound for the Four Plane Cross maneuver, when he noticed he had fallen behind in positioning. Compensating for his tardiness, Capt. Donile elected to light up his over 36,000 pounds of thrust with afterburners, quickly accelerating towards the crossing point at show centre.

Unfortunately Capt Donile was only moments too late when he deselected his burners, and his USN F-4 Phantom announced his error to the world as it shattered the morning air with a deafening sonic boom. Even more unfortunate, was the fact that Capt Donile exceeded the speed of sound directly over the downtown core of Kelowna BC. The shock wave produced by the supersonic jet blew out thousands of windows on homes and shop windows in a radius of the downtown area.  Hundreds of Canadian residents gathered to survey the damage.  Many arming themselves with the first thing they had available to clean up the shattered glass...snow shovels.  

 The United States Navy Blue Angels Flight Demonstration Squadron first flew in 1946, and have been seen by well over 260 million people since their first airshow. The Blue Angels have demonstrated an immpresively high safety record of operations...and although breaking the sound barrier is an effective way to announce an airshow, this was a one time occurrence for the Blues.  One that is not likely to be repeated.    

Sure does make for a good story though...

UPDATE - December 2018

We were contacted by USN Captain Vincent Donile USN Blue Angels #2 who gave us a first hand account, and corrected us on some missing aspects of the story.