on Saturday morning to be on the airfield at 7am. I had obtained media accreditation and was to attend a briefing.
The weather was patchy - dry windy spells and rain squalls. To cut a harrowing story short: a +- 50 year old English Electric Lightning ZU-BEX from Thunder City [link] crashed, pilot Dave Stock unable to eject. I have been finding it very hard to get past this event. I stayed overnight at Napier - barely able to sleep, replaying the events and since then have been editing photos from the day and have been in touch with air crash investigation officials, to whom I've given a disc of my hi-res images in sequence for them to piece together a time-line.
Should you have any interest in the air show photos, I have put them in my gallery here: [link] (Select Air Show from the menu)
The pilot, Dave Stock, was a 46 year old father of two, veteran test pilot with 15,900 flight hours. Heroically he steered the sticken jet (reporting hydraulic failure) away from the big crowd and attempted to eject, but trajically was unable to and perished with the craft.
Last night I reached melt-down after spending hours reading tributes and letting my tears flow.
RiP and great respect.
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Please understand that I may not have time to get back to all of you who comment or kindly fav my work. Do know though, that it makes me very happy that you enjoy my work and I appreciate all comments and wish to thank you all very much.
Please respect copyright - © Irene McCullagh 2005-2009
All rights of this gallery are reserved to *substar* - Irene McCullagh. None of the images may be reproduced, copied, edited, published, transmitted or uploaded in any way without my written permission. You may not alter or merge an image to create a derivative work. My work does not belong to the public domain. Thank you.







[hugs]
The photos you've displayed on your website are a credit to yourself, Dave Stock & the other pilots. I still cannot see a missing man formation without tearing up, & your photo of Dave's tribute hit just as hard as a live one.
Sounds like the man died doing what he love and yet it is still such a great loss