Two United States Navy EA-18G Growler jets collided in midair, became entangled, and crashed to the ground in a ball of fire at the Gunfighter Skies Air Show at Mountain Home Air Force Base in Idaho on Sunday May 17, 2026.
The collision happened at approximately 12:10 PM Mountain time in front of thousands of spectators on the second and final day of the two-day event.
Four crew members were aboard, a pilot and an electronic warfare officer in each aircraft. All four successfully ejected. All four parachutes deployed. All four are alive and in stabilized condition.
The air show announcer’s words over the public address system, heard by everyone in attendance as the fireball rose above the Idaho desert, captured the only outcome that mattered: “We had four good parachutes. The crews were able to eject.”
The show was canceled immediately. The base was locked down. Two $67 million aircraft are gone. Four Navy aviators are alive.
What Happened In The Sky?
The two EA-18G Growlers were performing an aerial demonstration for the crowd when they collided approximately two miles northwest of the base.
Video footage captured by spectators and widely shared on social media shows the specific moment with stark clarity, two jets in a close formation during what appears to have been a low-speed maneuver, the kind of precision flying that defines air show demonstrations, when the aircraft made contact.
After the initial collision, both planes pitched sharply upward and appeared to stall simultaneously, the aerodynamic consequence of two aircraft whose control surfaces had been disrupted by the impact.
In less than five seconds from the moment of collision, all four crew members ejected.
The planes, still physically entangled with each other, then cartwheeled toward the ground and struck it in an explosion that sent thick black smoke rising high enough to be visible from miles around Mountain Home.
The four parachutes, visible in the footage and confirmed by witnesses on the ground, drifted down near the crash site as emergency crews from the base raced toward the impact point.
Air St. Luke’s, a regional medical service, confirmed it provided support at the scene.
The four aviators were transported for medical evaluation and were in stabilized condition as of Sunday evening. No one on the ground was injured.
David Katz, an attendee who was at the air show with his family, described the moment to Fox News Digital. “We saw the smoke and fireball. Apparently they collided there. One of the planes was impacted and started burning in the air.”
He said bystanders were desperately trying to determine whether the pilots had made it out safely as emergency vehicles converged on the crash site.
The answer arrived when the parachutes became visible against the Idaho sky.
Who Was Flying The Crashed Jets?
The two jets were assigned to Electronic Attack Squadron (VAQ) 129, the schoolhouse unit for the Navy’s entire EA-18G Growler community, based at Naval Air Station Whidbey Island, Washington, approximately an hour north of Seattle.
VAQ-129 trains every pilot and electronic warfare officer who flies the Growler in the United States Navy, making it one of the most operationally significant squadrons in the Navy’s aviation establishment.
The EA-18G Growler is not a fighter aircraft in the conventional sense, though it shares the airframe of the F/A-18F Super Hornet.
Its primary mission is electronic warfare, finding, suppressing and attacking enemy radar systems, communications infrastructure and integrated air defense networks.
Boeing describes it as the most advanced airborne electronic attack platform in production anywhere in the world. It is the only aircraft of its type currently being manufactured.
Each jet costs approximately $67 million. The two aircraft destroyed in Sunday’s collision represent a combined airframe loss of approximately $134 million, before accounting for the sophisticated electronic warfare systems aboard each one.
Each EA-18G carries a crew of two, a pilot in the front seat and an electronic warfare officer in the rear.
The EWO manages the aircraft’s electronic systems during flight. Both seats are equipped with ejection systems. All four seats in the two aircraft functioned as designed on Sunday.
Commander Amelia Umayam, a spokesperson for Naval Air Forces at U.S. Pacific Fleet, confirmed the ejections and the crew’s status in a statement. “All four of the aircrew successfully ejected and they are being evaluated by medical personnel.”
Colonel David R. Gunter, the wing commander of the 366th Fighter Wing, the Gunfighters, at Mountain Home Air Force Base, added his own statement. “We are incredibly thankful that everyone involved in today’s incident is safe.” He thanked first responders for their work and guests for their patience in the aftermath.
The Show That Came Back After Eight Years
The Gunfighter Skies Air Show was returning to Mountain Home Air Force Base for the first time in eight years.
The previous show had been in 2018. That event ended in tragedy when a civilian hang glider pilot died in a crash during the performance, an accident that led to an extended hiatus while the show’s organizers, Silver Wings of Idaho, worked alongside the base to evaluate whether and how to bring the event back safely.
The 2026 show was the comeback. It was promoted as a flagship community event for southern Idaho and as part of the America 250 celebrations marking the United States’ 250th birthday.
The two-day format featured vintage aircraft alongside military demonstration teams.
The U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds were scheduled as the closing act on each day of the show. The Growler demonstration from VAQ-129 was one of the headline performances.
The collision occurred during what would have been that Growler demonstration, turning the show’s most anticipated aerial act into the incident that ended the event entirely.
Kim Sykes, the marketing director for Silver Wings of Idaho, addressed the outcome publicly after the crash. “Everyone is safe and I think that’s the most important thing,” she said.
Silver Wings issued a full statement:
“Today was an emotional and difficult day at Gunfighter Skies. While the events were not what anyone expected, we are incredibly grateful and relieved that all four pilots involved are safe. That is, and always will be, the most important thing. Our hearts are with everyone affected today, the pilots, their families, the crews, and all those who worked tirelessly behind the scenes to make this event possible. Situations like this remind us how quickly things can change and how much these men and women put on the line every time they take to the skies.”
The Safety Record That Makes Sunday Both Remarkable And Rare
The outcome of Sunday’s crash, four crew members alive, zero spectator injuries, is the direct product of aviation safety engineering, ejection seat technology and military training.
It is also, in the context of American air show history, an extraordinarily rare combination of factors.
The last fatal crash at an American air show occurred in 2022, when two vintage military aircraft collided at an event in Dallas and killed six people. There were no air show fatalities in 2024 or 2025.
A spectator has not been killed at an American air show since 1952. John Cudahy, president and CEO of the International Council of Air Shows, told Idaho News that the average used to be approximately two deaths per year at American air shows.
Across the past decade, that average has dropped to closer to one death per year. The trend reflects decades of investment in safety protocols, aircraft maintenance standards and pilot training.
The specific technology that saved four lives on Sunday is the ACES II ejection seat, the system used in both seats of each EA-18G. At the moment of the collision, all four crew members made the decision to eject or were carried through ejection sequences by their training and the aircraft’s systems. Within five seconds.
Under conditions of extreme aerodynamic distress. At low altitude above a crowd of thousands.
The seats fired, the canopies deployed, and four people who were in two aircraft that no longer existed as functional machines were floating toward the ground under parachutes that worked exactly as designed.
The Investigation
A formal investigation into the cause of Sunday’s midair collision is underway, conducted by the United States Air Force. No cause has been publicly identified.
The identities of the four crew members have not been released. Idaho Transportation confirmed that State Highway 167 was closed from Simco Road to SH-67 near Mountain Home Air Force Base as part of the crash site response.
The loss of two EA-18G Growlers assigned to the Navy’s primary Growler training squadron carries implications beyond the immediate incident, VAQ-129 is the unit that produces every qualified Growler crew member in the service, and the two aircraft represent a significant resource.
The investigation will examine everything about the demonstration, the specific maneuver being performed, the separation distances, the flight path and the chain of events that resulted in the collision.
What the investigation will not need to examine is whether the ejection systems worked. They did. Four crew members are alive in Idaho tonight who were in two aircraft that struck the ground and exploded
