RENO, Nev. - It was everyone's worst nightmare when an unlimited-class race airplane dove into the front edge of the grandstand crowd at the Reno Air Races on Stead Field Friday, killing seven people instantly, including the pilot, and sending 54 to the hospital. Of those, three subsequently died increasing the incident fatalities to 10.

Friday was the second of four planned days of racing and the gold unlimited class was the last race of the day. Near the end of its third eight-mile lap around the pylons, 74-year-old Jimmy Leeward's Galloping Ghost (Race 177), a highly modified P-51D Mustang World War II fighter, suddenly pitched up and climbed just before it was to pass in front of the grandstand. It then rolled inverted and meandered horizontally a couple seconds before plummeting in a near vertical dive at an estimated speed in excess of 400 mph into the box seats set up directly in front of the grandstand.

I stood at the east end of the pits just west of the box seat section that extended in front of the grandstand. The leader Strega (Race 7) followed by Voodoo (Race 5), both highly modified P-51D Mustangs, had just started the fourth lap when gasps surrounding me directed my gaze toward the box seats. Immediately a nearly vertical diving plane appeared below my cap brim a split second before it impacted the ground, sending a bouquet-shaped burst of debris and dust over a hundred feet in the air.

Miraculously, there was no explosion or fire, just a dull thump which left a 3-foot-deep by 8-foot-diameter crater and a debris field about the size of a football field.

From my vantage point about 300 feet to the side, spectator casualties appeared certain. If I had been primed to raise my camera I might have caught the image of the shrapnel cloud but as a member of the credentialed media, I had been conditioned with years of admonitions from Valerie Miller, Reno Air Race Association (RARA) director of marketing and public relations, to lower my camera at the first sign of an incident. Obediently I left my camera down.

After the initial shock and while considering implications of the disaster, I noticed a few people around me openly weeping, including a man next to me. A friend held him as he slowly sank to his knees, covering his eyes giving full vent to his grief.

Moments later emergency vehicles and paramedic first responders rushed through the pit gate where I stood. RARA CEO Mike Houghton said in a press conference at 6 p.m. Friday that the complete scenario had been simulated just months earlier as part of a biennial emergency response drill.

While I had been 300 feet from the impact, another media colleague and friend, Lista Duren, had noticed the start of the gold race while walking in back of the grandstands. With her media wristband as a pass, she walked under the grandstand to the front row of the box seats and proceeded to take photos. As Leeward's plane climbed, rolled inverted then dove, she saw its nose point straight at her.

"I didn't know which way to run so I just dove to the ground," she said later.

Galloping Ghost struck the ground just 50 feet away, leaving her physically unscathed but with the carnage seared in her memory.

Saturday morning I ran into old friend and Northwest Airlines 747 pilot Robin Reid, who happened to be standing close by my position at the time of the incident. He had watched the gyrations of Leeward's out of control race plane, at one time seeing it point directly at him before veering slightly to its eventual impact point.

After the initial response by emergency personnel, I walked through the pits toward the media center on the far west section of the ramp. On the way, I stopped briefly at the Nampa Warhawk Air Museum pit of Boise race pilot John-Curtiss "J.C." Paul who along with his dad, John, and mother Sue brought two World War II-era P-40 Warhawks and their newly rebuilt P-51C Mustang, Boise Bee, to the races. J.C. had just returned from the impact zone with troubling cell phone photos of the debris field. Sue had seen a friend's photos taken just as Galloping Ghost began its violent vertical climb clearly showing the elevator trim tab missing. The photos also showed the retractable tail wheel had extended, implying a severe G-load which snapped its retaining pin.

Back at the air races media center, one photographer who had been stationed at the home pylon directly in front of and across the runway from the grandstands showed his photo with the full-blown post-impact outburst of shrapnel and dust. It confirmed what I had just seen from a 90-degree side angle.

Many photographers stated that their photos showed an empty cockpit, implying that Leeward had been knocked out or had passed out from the severe G-load of the sudden climb.

During Houghton's 6 p.m. press conference, he was asked if he knew Leeward.

"Yes, I knew him. He was my friend," Houghton said.

That was the sentiment of many in the media, as well as aircraft owners, pilots, crew members and longtime race fans. Over time the air-race fraternity has bonded in both triumph and grief. Over the last 48 years, 17 pilots have perished in air race accidents, including Caldwell crop dusting pilot Gary Hubler in 2007. This year is the first time that spectators were involved.

Houghton extended the wishes of Leeward's new widow that the races continue, acknowledging that sometimes one cannot get one's way as he announced the end of Reno Air Race activities for 2011.

Another longtime friend, commercial pilot, aircraft mechanic, photographer and author Eric Presten of Sonoma, Calif., flew his 1949 Piper PA-16 Clipper into Stead for display in the Heritage section on the east side of the ramp. He knew Leeward for many years and both had flown for scenes in the movie "Amelia," with Presten flying the vintage Bleriot during a childhood flashback scene. Presten's two young teenage sons had grown close to Leeward and, although not present at the time of Friday's accident, were especially shaken, he said.

Three National Transportation Safety Board representatives were on the field at the time of the crash. The NTSB has full jurisdiction during such incidents and a full lockdown of the airport itself was undertaken overnight. Around 3 a.m. a helicopter arrived at Stead Field with a full inspection team from NTSB.

Saturday morning dawned with a full lockout at Stead Field. Pilots, aircraft owners, crew, everyone except official RARA personnel and police were shut out until later in the morning when selected groups, including credentialed media, were allowed into isolated areas of the west ramp and hangars.

The first NTSB press conference was held in a maintenance hangar on the far east side of Stead Field ramp at 12:51 p.m. Saturday. NTSB spokesman Mark Rosekind sketched a brief outline of the incident without elaboration, acknowledging that an elevator trim tab had been recovered but cautioned that it had not yet been positively identified as coming from Galloping Ghost.

That is a good example of the tentative statements early in an NTSB investigation.

Rosekind said he believes the team will gather physical evidence, as well as still photo and video footage for several days, then go back to headquarters where analysis and findings may take from six to nine months. Aircraft systems telemetry instruments had been installed in Galloping Ghost, which had wirelessly downloaded engine/aircraft data, as well as GPS altitude, track and coordinates. All evidence will be weighed and measured before recommendations are released. These recommendations could encompass crowd locations, race/airbox proximity and aircraft modification procedures.

A decision regarding the future of the annual Reno Air Races will come much later, said Houghton.

Galloping Ghost had a long and storied history going back to the post-war Cleveland National Air Races held from 1946-1949. In 1949, pilot Steve Beville sat in Galloping Ghost and watched pilot Bill Odom pass under him and lose control of his P-51 and crash into a house, killing himself, a young mother and her child. Outrage from that event led to the closing of the Cleveland National Air Races.

The Galloping Ghost was originally named in honor of the University of Illinois and Chicago Bears football legend Harold "Red" Grange.