FILE: Members of the U.S. Navy Blue Angels precision flying team rehearse at Little Rock Air Force base in Jacksonville, Ark. (AP)
A jet from the Navy's elite Blue Angels flight demonstration team skidded off a runway and got stuck in mud Thursday morning.
The F/A-18 Hornet was flying to the former Brunswick Naval Air Station to promote and plan for the 2015 Great State of Maine Air Show when it slid on a patch of ice at the end of the runway, said Lt. Amber Lynn Daniel, a Blue Angels spokeswoman. The jet was taxiing at the time, she said.
The twin-engine jet spun around and ended up sliding backward off the runway, said Steve Levesque, executive director of the Midcoast Regional Redevelopment Authority, who witnessed the accident.
The pilot, Marine Capt. Jeff Kuss, and his backseat pilot, Capt. Corrie Mays, were unharmed. But the jet's landing gear became stuck in the mud, and the jet had to be towed back onto pavement.
The Blue Angels dispatched a C-130 with a team of mechanics from Pensacola, Florida, to check out the plane and make sure the landing gear wasn't damaged, Daniel said.
The Blue Angels are among the aerial acts performing at the air show on Labor Day weekend at what's now known as the Brunswick Executive Airport. The Blue Angels' last scheduled performance in Maine was canceled in 2013 because a federal budget crisis grounded military flight demonstration teams.
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