F-86 Sabre Crash

Hickory, North Carolina:

...Wyatt Fuller, a vintage-airplane buff who was headed to an air show in Oshkosh, Wis., when the crash happened. He was piloting a 1954 F-86 Sabre made in Canada....

The pilot had been attempting takeoff down one of the airport's two runways when the crash happened, Byers said. The plane carried a full load of about 800 gallons of fuel.

Kenneth Bowen, who lives across from the airport, said he saw the crash as he talked with his mailman in front of his house. He said he heard the plane's engine and thought it was coming in for a landing.

Then the engine stopped and he saw the plane moving down the runway, smoke coming from its brakes.

"And it wouldn't hold, and he just kept going," Bowen said. "I said, `Oh God, he ain't going to stop.' He went over the bank and then exploded. I could feel the heat from all the way over here."