Who are the Blue Angels?
PARK: So just who are the Blue Angels? In the aftermath of Saturday’s crash, Fredricka Whitfield gives us some background on the elite flyers and the purpose of their aerial demonstrations. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN REPORTER: 51 years. That’s how long the Navy’s elite aerial demonstration team has been thrilling air show crowds around the world. Looping, rolling, roaring in formation inches apart, just over the heads of 15 million thrilled air show fans a year. Remarkably though, given the difficulty and danger of the stunts, the number of Blue Angels crashes is low. Before Saturday’s crash in South Carolina, the last Blue Angel fatal accident happened almost eight years ago, during a training flight in Georgia. The last fatal crash during an air show? 1985. All of these thrills, these risky maneuvers, these death-defying stunts, they have one main purpose: recruiting. Air shows bring people, lots of them, watching the Navy’s coolest pilots flying the coolest jets, in
