After a year of canceled air shows, the Navy's Blue Angels flight demonstration team is hoping to appear for a 2022 performance in Charleston.
The 2022 schedule includes a show at Charleston Air Force Base on April 9-10. More details about the presentation will be announced at a later date.
Last year and this year's shows were canceled due to the COVID-19 outbreak.
Lt. Victor Reyes, a spokesman for the Charleston Air Force Base, said it's been a long time since there's been an air show on base and they are excited to have the famous Navy flight crew back.
"Joint Base Charleston is excited to have the Blue Angels in town next year and looks forward to hosting our first air show since 2018," Reyes said in a statement.
Additional performances at Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort scheduled for April 2021 were canceled because of concerns relating to coronavirus.
"It is a difficult decision for me to cancel such a monumental event, but given the current COVID-19 environment it must be done,” Col. Karl Arbogast, commanding officer of MCAS Beaufort, said in a statement.
Planning for the biennial MCAS Beaufort Air Show for April 2023 has already begun.
Updates on shows across the country and the full tour schedule can be found at blueangels.navy.mil.
The mission of the Blue Angels is to show the teamwork and aircraft of the Navy and Marine Corps through flight demonstrations and community outreach.
Since 1946, the Blue Angels have performed for more than 500 million fans. It's also a dangerous job. To date, 21 pilots and crew members have been killed during performances and training. Four others have died in combat.
One Blue Angels fatality happened in the Lowcountry.
On April 21, 2007, Lt. Cmdr. Kevin Davis, a Blue Angels pilot, crashed his F-18 into a residential neighborhood outside of the Marine Corps Air Station in Beaufort. A temporary decrease in blood flow to his brain caused by the gravitational pull likely caused Davis to experience tunnel vision and become disoriented, according to military investigators.
Davis broke formation and crashed, causing extensive damage to nearby homes. Eight people on the ground were injured.
In 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic, a Blue Angel F-18 landed at Joint Base Charleston to promote the upcoming show in 2020. The demonstration was canceled several months later.
