Show in Key West may have been a farewell for now from Blue Angels
Mar 25, 2013, 8:08 AM | Updated: 9:48 am
In this photo provided by the U.S. Navy via the Florida Keys News Bureau, Lt. Nate Barton flies his Blue Angels fighter jet, left, in formation over the lower Florida Keys during a practice flight Thursday, March 21, 2013, near Key West, Fla. (AP Photo/U.S. Navy via the Florida Keys News Bureau, Petty Officer Rachel McMarr)
(AP Photo/U.S. Navy via the Florida Keys News Bureau, Petty Officer Rachel McMarr)
The Blue Angels performed over the weekend in Key West, Florida and it may have been the last air show for the Navy’s elite fighter jet demonstration unit for a while.
The Department of Defense says funding for such shows has been cut from April 1 through the remainder of the fiscal year. That means they would skip the Seafair Air Show in August.
Commander Tom Frosch is the Blue Angels Flight Leader. He says the Blues provide an important service for the Navy.
“We want to expose young men and women and inspire them into potential careers in the Navy Marine Corps,” Frosch told CBS Radio.
The Navy says Congress has agreed to finance some of the remaining aerial exhibitions on the schedule, but right now it’s not certain whether the Blue Angels shows will continue.
Sequestration motivated a March 5 directive prohibiting “all aerial demonstrations in civilian air shows and military open houses.”
Congress has agreed on a plan to finance the government for the rest of the fiscal year, but Navy officials have said it is unclear whether the Blue Angels shows will continue.
A calendar of the upcoming Blue Angels events shows that many of the airshows in the next few months have been canceled.
Seafair’s Boeing Airshow is still listed on the Navy’s current calendar, as well as on the Seafair website.
MyNorthwest.com’s Alyssa Kleven and KIRO Radio’s Val Stouffer contributed to this report.
