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The Thunderbirds were practicing at Indian Springs Air Force Auxiliary Field, Nevada (now Creech Air Force Base) for a performance at Davis-Monthan AFB, Arizona.[2] Four T-38As, Numbers 1-4, comprising the basic diamond formation, hit the desert floor almost simultaneously on Range 65, now referred to as "The Gathering of Eagles Range". The pilots were practicing the four-plane line abreast loop, in which the aircraft climb in side-by-side formation several thousand feet, pull over in a slow, backward loop, and descend at more than 400 mph. The planes were meant to level off at about 100 feet (30 m); Instead, the formation struck the ground at high speed

the Air Force concluded that the crash was due to a jammed stabilizer on the lead jet. The other pilots, in accordance with their training, did not break formation