UPDATE #2, 10:00 AM: The Eagles banner was not on the plane that crashed, according to Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk.
UPDATE, 10:30 PM: The Eagles fan who started the GoFundMe page to pay for the plane now says that the plane that crashed may not have been the one toting the Eagles banner.
— EROCK (@TheMightyEROCK) August 10, 2015
A strange game of antagonism has begun this NFL preseason via planes and ill-mannered banners. That antagonism has taken a tragic turn though, as a plane, reportedly commissioned by a Philadelphia Eagles fan to fly over Dallas Cowboys training camp, crashed Sunday, killing the pilot.
"One person was killed Sunday when a single-engine plane crashed and burned during takeoff at Compton-Woodley Airport," Jonathan Lloyd and Joe Studley of NBCLosAngeles.com reported late Sunday afternoon.
"The plane, towing a banner, crashed at about 12:30 p.m. on a runway at the county-owned airport in the 900 block of West Alondra Boulevard, about two miles southwest of Compton's central business district. Images from the scene showed the plane on fire, sending thick smoke over the airport." The plane and the banner it was carrying were commissioned by an Eagles fan, according to Brandon Lee Gowton of BleedingGreenNation.com. Here is the reaction of the fan who raised money for the banner...
There will be no plane today. There has been an accident at the airport. I can't get into details right now. They just called — EROCK (@TheMightyEROCK) August 9, 2015
You guys should hear from me. It's was my thing. https://t.co/zfZOZHuYem — EROCK (@TheMightyEROCK) August 9, 2015
I'll find the pilots name. Whatever money was raised will go to his family. I'm going to step away for a while....beyond devastated. — EROCK (@TheMightyEROCK) August 9, 2015
The decision by Eagles fans to commission the plane came shortly after Cowboys fans paid for a banner to be flown over Philadelphia's practice fields. Already this offseason, New England Patriots fans paid for a banner speaking out against NFL commissioner Roger Goodell in the wake of his decision to uphold quarterback Tom Brady's four-game Deflategate suspension and New York Jets fans hired a plane to fly a "Cheaters" banner over Patriots training camp.
