Hundreds of spectators who witnessed the crash at the Reno Air Races on Friday left and tried to move on with their lives, to put the unfolding tragedy behind them and search for answers. Part of that was recounting the story to whomever they could find and would listen.

A producer who works for KOLO TV was there at the time of the accident and called me an hour and a half after the crash, just to try to tell me as friend what had happened. But he was in a daze and too choked up to get out the words. "I saw it happen Ky," was about all he could say. It's not often that someone who works in the news business has difficulty recounting what they saw. It must have been horrific beyond anything I can imagine. As I soon found out, others who didn't see the close-up images that he did, are able to speak about it.

I wasn't called into work on Friday night, but as a journalist, I am always working and I was inadvertently among some of those witnesses as they tried to heal from what they saw. My wife and I were at the Ole Bridge Pub in downtown Reno at about 8 pm on Friday. All eyes were locked on a big screen TV with KOLO's news. The sound was off on the TV as the broadcasters mouths moved between grainy images of a plane spiking into the sky then a massive explosion on the ground, ambulances and debris.

Some guys were standing there in silence watching the screen with the awe-inspiring pictures. The two men had big black 7s written on their hands. I cracked the ice by telling them there was a crash at the air races, assuming they were wondering what was going on. They both whipped their eyes toward me and said, "We know. We were there." I pointed out the 7s on their hands and they said they were standing in bleacher section 7 when it happened.

I told them I am a newscaster and told them I could probably put them on air right now, but they didn't want to be identified and refused an on-camera interview. They were however eager to talk about what they had seen. So, here is some of our conversation.

They said they knew the pilot of Galloping Ghost, "Jimmy" through an aircraft museum that they operated. Jimmy had no medical conditions, they said, and the way the crash happened proved to them that he had some control of the plane as it went down. They said that while they were standing there in Section 7 in the bleachers the plane "had a normal mayday," flying up, but then instead of heading toward the center of the raceway and away from the crowd, Jimmy was suddenly headed right for them and the crowd. They barely had time to run. "I went this way and my brother went that way."

They speculated, that at the last minute, through his small window of sight, at high speed of about 300 mph, Jimmy must have been able to see the bleachers and maneuver the plane away but he could not avoid the boxes of spectators on the ground. They said they would be surprised if the initial reports of a few deaths turned out to be the final death toll. Regardless, they say that Jimmy's last minute move away from the bleachers saved many lives.

I asked what this might do to the Air Races as an event. They explained that the Reno Air Race is the only real air race in the nation and that this accident could put the event in jeopardy. Federal authorities will tolerate pilot deaths, they said, but spectator casualties are another entire issue of concern that they are less likely to tolerate. They said they hope this incident doesn't put the air races up in the air. For now, the NTSB has taken over the investigation, the Reno Air Races are canceled and a public memorial is being planned.

The two witnesses I spoke to wanted the public to know, that Jimmy's last minute move spared lives and that was probably his dying thought, how to avoid as many people as possible as he plummeted toward the crowd.

Any witnesses are urged to call the KOLO-TV Newsroom at 775-858-8880