Hat tip to David Cenciotti and his Aviationist blog for posting this video of a flyover involving two Mirage 2000 fighter jets in Brasíla that ended up shattering the windows of Brazil’s Supreme Court and Congressional buildings. The flyover was part of the ceremony of exchange of the national flag at the Praça dos Três Poderes, at the Esplanada dos Ministerios and luckily nobody was injured when the windows shattered:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qhc2lXCT9c&w=480]
Brig Ar Kanitz Marcelo Damasceno, chief of the Center for Social Communication of the Força Aérea Brasileira (FAB), did issue a statement saying that the Brazilian Air Force Command has initiated an investigation of the incident and will compensate for the damage it caused but from reading the comments on YouTube.com, one also has to wonder what could have happened to eardrums and even eyeglasses (I suspect the glass in eyeglasses might be too small to shatter).
Nevertheless, the incident does remind me of a few videos we posted in the past showing Argentine military pilots performing not-so-safe stunts – including one where an aircraft clipped a control tower while doing a flypast (Argentinean pilot videos: Showing bravery or plain stupidity?). In other words, perhaps South American pilots have a bit too much machismo!