From the local newspaper.
An NTSB investigator said pilot Tom Delashaw steered the jet into an open field Tuesday before it crashed. Homes, a fuel storage facility and high voltage power lines surround the grassy, open area where the vintage jet first hit ground, then broke apart and burned in nearby woods.
"That's just the thing you do without a whole lot of fanfare. You go where you're not going to hurt anyone on the ground," said Delashaw's longtime friend Don Wylie when learning of the investigator's comment. "That would be Tom." Wylie is president of Aviation Safety Training outside Houston, Texas, where Delashaw, 67, was a pilot for the past 12 years. The company works to improve the ability of pilots to recover from inflight loss of control.
He and Delashaw served as Air Force combat pilots in Vietnam, where Delashaw earned the Distinguished Flying Cross. Wylie said Delashaw served two tours in Vietnam, flying F-104 Starfighters and F-4 Phantoms. He doesn't know the details of Delashaw's Distinguished Flying Cross - a medal awarded for valor in flight.