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Blue Angels pilot’s body has been flown home

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This May 19, 2016, photo shows Marine Capt. Jeff Kuss at an air show in Lynchburg, Va. A Blue Angels F/A-18 fighter jet crashed Thursday, June 2, near Nashville, Tenn., killing the pilot just days before a weekend air show performance, officials said. A U.S. official said the pilot was Kuss. (Matt Bell/The Register & Bee via AP) MANDATORY CREDIT

SMYRNA, Tenn. – The body of an elite fighter jet pilot who was killed in a crash near Nashville Thursday has been flown home.

The Tennessean reports (http://tnne.ws/1t8LRnv ) that a Navy C-130 “Fat Albert” plane flew out of Smyrna Saturday morning with the body of Capt. Jeff Kuss. People braved the rain, some carrying American flags, others wiping tears away as a police procession guided a white hearse from Murfreesboro to the Smyrna Airport, which are just southeast of Nashville.

One who watched the procession was JoyKarin Winter.

“I just think of his kids,” Winter said, wiping away a tear.

Kuss, 32, was a member of the Blue Angels, an elite fighter jet performance team, and a married father of two. He was practicing for an air show when his F/A-18 jet crashed just after takeoff. The incident took place on the same day that a member of the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds, another elite jet performance team, crashed in Colorado after a flyover for the Air Force Academy graduation where President Barack Obama spoke. That pilot was able to eject safely.

Both incidents are under investigation.

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