Real Change63%
‘No Blue Angels’ 34%
By Jordan Bollag48%
8/5/2026, 9:23:00 AM
Keywords: Blue Angels, Seafair, Protest, Health, Environment, Militarism, Noise Pollution, Air Pollution, Ptsd, Climate Change
BS Summary: This article contains 29 faulty reasoning types, including Appeal to Authority, Anecdotal, and Appeal to Emotion, with Negativity Bias as the most egregious example at 14.5% saturation with 293 hits. Analysis detected 2,541 faulty-reasoning hits from 2,016 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 34.6% and a BS Rank of 34% (20,332 of 30,584 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 66.50% of the article peer group.
If you live in Seattle, there is no doubt you are aware of the Blue Angels Boeing Seafair Air Show — even if you prefer not to be.
If you were in town last weekend, you surely heard the U.S.
Navy flight demonstration squadron flying overhead.
For some, the yearly event is a fun, wholesome tradition and a long-standing staple of our city.
For others, it is a noise nuisance, a health hazard, an environmental polluter, a post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) trigger and a promotion of violent, imperialist militarism.
While a projected 180,000 visitors were expected to attend this year’s Seafair Festival — which also features boat races, parades and other activities — around 70 Seattleites rallied Saturday against the festival’s inclusion of the Blue Angels.
The rally was organized by the Air Show Climate Action Coalition, whose online petition calling to end the Blue Angels Air Show had over 6,600 signatures Monday.
With Seafair having refused the coalition’s requests, organizers are demanding that city leaders and Seattle Parks and Recreation step in to deny the show a permit in the future.
Many of the organizers spoke at the rally about the violent militarism that the air show promotes.
“How many of our neighbors right here in South Seattle personally went through the trauma of sitting seeing a military airplane like these drop a bomb on their village right before they became war refugees?”
Aram, a member of 350 Seattle, said in his speech.
Real Change spoke to former Air Force flight surgeon Breck Lebegue, MD, MPH — who helped organize the rally as a member of the Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility (WPSR) — about the health effects of the air show.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Real Change: What was the rally on Saturday about, and why did you help organize it?
Breck Lebegue: Saturday was the third or the fourth of a multiyear effort to end Blue Angels flying at Seafair.
Seafair has a long tradition.
We like it.
We, the coalition, like the maritime tradition, but over the years, military presence has crept in.
The Blue Angels have flown there for probably five decades, and the reason we in WPSR object is for health reasons, and there are essentially three major health concerns.
First is the noise, the noise at ground level, and they fly very close to the ground.
I personally measured last year at 110 decibels, and anything over 100 for more than 15 minutes can cause permanent hearing damage.
So for an hour and a half show, much of that time will be at low altitude, flying over the crowd at that level that causes hearing damage.
The second major reason is the production of PM 2.5 particles.
These are particles that are produced by burning fossil fuels — whether it’s jet engine exhaust, whether it’s diesel truck exhaust, whether it’s car exhaust, whether it’s a variety of other fossil fuels being burned.
Those particles are so small that they can easily enter the lungs, and they don’t get out.
We heard one guy quoted at the Boeing Field takeoff for practice saying he loves the smell of jet fuel.
I’m a retired Air Force flight surgeon, and I know what jet fuel smells like.
I was in the Air Force for 30 years as a physician to the pilots.
The problem is, if you inhale it and then exhale in somebody else’s nose, they won’t smell the jet fuel if they’re elsewhere.
The reason is those particles stay in the lungs, and in the lungs they enter in two ways.
They first enter the nose for smell.
In the nose, the olfactory nerves go directly from the nose into a section of the brain, and in addition, in the heart and lungs, they go through the thin tissue into the bloodstream.
Some are lodged in the arteries that supply the heart, and some even go into the brain and stay there.
There’s good medical evidence that people who die early of Parkinson’s disease and other neurologic disorders like dementia have a higher concentration of PM 2.5 particles and others in the brain.
That is not healthy, and it’s irreversible.
Once it gets in, it doesn’t get out.
Third, PTSD is a condition caused by a sudden shock, a frightening shock that overwhelms both the nervous system and the mental coping mechanisms of people exposed.
The most common causes are tragedies such as war, whether it’s soldiers or innocent civilian victims of war, shocking car wrecks, mass casualties, floods.
Sudden noise produced by the jet engines is particularly frightening to combat veterans who may have been exposed to that, or to people who, for example, were in 9/11, exposed to the sight and the sound of aircraft flying into buildings and people dying as a result.
Smell and sound are two of the most sensitive senses, and sudden shocks to those can produce long-lasting effects a long time after.
The people who live under the flight path around Lake Washington live in neighborhoods; that is very different from most air shows, which are conducted on military bases that have acres of empty land around them, both for the safety of people if there happens to be a crash, but also for the sound and the jet fuel exhaust.
Those neighborhoods of South Seattle are identified by our own Washington State Department of Ecology as health disparities areas, meaning the people who live there are already exposed to high levels of PM 2.5s and other pollutants from car exhausts, chiefly from I-5 and I-90 but also from SeaTac Airport.
All of these health harms are largely silent to most of the people who don’t actually live in the area, and that’s most of the people that come to the show.
So they’re there for a great time.
“Oh, the airplanes are beautiful,” and I agree they are.
The Navy pilots’ skills are absolutely superb in flying airplanes that close together and in such tight formations.
But the health harms are exported to the people on the ground and the people who live in the nearby neighborhoods.
WPSR says: No more harm.
Stop the Blue Angels.
They use 70,000 gallons of fuel per air show, and they fly some 30 air shows around the country.
We simply don’t need them any longer.
There are electric airplanes; there are drones; there are a whole variety of aerial and maritime entertainment and shows that can be done in a clean, safe manner.
That’s why we stand for stopping the health harms and reimagining safer, cleaner ways of supporting Seafair.
After the rally, you marched to the entrance of the festival.
What was that like?
We rallied at Columbia Park, and we marched as a group with signs and chanting to Genesee Park.
WPSR did two things there.
First, we handed out free earplugs to minimize the health harm, the hearing harm, to those who attended.
Many were surprised by that fact and said, “How loud is it?”
And we didn’t obstruct them.
They kept on walking.
We said, “It’s very loud.
You can hear me now, but you won’t hear me on the way out if you don’t use the earplugs,” because that level of sound can damage hearing, causing temporary loss for most people and permanent loss for some.
We handed out about 500 or 600 pairs of earplugs to those attending.
We only did that for about an hour, maybe two.
So there are many more thousands that didn’t have that protection.
Many thoughtful people brought their own hearing protection, including earmuffs for the kids, so they don’t harm their hearing at a very young age because they’re even more sensitive.
The second thing we did was conduct a die-in — street theater that simulated the effect of the real reason for the F/A-18 Hornet, which is a fighter attack jet.
The purpose is to kill people and things, whether it’s ground attack or with bombs.
So we conducted a mock die-in with cardboard cutouts of bombs, with people lying on the ground and WPSR physicians making our way through the group and conducting mock triage, sorting out casualties, whether they’re dead, whether they’re grievously wounded, seriously wounded, or whether they only have minor wounds; those who are bombed are usually in the first two categories.
What was the reception that you got from people by the festival?
Have they been supportive?
Have they been angry at you?
The reaction that we saw as physicians in our white coats handing out earplugs was profound thanks.
People said, “I never thought of that.
Thank you, I didn’t bring mine,” and they gratefully accepted the earplugs.
The reaction of the crowd streaming by for the die-in was silence.
They didn’t know what to say.
I think it was an enlightening moment.
We did not experience any anger or shouting or criticism.
You had a rally on Saturday.
You have an online petition.
Are there next steps for the coalition?
First, we look backward to what we’ve done that has not had the desired protective response.
We have asked Parks and Recreation to deny the permit for Genesee Park, based on two factors: firstly, the health harms that I discussed, and secondly, Seattle City and King County’s own documents that say we must protect the health of others in parks.
For example, we don’t allow loud noises; we don’t allow loud bands in parks above a certain decibel level, certainly not 110 decibels.
We don’t allow harmful drug use in parks.
Why should we allow someone to produce harmful inhaled jet fuel that harms other people who aren’t even participating?
We’ve asked Parks and Recreation; they ignored us.
We’ve asked the Public Health Department; they said, “It’s not our job to do that.”
We’ve asked the Seafair CEO and the board; they’ve said “A lot of people want Blue Angels, so we’ll contract to have them return.”
Our next step, looking to the future, will be to continue to present the petition.
Before this weekend, 6,500 people had signed a petition to stop the Blue Angels, many of whom were directly harmed or affected, many from the neighborhood.
We’ll then take it to the Seattle City Council and King County Council to ask for direct intervention to cancel next year’s contract and invitation, and to stop the Blue Angels from flying — not to stop the fun, but to produce electric air shows; whatever can be done that doesn’t harm people’s health, please enjoy it; have a good time at Seafair.
Is there anything else that you wanted to touch on?
There is an international movement called “Stay Grounded.”
Stay Grounded is asking to stop aircraft operations at large commercial airports during the night when it keeps people awake, and during other hours when it produces more ultrafine particles, the PM 2.5s, than is healthy for people.
Many international airports have restricted flights during the night for that reason.
We’re also asking Seattle ports to do the same and to not expand SeaTac as they’re planning to do with another 300 flights per day for the very same health reasons.
People in SeaTac and Burien and surrounding communities have a two- to five-year shorter lifespan than comparable people who don’t live near SeaTac Airport.
I talked about our organization being a climate and health organization.
Let me just say a few words about climate.
The last 10 years have been the hottest ever that records have been kept.
The forests in Washington state are now burning.
Spokane residents lost a lot of homes — this is right in our state.
The scientists agree there is a connection between human caused climate change and the harmful weather effects we’re now experiencing — whether it’s flooding, like we got here in our state last year round, whether it’s fires now, whether it’s the heat dome that we’re about to experience.
Something is very wrong.
Mother Nature is dying, and we’re making it happen.
We need to stop it
Speakers
6speakers84%attributed speech316writer words
Selected voice
100%flagged-word coverageAir Show Climate Action Coalition
27 attributed words1.6% of attributed speech55% writer coverage
Attribution is sentence-level. Pattern percentages are calculated only from words assigned to that voice.
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Analysis
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