If it were stated that there was a "fatal incident" on the runway, that
would tell everyone that there would be a sizable delay. There is always
extra time taken to investigate, take proper care and respect to remove the
occupants, and remove the aircraft.

If I were put into a hold with that many aircraft, and knew it was not just
a backup due to too many aircraft trying to get in to land all at once, I
would have definitely made the decision to go find somewhere to land, and
come back later.

I agree.
Having been in that hold over Green Lake, I think (and this is just my
opinion) that this one tidbit of information would have shut up all the
jibber-jabber on the frequency. It had gotten out of hand, and while I
respect the idea that ATC/FAA/EAA might not have wanted to brodcast the
fact that there was a fatal accident, there were still literally
hundreds of airplanes in the air on that Sunday, and people would have
piped down and shut up and made proper decisions about what to do next
if they knew the full scope of what was going on. Call it situational
awareness, but things were teetering on the brink of break down.
Broadcasting what had happened would have helped the guys at FISK get
it back under control, which they were in danger of losing.

People had a bad case of "get-THERE-itis" and wanted to get in. Knowing
what had happened would have helped to calm things down.

Arguing about how long it might take to clear up various types of
accidents is a waste of time. Each situation is a little different. I
remember one (non-fatal, except to the avionics involved) where a
baggage door on a twin opened up while the aircraft rotated on 27 at
OSH. The boxes of avionics then went thru the prop and got shredded
into a million small pieces. It took us probably an hour or two at
least to do the FOD walk and clear the runway.

Ryan Wubben
EAA Flight Line Operations