It's become a trend to mock gender reveal parties over the years, and there's been no shortage of devastating accidents that have occurred due to them. The celebrations have been blamed for everything from wildfires to deadly explosions. The desire to always be bigger and better than the last person is intoxicating for many people. 

Now, another example has been logged, this time in Mexico. In a video that quickly went viral, two parents are seen standing in front of a giant "oh baby" sign as a Piper PA-25 Pawnee approaches. The Pawnee is a long-serving design that is typically used as a cropduster. As the plane passes overhead, it starts to dump pink dust onto the couple and then abruptly pulls up into a climb. Almost immediately, the left wing collapses resulting in the plane rolling over and crashing.

Astonishingly, the cameraman quickly pans back to the couple for some reason, who are seen celebrating the reveal, seemingly completely unaware of what just occurred. 

Gender reveal plane crash 😞 pic.twitter.com/1NO3qJVnzA

— Wild content (@NoCapFights) September 3, 2023

Expectedly given the violence of the crash, the pilot did not survive. How those at the party just didn't notice a plane slamming into the ground is a bit of a mystery. I suppose its possible they didn't realize the rollover wasn't part of the performance, but you'd think they'd hear the sound of the impact. 

So what caused the crash? Having flown many types of airplanes, from tiny small props to jets, I can assure you that wings do not just randomly collapse like that. That's especially true for a cropduster that is made to handle higher load maneuvers. 

If I had to speculate, I'd guess this crash is similar to that of a Piper PA-28R Arrow some years back in which a flight instructor and student were killed after the wings broke off the airplane. An NTSB investigation later found that there had been previously undiscovered metal fatigue that led to the incident. It's likely this Pawnee suffered the same fate due to a lack of preventative maintenance, including checking for stress cracks and corrosion in the wing spar.

I'm not sure how thoroughly Mexican authorities will investigate the matter so we may never have a complete picture of what happened. Certainly, it's a shocking piece of video, though.