While racers and the hardcore fan might argue otherwise, for the casual drag racing fans amongst us, and particularly with children, jet cars are an exciting and welcome part of an event program. They’re fast, they’re loud, and they put on a show vastly different from that of piston-powered race cars. But as has been proven time and again, while relatively simple machines on the surface, they are nothing to take lightly — not by the driver, the crew, nor the spectators. Because, while things go right most of the time, when they go wrong with a jet engine, they go wrong in a terrifying way.

This incident involving Bruce Andrews and his Silver Fox jet truck back in 2010 illustrate that point quite well. Andrews, from Drayton Valley, Alberta, Canada, was making exhibition runs at the Alaska Raceway Park — perhaps the most picturesque drag strip in the world — when a leak in the fuel line sprayed the mixture out onto the hot side of the engine, igniting and bursting the truck into flames, to the horror of the hundreds of fans there to watch.

The fuel leak is evident as Andrews goes to stage the truck — you can see a whisper of smoke emitting from inside the right rear wheel well, and the mechanics of the problem appear to have hampered his attempt to actually stage the truck. Instead, he goes wide-open without taking the tree and within sixty feet is sitting in by far the hottest seat in Alaska.

Fortunately, Andrews was able to stop the truck and climb from the hatch in the roof without injury, and the track’s safety crew was reportedly able to extinguish the fire in just over a minute, saving the truck from complete destruction.