The Blue Angels flight team abruptly canceled its performance Saturday afternoon at the California Capital Airshow at Mather Airport. The squadron’s commanding officer came down with a form of food poisoning.

It was an abrupt and rare cancellation for the Blue Angels flight team Saturday afternoon at the California Capital Airshow at Mather Airport. The reason: the squadron’s commanding officer came down with a form of food poisoning. The Blues announced via Twitter just before the performance time of 3 pm that they would not be flying on Saturday.

“Disappointed we won’t be flying today, but look forward to meeting great fans at the crowd line and we are planning on flying tomorrow,” the team said in a tweet Saturday.

Due to the cancellation, the airshow organizers allowed fans to return Sunday at no cost.

“The Blue Angels commanding officer and flight leader, Cmdr. Ryan Bernacchi, contracted a food-borne ailment and is under the medical supervision of the team’s Flight Surgeon. If you attended today’s Airshow, all tickets will be honored for General Admission on Sunday, October ,” the California Capital Airshow statement read.

As the Commanding Officer and flight lead, the Blue Angels “Boss” leads the airshow performance. There are no replacements for the flight lead nor is there a secondary show performance when the flight lead is unable to perform. Therefore, the Boss is the most critical component of the team.

In lieu of performing, the remainder of the team signed autographs for quite a large crowd. The Sacramento area show is a fairly large one as last year drew more than 109,000 attendees to the event at the former Mather Air Force Base. Thankfully for those fans, it appeared that the bug quickly resolved itself as the Blue Angels took to the skies on Sunday to perform their full show.

The cause of the illness was not known, but one Blue Angel twitter follower remarked that the team should avoid “gas station sushi”.

You can read more from the Sacramento Bee here

Top Photo credit: The U.S. Navy Flight demonstration team, the Blue Angels, perform their delta formation during the Blues on the Bay Air Show at Marine Corps Base Hawaii Oct. 14, 2007. The Blue Angels fly the F/A-18A Hornet aircraft and perform approximately 30 maneuvers during the aerial demonstration lasting over an hour. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Michael Hight) (Released)