The Blue Angels are built around the number six. Six jets, six pilots, one Delta formation that closes every show. On Friday 6 November, as the team opened its season finale at home in Pensacola, it took off one jet short.

The US Navy has removed a Blue Angels pilot, Marine Corps Maj. Scott Laux, the team’s No. 6 opposing solo, from the Navy Flight Demonstration Squadron. The Chief of Naval Air Training (CNATRA) confirmed the removal to the Pensacola News Journal, which first reported it on the evening of 6 November.

The Navy’s explanation runs to exactly one sentence: Laux failed to uphold the standards expected of the squadron. What those standards were, and what happened, the Navy has not said.

One sentence from the Navy

The statement came from CNATRA’s public affairs office, which oversees the squadron. It said Blue Angel No. 6 would not take part in the rest of the 2026 season, which by then meant only the two days of the Homecoming Air Show at Naval Air Station Pensacola on 6 and 7 November.

Newsweek reported that officials did not say when the decision was made, and that no disciplinary allegation or flight-safety incident has been publicly linked to the removal. Laux’s photo and biography also appeared to have been taken off the official Blue Angels website. The Navy has not said whether another pilot will take his seat.

That is the whole of the public record. Anything beyond it, for now, is guesswork, and Afterburner is not in the guessing business.

A five-jet show at home

The timing could hardly have been more awkward. The Homecoming Air Show is the team’s traditional season closer in front of its home crowd, and 2026 is a double anniversary: the Blue Angels’ 80th year and the 200th of NAS Pensacola itself.

According to the Pensacola News Journal, the team flew five F/A-18 Super Hornets instead of six on Friday. Losing No. 6 hurts more than a gap in the Delta. The opposing solo flies with the lead solo, No. 5, in the head-on crossing passes and mirror-image manoeuvres that fill the gaps between the four-jet Diamond’s routines. Local outlet Must Do Pensacola reported that the routine was adjusted for five aircraft.

Who is Maj. Scott Laux?

According to his official Blue Angels biography, Laux comes from Chantilly, Virginia, graduated from the US Naval Academy in 2012 and earned his wings in 2015. He flew F/A-18C and F/A-18D Hornets with Marine Corps squadrons, including a 2020 deployment aboard USS Nimitz with VMFA-323.

In 2022 he moved to the F-35C and became an instructor pilot with Strike Fighter Squadron 125. He joined the Blue Angels in September 2024 and, following the team’s usual path, narrated the show in 2025 as No. 7 before moving into the No. 6 jet for 2026. His biography credited him with more than 1,300 flight hours and 169 arrested carrier landings.

He flew the opposing solo slot all season, including San Francisco Fleet Week in October.

Getting that far is not easy. According to Newsweek, the squadron numbers about 158 active-duty sailors and Marines, and around 17 officers serve with it as volunteers. Each year it usually picks just three new tactical jet pilots, two support officers and one Marine C-130J pilot to replace those moving on.

WEAR Channel 3 News on the 2026 Blue Angels Homecoming Air Show at NAS Pensacola, the season finale the team flew without its No. 6 jet.

What comes next

For the 2026 season, nothing: the Homecoming show was the final performance of the year. The bigger question is the 2027 line-up, since the opposing solo traditionally moves up to lead solo the following season. The Navy has said nothing about that either.

Afterburner will update when the Navy does. Until then, the Blue Angels closed their 80th season with five jets in the air and one sentence on the record.

Sources: Pensacola News Journal, Newsweek, San Francisco Chronicle, AeroCorner, Must Do Pensacola (via AeroCorner), US Navy Blue Angels biography of Maj. Scott Laux