Originally Posted by
DaveJ75
Completely agree with you and Easy Street.
CI or not, there was an unchecked atmosphere in which a display pilot could nibble away at the margins until the inevitable happened. This accident had already been happening for years already and no-one really did anything about it. Frankly, I thought the CAA, and to a lesser degree, the airshow supervision, were jointly culpable to some extent.
I had a quick scan through the AAIB report for the Hurricane that crashed at the 2007 Shoreham Airshow, only a few hundred metres from the 2015 disaster location. Other than pointing out that the aircraft had crashed 250m from Lancing College the report didn't discuss the risks to lives and property on the ground at all.
I really don't think CI is worthy of investigation by the AAIB or CAA at all. What they need to be doing is looking at the more general risk to people on the ground arising from pilot error and/or incapacitation, or even technical failure of the aircraft itself. One possible mitigation for pilot error/incapacitation might be a second pilot on the aircraft to monitor and intervene. This would obviously limit the types of aircraft that could take part.