Originally Posted by
Timelord
As I said in a previous post ; On the day, he screwed up. That is not because of a hitherto unheard of medical condition, but nor is it criminal negligence. It is a result of being a human being. The whole of aviation safety is based around the acceptance that human beings make mistakes, so a system has evolved to minimise them of training, assessment, monitoring and supervision.. In my view it is that system that failed in this case.
Absolutely agree 100% with the above, and this is why the trial did not get to the root cause. The quite correct not quilty verdict effectively closed the book on the bigger picture, which was the real elephant in the room. My power flying world started when airshows were not subject to legal requirements or authorisations but participants were expected to attend the Air Show brief (on site) and failure to do this meant you did not display. In the case of the large civilian operations like the Air Fair at Biggin Hill there was always at least one designated person to oversee the flying in addition to ATC or commentary people. Participants were stopped, warned, and not invited back if they failed to comply with the on the day requirements. When DA's came about it was intended that you had to demonstrate your actual display to a satisfactory standard in the display machine, and various limits were also included that were part of the authorisation. The system was required whether you flew a turbulent, warbird, or jet, and formalised what was already in place with most organisations/teams that provided air show acts.
The UK air show tradition has a long history, and has provided much pleasure to the public with a very wide ranging variety of events ranging from simple charity type non airfield locations to the huge multi national shows such as IAT. These replaced the former military events RAF and RN At Homes which were hugely popular, and attracted massive crowds with hundreds of our military aircraft of the day, and were themselves a legacy of the world famous pre war Hendon shows. I mention this as air shows are part of our heritage and of considerable interest to all and we should not see their demise due to allowing a control system to degrade.