Originally Posted by
falcon900
The point is not whether you or I with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight consider the lights made a difference. The point is that someone before the incident conducted a risk evaluation which determined that it was important that they were set to Green, and the display was authorised on the basis that they would be. You might be right that there was no incremental loss of life as a result of there being a queue of traffic for the aircraft to plough into ( good luck arguing that one) but it remains the case that a condition precedent was not fulfilled, and nobody has been taken to task.
Looking at the AAIB report it is clear that the risk assessments applied to the road junction only considered the following:
1. Road traffic risks to vehicles entering/leaving the airport area - this junction is the only means of access for most vehicles (there is a very narrow and height restricted road access to the south of the airport)
2. Road traffic risks to "secondary spectators" who were known to gather at the junction.
I'm not certain of the exact traffic conditions at the time of the accident but it is likely that westbound traffic was very slow moving all the way back from the roundabout at North Lancing and onto the flyover to the east of the airport. This is the route to/from my office and it's what I see in the afternoons when I am going home eastbound through the junction.
The main reasons for setting the traffic lights to be green during an airshow would be:
1. to stop eastbound traffic from tailing back to the North Lancing roundabout, aggravating the congestion there
2. with right turns prohibited and the other road closures in place they would not be required except (possibly) to control traffic leaving the airshow.