Well, I was there and I saw what happened and, as an airline pilot, I would have said the interests of the organisers would be best served by coming clean with the CAA. It was a great day and it would a terrible shame if these events were to stop happening. That said, the organisers are extremely lucky they did not end up something far far worse on their hands.
This is a very large aircraft we are talking about, not a Cessna 150. They pointed out earlier in the day that the runway at Bruntingthorpe is approx 2 miles long which although long, is not THAT long. This wasn't simply a case of stopping after V1. The thing was airborne before it landed and then braked. How the hell they managed to stop the thing is beyond me and I would have said that whoever was at the controls will have some tricky questions to answer.
I hope lessons are learnt from this and that these days keep on happening because as a spectacle, and as an aviation enthusiast, they need to. That sort of thing, however, should never happen again.
Last edited by coldplayer; 5th May 2009 at 07:46.