So far as the safety of the public is concerned I think one must consider very carefully the different classes of spectating and non-spectating public.
1. At controlled displays where admission is charged.
(a) Paying spectators who receive a ticket warning them that air displays are dangerous.
(b) Non-paying spectators who watch from outside the controlled area.
(c) Members of the public who are simply going about their normal business.
2. Open displays where there is no charge for admission.
(a) Spectators who have come specifically to watch the displays.
(b) Holidaymakers for whom the display is a bonus.
(c) People who are going about their normal business.
The argument that all air displays are dangerous and the public must accept this can only be applied to controlled displays where people pay to go in, and only to those who have paid. It cannot be applied to people who are simply going about their daily business.
Likewise it cannot be applied to non-paying spectators who are not warned by a message on their tickets of the risks involved.
The safety rules set up after the Farnborough disaster are way out of date. The crowd line rule assumes that the display is on a remote airfield, which all too often is not the case. The ’crowd’ must be held to include all inhabitants of the surrounding area, so display aircraft should not overfly inhabited areas or major roads.
The ‘waiver’ granted to one aerobatic team which allows them to approach the crowd from the rear assumes that there is just one paying crowd. Where the display is held near a town they should not be permitted to use their waiver to overfly the town and put innocent people and property at risk.
In this incident the tragedy affected a small number of people and a small section of road. I hate to think how a mid-town crash might kill hundreds of people and take out a town shopping centre.