PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Hawker Hunter down at Shoreham
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Old 13th Oct 2015, 21:46
  #642 (permalink)  
Genghis the Engineer
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Join Date: Feb 2000
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Just also correcting Hebog's post slightly.

Some years ago I was defence expert witness for an LAA member who crashed his Rans S6 on approach at a fly-in. He injured a couple of bystanders quite badly, and was prosecuted (CAA in the lead IIRC) in a criminal court for "reckless negligence". He was found not guilty - as it wasn't proven "beyond reasonable doubt".

The injured people then sued him in a civil court for damages related to their injuries and property damage in the crash. I don't know for sure the outcome of that, but believe that he probably had to pay out quite a substantial sum of money, as this civil court only required proof "on the balance of probabilities" - which is a much lower standard of proof.


In this chaps case, the whole thing affected his life for years.

I hope not, as I don't for a moment believe that the Hunter pilot deliberately acted recklessly, and sincerely hope that the Hunter was extremely well insured for 3rd party compensation - but it's not unrealistic to predict that something similar may happen here.

G
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