jonkster, a great, great post.
I believe nobody should be injured at an airfield, whether they attend to fly or watch
A laudable sentiment, but CAP 403 says,
At any Flying Display or special event there are hazards that may cause harm to people
The risk management process starts with identifying the hazards created by the Flying Display or special event and then assessing the risks associated with those hazards in terms of likelihood (what is the likelihood of the hazard happening?) and severity (if the hazard occurs how bad will it be?). Once the level of risk is identified, appropriate remedial action or mitigation measures can be implemented to reduce the level of risk to as low as reasonably practicable
The assessor(s) should also be aware that, in the event of a subsequent accident or incident, the Risk Assessment process might be challenged
From the accident report,
The risk assessment determined that the distance between the crowd line and the active runway was not ideal, so the organisers mitigated this by moving the runway as far from the crowd line as the available space allowed, fencing the crowd line with safety barriers. These actions, they considered, reduced the risk to an acceptable level
Note that both the report and CAP recognise that risk is present, and not eliminated.
Laughable statement. Now it's her fault
You must be a lawyer.
Of course its not her fault, she didn't instigate the event, but she did place herself in the path. She was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. The trouble with the H & S that pervades the community these days is the belief that life can be made risk free. Aircrew make errors/mistakes on every flight they undertake, as the previously posted NASA report suggests. The majority of the time those errors/mistakes are inconsequential, other times, on rare occasions, they create headlines.
Humans have limitations, just as any piece of machinery, and the subject of Human Factors attempts to understand why people do what they do. None are perfect, and there is not an adult dead or alive who never erred.
A pilot trying to navigate through a TS had to eject, the canopy hit and killed a road side worker who was sitting having his lunch. The pilot was found to be negligent by the court, as trying to navigate through the TS, and the resulting outcome (having to eject), was foreseeable.
Whether the Tiger pilot could be found negligent by a court is outside of my pay grade.