This is not about why an aircraft crashed, it is about where an aircraft crashed.

Cows getting bigger.

Top man ..the most relevant post so far

I am not minimising the importance of the AAIB report when it comes out! Hopefully by then the pilot will have recovered and again hopefully he will have a detailed memory of the crash ? But that's not guaranteed!

With these sort of display aircraft the option for something small going wrong with disasterous results is horrifically shown in the thread on a Pitts fatal crash and that is a much slower aircraft than a fighter travelling at over twice the speed!

How would you prevent this happening again from an AAIB report ? It's unlikely you will other than raising the base of the display and giving the aircraft more space for something to go wrong and recover!

The other option is to take the aircraft further away over uninhabited areas but both of the above will water down the whole thrill excitement factor which attracts crowds in their thousands and will destroy the attraction of air shows

All the AAIB could do is discover a failure in the aircraft which lead or contributed to the crash so theoretically demand that part is replaced or renewed but somehow I doubt whether there will be anything earth shattering revealed which will make much difference other than regulations to water down these shows

Where the aircraft crashed has something to do with why the aircraft took that flight path. In a fast jet it covers a lot of ground very fast. If something goes wrong either mechanically or through the pilot it will still travel very fast but in the wrong direction in the same way that if you loose your car you maybe following a windy road but will probably take out a hedge and end up inverted in a field where you are not supposed to be!

Whether a busy road like that road should be open so close to an airshow is another question and one option would be to close it and divert traffic on an airshow day

Pace

Who rescued the pilot alive from this blazing Hunter T7 inferno?
 

Little has been reported about the person(s) who extricated the pilot from the Hunter T7 cockpit section. This part of the T7 fuselage appears to have slid forward along the ground and is shown in some photos to be marginally ahead of the main inferno, albeit with the left wing canted 60 degrees into the air and spewing flames.

See picture 22.25 below: Hawker Hunter crash on the A27 near Shoreham Airshow, Photo by Terry Smith.

Shoreham, Air Show plane crash: seven dead and 14 injured after Hawker Hunter smashes into four cars - Telegraph

But praise is due.

The T7 canopy is pictured open - probably as a result of impact forces.
The pilot will have been strapped in with an integrated parachute harness and 2 leg restrainer cords.
So it was no easy or safe task to extricate a pilot with live top and bottom Martin-Baker ejection seat firing handles as potential grab hold points.

The rescuer(s) should be recognised, commended and praised.

**s***d**s i*clud*d m*mb**s *f BASICS (B*itish Ass*ciati** f** Imm*diat* Ca** wh* a** qualifi*d m*dics a*d *a*am*dics) i* *a*ticula* T**y K*m* a*d tw* *ff duty G*s, D* Ma*ia*** Jacks** a*d D* Ka*** *astma***

EDIT - some corruption of text - not sure why.



First responders included members of BASICS (British Association for Immediate Care, who are qualified medics and paramedics) including Terry Kemp and two off duty medics Dr Marianne Jackson and Dr Karen Eastman.

BASICs are integrated into national and local emergency planning responses to major incidents and disasters, which is where I have practised with them.

Their contributions to Shoreham and other major events cannot be underplayed or underestimated in any way. They attend tabletops and live exercises, and are on call 24*7.

bigglesbrother:

That is a good and fair point.
I think, quite rightly, much praise has been given to members of the emergency services but they did not arrive until several (if not more) minutes after the crash.
It may have been a member of the emergency services who extricated the pilot, but again, it may well have been a passing member of the public.

Toward the end of the walk around video taken of the aftermath, as the camera looks down the road at burning cars, if you look closely top left, there appears to be a figure pulling a fire hose, moving left to right.
The camera is pointed down the line of the direction of the impact so the airfield is on the left. So perhaps this figure is from an airfield crash truck? Did a truck respond by staying on the airfield and runing a hose through the bushes?
This would apparently place them close to the cockpit.

Although the figure does not appear to be wearing a helmet? A member of the public helping?


Mickjoebill

It was, this short interview with Terry Kemp may be of interest...


Shoreham crash: First aider's battle to reach air show pilot - BBC News

I do hope he and his colleagues are officially recognised for their bravery.

Also this link to a report in the local paper (Argus) from one of the firefighters first on scene (from post 366).

Will the insurance cover be adequate on this one ?
 

As someone said, the real question isn't really why this piece of ex mil high density hardware crashed, but where it crashed, and how that makes a big difference.

I did a quick search throughout the thread and it seems that the insurance question whilst posed on page 11, hasn't been run with. There's been suggestion that airshow premiums must surely now rise, assuming the insurance coverage is adequate but that the premium rates may not be. I am actually wondering whether the airshow and operators insurance limits of indemnity might need to rise too? They might surely be tested by both the effects and breadth of carnage in this incident.

I haven't seen much in the press about the type and extent of life-changing injuries that are likely to have been sustained, as the reports such as the one in the Argus link slfie gave in the post above are thankfully professionally restrained. But I think we can read between the lines that what resulted from the event has remained a hell on earth for a large number of people which will have to be very properly compensated.

So whilst we can guess who unfortunately will find themselves in the frame for paying for the aftermath, can we be confident that the insurances will be adequate?

I think CAA have been concerned about this type of accident for decades (ex mil high density). Although maybe only 1/4 the problem (half the weight) of something like the Lightning which CAA effectively banned from the airshow circuit in the UK long ago, the Hunter has always been a bit of a worry and always a potential handful I think? Hopefully CAA have long been insisting on some pretty bombproof insurance liability limits as a condition of approval of these type of ops/events?

I think there are probably many on the forum who could comment sensibly on the size of insurance limits airlines typically carry, but anyone know what aggregate limits are typical for this type of display op?

As a general statement, rather than it simply being something agreed privately between CAA and operators, if the risks are regularly approved by CAA as publicly acceptable, then evidence of the risk transfer devices required as a public protection (insurance) should I think also be exactly that (public). A notice on the gate, in the programme and on a website would suffice. Anyone seen such ? Sound a bit OTT? Not something many think of I guess.

Kiln provided the Hawker's liability cover with a limit of £25m, or about $40m. Limits in the US are more typically in the $50-100m range.

Kiln leads Shoreham Airshow loss | Fenchurch Associates

Pace - CGB is quite right. If the Hunter had crashed on the airfield with only the pilot injured this wouldn't be much of a news story outside of the aviation community. And it is unlikely that there would have been any directives from the CAA other than grounding Hunters until the cause was known.

Yep, in normal aircraft operations it's take offs and landings which are deemed the phases of flight with the highest risk requiring most regulation. With aerobatic air show displays, that risk profile is perhaps turned on its head. Sad that it takes an accident like this to illustrate it.

Are there any videos of previous displays by this Hunter following the same display pattern?

Interested to see what the manoeuvre looks like flown successfully.

SGC

All I can find so far:-


Edited to add:-

The Sky News chopper has been in the air and provides an aerial video of the accident site here:-

First Aerial Pictures Of Shoreham Crash Site

Andy ?
 

Any news of how AH is doing? Partly from concern for one of what I like to consider my "Band of Brothers", and partly because he'll hopefully be the one person who can input most as to what went wrong.

GBWY Andy

Bigglesbrother said in #451:

Who rescued the pilot alive from this blazing Hunter T7 inferno?
Little has been reported about the person(s) who extricated the pilot from the Hunter T7 cockpit section.

Interesting observation. In the last closing minutes of the Nick Ferrari breakfast LBC radio show, a couple of days after the accident, someone asked this question and suggested that the Queen should create a civilian version of the Victoria Cross to be awarded on an occasion like this. The place must have stunk of hot steaming paraffin, and if I remember correctly, on that type, there are two ejector seat handles, either one of which could be damaged and on the edge of going off.

There must have been more than one person involved. I suppose they dragged him to safety, saw the medics, got back in their car, and drove off.

Maybe the medics who attended could throw light on this.

Downwind Lander

They have, it's effectively covered by the BBC interview I provided a link to in post #455. I suspect the fine details are not (for now at least ) for general consumption, but for the enquiry to delve into.

Downwind Lander #465
 

There already is such an award: the George Cross.