Hawker Hunter Crash at Shoreham Airshow
Cows
You still haven't explained from your opinions, how you would put on ANY air show if you wish to ban planes from flying over the general public.
The Hunter was out of control, it's in the description, the fact it impacted a busy road and not adjacent open fields was a random tragic accident/event. Other than clearing whole swathes of population from miles around a venue, how would you plan your air risk free airshow?
Example, technical fault, pilot error say, in displaying A380 at Farnborough. During display it flies over many "innocent' public in surrounding comunities who have no interest in the event.
Presumably you would ban the event??
As Tourist says, life is not risk free, many "innocent" people will continue to die in all sorts of accidents.
You still haven't explained from your opinions, how you would put on ANY air show if you wish to ban planes from flying over the general public.
The Hunter was out of control, it's in the description, the fact it impacted a busy road and not adjacent open fields was a random tragic accident/event. Other than clearing whole swathes of population from miles around a venue, how would you plan your air risk free airshow?
Example, technical fault, pilot error say, in displaying A380 at Farnborough. During display it flies over many "innocent' public in surrounding comunities who have no interest in the event.
Presumably you would ban the event??
As Tourist says, life is not risk free, many "innocent" people will continue to die in all sorts of accidents.
Last edited by cessnapete; 17th Mar 2016 at 17:38.
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pasta
The problem is merely that what is found acceptable on the road is 1000s of times more dangerous than what is found acceptable in aviation.
If we accept that what is most important is number of people killed or injured then this makes no sense.
The problem is merely that what is found acceptable on the road is 1000s of times more dangerous than what is found acceptable in aviation.
If we accept that what is most important is number of people killed or injured then this makes no sense.
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Pasta's point is
" The point made by the AAIB is that there appears to be no evidence that such a risk assessment was performed by anyone"
Just because display aircraft kill relatively few people doesn't mean that we should pass by on the other side - we should be trying to minimise ALL accidental deaths
" The point made by the AAIB is that there appears to be no evidence that such a risk assessment was performed by anyone"
Just because display aircraft kill relatively few people doesn't mean that we should pass by on the other side - we should be trying to minimise ALL accidental deaths
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Tourist, quoting a couple of your recent comments:
"..people should be allowed to choose their own risk levels"
"..humans are truly awful about risk assessment"
Make your mind up.
"..people should be allowed to choose their own risk levels"
"..humans are truly awful about risk assessment"
Make your mind up.
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Originally Posted by Pozidrive
..and wrong?
Tourist is also correct in his generalised assessment of the level of risk associated with flying in general and with flying displays in particular. The hazard may be large, but the risk is small. Conversely, the risk with driving is relatively large. Both are borne out by data.
So, as I said, he has been pretty clear and consistent. In answer to your question, no, he is not wrong in his explanation of risk, nor in the way he has applied the definition to this event. Your argument with his position appears to be far more emotive than factual.
As Lonewolf has illustrated, the other argument is what people see as their ability to assess risk and their willingness to accept the level of risk they perceive. That is a different issue. In considering that, you might start with the fact that for many years, millions of people have barely questioned the risk associated with air shows. Following this event, hundreds are suddenly shouting about unacceptable risk. Perception changes with events, the extant risk does not. The AAIB report is no proof of the level of risk, it is purely a level to facilitate reducing the risk.
Last edited by Courtney Mil; 17th Mar 2016 at 22:17.
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No Risk Assessment
Someone above has pointed out that there was no RA carried out.
How can you minimise risk if you have not assessed it?
Some of the posts on here about the risks of road travel v the risk of airshow watching are a bit disingenuous mainly because of the sheer amount of variables.
I prefer the statistics on train travel.
Your life there is the hands of another human being, bit like an airshow.
How can you minimise risk if you have not assessed it?
Some of the posts on here about the risks of road travel v the risk of airshow watching are a bit disingenuous mainly because of the sheer amount of variables.
I prefer the statistics on train travel.
Your life there is the hands of another human being, bit like an airshow.
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how would you plan your air risk free airshow?
It is equally obvious that society can take objective decisions about the management of risk, the necessity of risk, the mitigation of risk, the assessment etc.
Although I am an ex aviator I am no fan of airshows. Perhaps that has something to do with watching a close friend die in one, along with 6 others, doing something needlessly stupid, and doing it badly. However, and again falling in step with Tourist, I would not see them banned; we live a free country and lots of things we enjoy entail a measure of acceptable risk.
But!
The two recent accidents require a fresh look at the display of vintage jets by part time/amateur/hobbyist/whatever-you-want-to-label them pilots, to ascertain whether or not the risks are being correctly assessed and managed
I'm an ex- Sqn Exec and crew captain, which means, I like many on here, have been formally trained in military flight authorisation...and then spent years applying this training in many environments, including live in combat, which is pretty risky!
But!
Even in combat, risks were assessed and managed. And a MASSIVE part of flight authorisation is checking and qualifying crew currency against a backdrop of statistics and recent training. That's why we call it CURRENCY FFS!!
Whoever is in charge needs to make sure that the pilots currency, on type, in respect of the mission (display flying) needs to be 100% solid, against a backdrop of formal, objective checks.
And if the cost consequences of that curtail such activities, or push up the cost of airshows, then i'm afraid that just comes under the "tough sh1t" caveat.
Tourist, I choose to disagree with you also for the simple reason:
By all means do what makes you tick to get the kick, but................don't inflict that danger on innocent bystanders is what this is all about.
People who white water raft, base jump, parachute, all understand the risk and apply varying levels of defence to protect them from that risk (dependent on how much they value life, of course). but the back lash of those dangers associated to that activity mustn't be inflicted on the individual who is unaware of those risks.
Road users are de-risked to within an inch of their lives, here in the UK: speed limits, white lines telling them where to position themselves on the road, traffic lights sequencing the traffic, crash barriers, police patrols, cameras, crashworthy cars, seat belts, breathalysers and on and on.
We don't see anything like this in the airshow world other than an imaginary display axis and some hay bales or a picket fence.
Good comparison - death toll of the entire globe Vs the Shoreham incident....nice one 
Look - it's all about protecting the innocent, try to think about it from this angle and not from the practitioners perspective, because a dead display pilot who doesn't care if he or she dies doing what they love is a million miles away from a dead passerby who leaves behind a family because he or she popped down the road for a newspaper and got taken out by the debris of a crashed jet which alegedly was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Just because another Shreham didn't happen more frequently doesnt declare airshows safe.
We are supposedly 10 years beyond the statistical fact that the San Andreas fault should have slipped again but does San Fransisco do anything about it.......................ignorance is bliss.
By all means do what makes you tick to get the kick, but................don't inflict that danger on innocent bystanders is what this is all about.
People who white water raft, base jump, parachute, all understand the risk and apply varying levels of defence to protect them from that risk (dependent on how much they value life, of course). but the back lash of those dangers associated to that activity mustn't be inflicted on the individual who is unaware of those risks.
Road users are de-risked to within an inch of their lives, here in the UK: speed limits, white lines telling them where to position themselves on the road, traffic lights sequencing the traffic, crash barriers, police patrols, cameras, crashworthy cars, seat belts, breathalysers and on and on.
We don't see anything like this in the airshow world other than an imaginary display axis and some hay bales or a picket fence.
1 million people die on roads every year.
1 aircraft has crashed into a crowd outside an airfield since how many decades?
1 aircraft has crashed into a crowd outside an airfield since how many decades?
Look - it's all about protecting the innocent, try to think about it from this angle and not from the practitioners perspective, because a dead display pilot who doesn't care if he or she dies doing what they love is a million miles away from a dead passerby who leaves behind a family because he or she popped down the road for a newspaper and got taken out by the debris of a crashed jet which alegedly was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Just because another Shreham didn't happen more frequently doesnt declare airshows safe.
We are supposedly 10 years beyond the statistical fact that the San Andreas fault should have slipped again but does San Fransisco do anything about it.......................ignorance is bliss.
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cessnapete, I've never even hinted at banning overflight of all public; your assertion that I have is incorrect.
Trying to get this back on track, I trust we all agree this is about risk assessment. It is my opinion that the risk assessment for Shoreham was flawed (air display overflight of an active road - the A27), for all the reasons previously stated. Tourist is correct in that we cannot remove all risk but we are in the business of managing it. We simply cannot say "accidents happen, move on, nothing to see".
For sure, if we take a standard risk matrix (likelihood vs. consequence) we can assess the likelihood as absolutely nothing thus giving a nice 'green' result. However, we know that air show accidents do happen at a rate higher than other general aviation accidents and therefore there is an increased risk (i.e. above background noise) associated with such accidents. That takes us on to consequences and under any definition multiple deaths would fall into a 'catastrophic' category. Rattling all that down, a basic RA matrix would result in an unacceptable (red) outcome unless a mitigation was put in place. Aside - I'm talking basic safety management principles here but hopefully the message makes sense.
So, we need to find middle ground in how to manage risk. As stated, I'm not an advocate of complete banning of overflight of the public, nor am subscribing to continuance as stands for another 60 years, wholly relying upon the likelihood side of a RA model. I am saying that Shoreham demonstrated a weakness in oversight and risk assessment.
In August 1998 I sat in a Puma helicopter providing ad-hoc medieval after the Ramstein airshow disaster. The industry made significant changes, for the better, after that event. At what point should we wake up and re-assess how we do business - one death, eleven, 40? As a safety manager for a significant AOC organisation, I am absolutely sure that we cannot maintain the status quo.
Trying to get this back on track, I trust we all agree this is about risk assessment. It is my opinion that the risk assessment for Shoreham was flawed (air display overflight of an active road - the A27), for all the reasons previously stated. Tourist is correct in that we cannot remove all risk but we are in the business of managing it. We simply cannot say "accidents happen, move on, nothing to see".
For sure, if we take a standard risk matrix (likelihood vs. consequence) we can assess the likelihood as absolutely nothing thus giving a nice 'green' result. However, we know that air show accidents do happen at a rate higher than other general aviation accidents and therefore there is an increased risk (i.e. above background noise) associated with such accidents. That takes us on to consequences and under any definition multiple deaths would fall into a 'catastrophic' category. Rattling all that down, a basic RA matrix would result in an unacceptable (red) outcome unless a mitigation was put in place. Aside - I'm talking basic safety management principles here but hopefully the message makes sense.
So, we need to find middle ground in how to manage risk. As stated, I'm not an advocate of complete banning of overflight of the public, nor am subscribing to continuance as stands for another 60 years, wholly relying upon the likelihood side of a RA model. I am saying that Shoreham demonstrated a weakness in oversight and risk assessment.
In August 1998 I sat in a Puma helicopter providing ad-hoc medieval after the Ramstein airshow disaster. The industry made significant changes, for the better, after that event. At what point should we wake up and re-assess how we do business - one death, eleven, 40? As a safety manager for a significant AOC organisation, I am absolutely sure that we cannot maintain the status quo.
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Thomas
Car driving is not de-risked at all.
Give yourself 10 seconds and you could come up with 10 ways to save hundreds of thousands of lives each year.
Off the top of my head.
1. 5 point harnesses for all road users. (can't believe it's not done.!)
2. Helmets for everybody in cars. (pain in the bum but hardly too onerous)
3. All cars maximum speed limit 50mph (Not really a big deal)
3. Max limit in town 20mph (moving that way)
4. All cars coated in 6 inches of foam padding. (even banning bull-bars would help)
5. Mandatory annual driving test. (old buggers have never had to take one!)
6. Breathalysers integrated into ignition system. (Obvious)
7. Annual Medicals (expensive but effective)
8. Ban all sports cars (obvious)
9. Ban motorbikes (more obvious!)
10.Mandatory cargo nets for all transported goods in cars.( I have bad memories from a SAR shout to an RTA with kids and a portable amp in the back
)
None of these are in any way technically difficult, yet would have greater or lesser effects on the experience of driving. We choose not to do these things because we have decided that the risk is reasonable without them.
Contrast that with aviation.
You say that my example contrasts the whole world against Shoreham, but that is not the case.
How many air-shows in the last 50 years had an aircraft crash outside the airfield that killed passing motorists?
Where is the hand wringing when a bus crashes and kills 20? Where is the sudden change in rules and regulations governing all road users?
Car driving is not de-risked at all.
Give yourself 10 seconds and you could come up with 10 ways to save hundreds of thousands of lives each year.
Off the top of my head.
1. 5 point harnesses for all road users. (can't believe it's not done.!)
2. Helmets for everybody in cars. (pain in the bum but hardly too onerous)
3. All cars maximum speed limit 50mph (Not really a big deal)
3. Max limit in town 20mph (moving that way)
4. All cars coated in 6 inches of foam padding. (even banning bull-bars would help)
5. Mandatory annual driving test. (old buggers have never had to take one!)
6. Breathalysers integrated into ignition system. (Obvious)
7. Annual Medicals (expensive but effective)
8. Ban all sports cars (obvious)
9. Ban motorbikes (more obvious!)
10.Mandatory cargo nets for all transported goods in cars.( I have bad memories from a SAR shout to an RTA with kids and a portable amp in the back
)None of these are in any way technically difficult, yet would have greater or lesser effects on the experience of driving. We choose not to do these things because we have decided that the risk is reasonable without them.
Contrast that with aviation.
You say that my example contrasts the whole world against Shoreham, but that is not the case.
How many air-shows in the last 50 years had an aircraft crash outside the airfield that killed passing motorists?
Where is the hand wringing when a bus crashes and kills 20? Where is the sudden change in rules and regulations governing all road users?
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A question for everybody.
Is there a number you have in mind for an acceptable number of deaths caused by Airshows and aviation in general?
The reason I ask is that we really need a target.
If the answer is zero, then the solution is apparent.
If not, then the process cannot work without accepting that a number of accidents will happen.
Once you set a number, you are implicitly saying that you accept that accidents are an unavoidable consequence of aviating.
To hand-wring after each accident and attempt to make it impossible to happen again is moving goal posts that we set ourselves. The end point of this is obviously the end of flying.
If you had said to one of our predecessors in 1960 whether he would be happy with a death rate 10 times less than they then experienced with very minimal changes, then he would be ecstatic and sign up immediately.
Well we are well beyond that point. We have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. We are now suffering such low accident rates that they are too low for statistical analysis. One accident skews the graph for a year so far it gives no useful inferences.
We are also a long way past the easy fixes that have negligible effect on aviation and airshows.
Everything we now do is closer to the point where there is no airshow anymore. People want a spectacle. They want noise and speed and excitement.
Yes they want the Shuttleworth etc too, but that is a very different audience.
I think it is not unreasonable to say that as long as it is safer to be at the airshow than when you are driving to it, then it is safe enough.
Is there a number you have in mind for an acceptable number of deaths caused by Airshows and aviation in general?
The reason I ask is that we really need a target.
If the answer is zero, then the solution is apparent.
If not, then the process cannot work without accepting that a number of accidents will happen.
Once you set a number, you are implicitly saying that you accept that accidents are an unavoidable consequence of aviating.
To hand-wring after each accident and attempt to make it impossible to happen again is moving goal posts that we set ourselves. The end point of this is obviously the end of flying.
If you had said to one of our predecessors in 1960 whether he would be happy with a death rate 10 times less than they then experienced with very minimal changes, then he would be ecstatic and sign up immediately.
Well we are well beyond that point. We have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. We are now suffering such low accident rates that they are too low for statistical analysis. One accident skews the graph for a year so far it gives no useful inferences.
We are also a long way past the easy fixes that have negligible effect on aviation and airshows.
Everything we now do is closer to the point where there is no airshow anymore. People want a spectacle. They want noise and speed and excitement.
Yes they want the Shuttleworth etc too, but that is a very different audience.
I think it is not unreasonable to say that as long as it is safer to be at the airshow than when you are driving to it, then it is safe enough.
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Tourist
Totally agree with you re driving and I would like to see many of things on your list implemented. If fact, quite a few of them are in place in other countries.
But this is not a road traffic forum and no amount of laboring your argument is going to dissuade those who see it as a profoundly poor way of making a point. More and more it just looks like obfuscation....as does the latest gambit - lets set an airshow death target. LOL.
Let it go man. Aviation is held to higher safety standards than other modes of travel, it was ever thus. Big deal. Who cares?
Move on.
Totally agree with you re driving and I would like to see many of things on your list implemented. If fact, quite a few of them are in place in other countries.
But this is not a road traffic forum and no amount of laboring your argument is going to dissuade those who see it as a profoundly poor way of making a point. More and more it just looks like obfuscation....as does the latest gambit - lets set an airshow death target. LOL.
Let it go man. Aviation is held to higher safety standards than other modes of travel, it was ever thus. Big deal. Who cares?
Move on.
The concepts which cover the ground being argued over are societal risk and scale aversion, which basically deal with the idea that over a given period we are much more comfortable with 100 deaths in 100 separate incidents than we are with 100 deaths in one incident, irrespective of first/second/third-party status. The HSE published a summary of sociological research here and concluded that "it is neither practical nor sensible to attempt to measure [scale aversion] in mathematical terms". This is why the eminently sensible road safety measures advocated by Tourist have not been seriously considered.
It is not just aviation that labours under the burden of societal risk - our railways are over-engineered and under-utilised as a consequence of it, and nuclear power likewise...
It is not just aviation that labours under the burden of societal risk - our railways are over-engineered and under-utilised as a consequence of it, and nuclear power likewise...
Last edited by Easy Street; 18th Mar 2016 at 11:35.
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Originally Posted by Tourist
We are now suffering such low accident rates that they are too low for statistical analysis. One accident skews the graph for a year so far it gives no useful inferences.