L-39 Crashes at Florida Airshow
 

The pilot of an Aero L-39 Albatros jet was killed when the plane crashed this afternoon at the Tico Warbird Airshow in Titusville, Florida. The press are reporting that he was an attorney from Gainesville, Florida, and early coverage appears to show the plane hitting the ground at the bottom of a loop.

Still Another Airshow Mishap
 

Crashes & mishaps at both civilian and military airshows seem routine.

However, airshows are so popular that poor safety records don't diminish their scheduling.

The statistical probability is high that this L-39 crash was pilot error.

Even the military professionals have a hard time with airshows -- witness the USAF ThunderBirds September 2003 F-16 crash during an attempted loop {...pilot confused MSL and AGL altitudes}. Remember the Italian team's mishap at Ramstein AB Germany in the late 80's.

Wonder what the overall historical mishap rate is per actual 'airshow' hours flown worldwide ? Very high, IMO ... but those stats are not calculated anywhere.

Delaney T, you are talking rubbish

You make various statements without backing them up with proof and/or statistics then finish off by stating "Wonder what the overall historical mishap rate is per actual 'airshow' hours flown worldwide ? Very high, IMO ... but those stats are not calculated anywhere."

If these stats are not calculated, how you can state categorically that "The statistical probability is high that this L-39 crash was pilot error".

How dare you make such an assumption only 2 days after such a tragic accident.

Delaney T, you're talking nonsense. There is of course a long list of possible causes, often occuring simultaneously, behind every accident. As always, wait for the investigation to conclude.

Ps. Anyone flying an L39 at an airshow will be a very experienced pilot.

well, ... formal aircraft mishap investigation statistics have always shown the human 'pilot' as the highest causal rate factor in such incidents. Typically, primary "pilot-error" is attributed to 40-60% of all aircraft accidents... both military & civilian. Other potential causal factors (weather, maintenance, ATC, etc) are much less likely individual causes.

http://www.planecrashinfo.com/cause.htm

Though obvious pride in our profession makes it a bit difficult to acknowledge, the accident statistics are fairly consistent. It's not really surprising... since the pilot is the key integration & decision-making node in the aviation 'system' involved in any particular sortie -- and that any significant errors/oversights by that pilot have more serious consequences compared to other 'system' nodes/factors.

Objectively, if one were to hear a news report of an aircraft crash somewhere in the world, but knew no other details at all about that crash -- it would be logical to assume that crash was probably caused by pilot-error... because statistically that is by far the most common specific cause of aircraft crashes. It is not a denigration of the piloting profession, but merely unfortunate fact.

And IMHO airshows tend to increase the risk of pilot error, beyond that of routine flight operations.

The NTSB investigation report on this L-39 mishap should be available by the end of this year. :) Stay Tuned.

Feneris,
It is MY experience, based on actual airshow/display accident reports, that the majority of pilots ARE NOT experienced particularly on the "warbirds" they fly! Usually got too much money and not enough common dog!
GAGS
E86

DT, I guess you could save the FAA and the Accident Investigation Team a lot of time and money by submitting your finding - all done without witnessing or investigating it. What a legend.

Fact is that over the years a great many vintage aircraft have crashed or had significant incidents at public air displays. Fortunately, changes in display profiles have lessened the chances of such incidents causing death or injury to the public though of course the effect of witnessing a fatal accident at such an event is a heavy one indeed. Public enthusiasm for such events does however seem undiminished.
I have wondered upon occasion whether one of the reasons for some of the accidents is that pilots are actually perfroming manoevres at low level for which the aircraft was not actually designed - in other words, what a pilot may get away with at higher altitudes in combat situations leaves almost no room for error at display heights. There is no doubt that both the public and the display 'circus' no longer wish to simply get these old aircraft in to the sky and display them in quite the same rather more sedate manner they may have done some years ago.
Sadly such accidents will probably continue.

I an 51 now and would like to be 52 and I wouldn't fly in anything built by between 1968 and 1992 by Czechs who knew that Russians would be flying in it.

Delaney T

You have taken some stick from three people who seem to be either poorly informed about the subject of airshow accidents or misread your intial post.

There was nothing controversial in what you actually wrote (but you know that) neither did you say what you thought had happened to the L-39 – merely what the stats from the past would suggest. You made one minor error of fact - the Thunderbird was doing a pull through not a loop.

Some years ago I stopped keeping a tally of the number of aircraft I had actually watched fly into the ground at airshows when it reached 10. Of those only one had a technical failure that was possibly a contributory factor. I have talked to pilot friends (including myself) after their airshow near misses and established the reasons for the mistakes they made. But mistakes they did make and to their credit they never suggested otherwise.

Mind you while doing a tent peg may be tragic from some viewpoints I suspect it does not hurt. Unlike getting old.

(Drs tell me that pain signals travel round the body at about 40mph)

John F

I always thought that 600kts was the critical impact speed. By the time the toes transmit the ouch! signal the brain is dead.

Unfortunately I no longer fly anything that does 600kts.

Spam filter ON.... :E :E :E

Cheeky burger - hate champagne anyway!

I'm not sure this thread is heading in a pleasant direction, but I seem to remember many moons ago an RAeS lecture by a bod from the AAIB, who said that when a cab hits the ground, a shockwave travels back through the aircraft at the speed of sound, breaking up the structure, and much of the pilots senses before he's started to move out of the seat...:uhoh:

N::8

This all starts to sound like a lyric from the Mikado... See the first line from Pish-Tush.
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Mikado/I_am_so_proud
LO
(Tenor chorus, Basingstoke Amateur Operatic Society, 1971)

NA

Now that is what I call a useful link

JF