I think it fair to say that the CAA actions are far more wide ranging than just restricting vintage jets - additional risk assessments on all future civil air displays and a full review of civil air display safety.

Just 'loving' the negative comments about these 'old' jets just flying, let alone putting on handling displays.

Whats the average fatigue age of a mil jet that has gone onto a civilian display life? 3-4,000 hours?

Whats the fatigue life of the last airliner you happily boarded? 10,000, 15,000?

And please don't give me the rubbish of maintenance standard differences.

These old mil jets are LOVED, not worked. They were maintained to the highest standards when they were working, and most, if not all are maintained to a higher standard in their after service life.

You can regulate all you like, but nature will do its thing regardless of your piece of dead tree.

What is the age for an aircraft to be classed as a vintage jet?

Also, do we need to worry about the Reds in the near future?

MATELO,

The C in CAA stands for Civil, so they have nothing to do with the Red Arrows.

isn't it somewhat unusual - following an accident - that the CAA takes actions that are not based on AAIB recommendations?

I'm assuming that 'vintage' means 'no longer operated by the military'.

deptrai,


It's a VERY unusual accident.

They are a set of temporary restrictions.

Mil-26Man,


Vintage is an CAA aged category of CIVIL aircraft, the CAA has no involvement or authority over military aircraft.

Thanks pr00ne, what I said then.

Video taken from A27 just seconds after the crash. Viewer discretion advised:
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=213_1440261898

The response from BADA
 

BADA Information Note in response to the Shoreham Airshow Accident

From the BADA website:

• It is certainly not a time for un-informed or miss-informed rule making, especially when the existing rules have worked so well for so long.

Every airshow accident has a negative impact on aviation that far outweighs a thousand successful demonstrations. If there is a fatality to the pilot then even more so, and if to the public then you can expect the hammers of hell to come down. Flying it to the wire will eventually bite you, but how much margin should you leave? Whatever you thought before has proven to be not enough and I guess it will now be decided for you by the CAA.

I'll judge that from the frequency of airshow accidents in the UK this year, that whatever airshow guidelines are published do not have an adequate safety management system to match the expectations of our absolute safety culture. ACAS on this side of the Atlantic has struggled with similar demons. I could add specifically that there are issues with low level jet work, but there was also the David Jenkins crash earlier. Expect the CAA to come down hard, and rightfully so - they are culpable for not acting sooner and instead now having to explain how their regulations resulted in public fatalities.

That video from the A27 filmed immediately after.... Why the **** are people filming and not trying to help/first aid any casualties. The last thing I'd think to do would be to whip my phone out and film.

As I mentioned yesterday, keep them flying, but not to their former military abilities. Seems the CAA now agree.

@downsizer
Well it certainly helps the crash investigators as it gives them a better picture of the scene as it happened. None of the pictures seem to show anyone that can be helped, less still by untrained unequipped bystander.

@rolling20
Aerobatics are likely to resume once the storm has died down. It's a temporary measure only.

Above the Clouds -

You're obviously someone who is prepared to go to great lengths to try and prove your point. Those excerpts (from I guess about 5 years ago) were describing military helicopters flying across open fields in the middle of the countryside. How you can possibly suggest that is the same as this tragic accident is beyond me - and please don't take that as a request to tell me, even though you seem to like to have the last word.

Again, as I said earlier, take the overlay from the Fairford Mig 29 crash and place it centred over Shoreham's runway? See where it would place the A27 in comparison.

FB

Not in the slightest is it unusual. It is absolutely normal for operating authorities to take whatever immediate action they need to eliminate or manage newly exposed risk.

If you want a high profile example, the Concorde fleet was grounded immediately after the Paris crash, and the accident board did not report for another 18 months. More recently think helicopters in the oil and gas sector.

There will be literally thousands of examples if you care to look.

Seems like the CAA have put BADA in their place. The statement they made yesterday quoting that it was 'x years since there has been a spectator fatality at an airshow' and 'let us wait until the AAIB report' was, I suggest, fatuous. The issue here is that the fatalities weren't at the airshow. They were visited upon the victims as a result of other peoples entertainment going terribly wrong.

How does this fit the Vulcan display?

Fascinating.

Because this is a "public forum" that somehow gives strangers license to engage in wild speculation, make wild accusations, jump to wild conclusions, and otherwise publicly act like total jerks on behalf of those who lost loved one in a terrible tragedy.

How sad.

KenV, are you describing Prune or the media in general?

Which wild accusations have particularly caught your attention Ken?

CG

USN has an old saying: One "Oh $hit" cancels out a thousand "Attaboys". Which is I believe as it should be.

Yes. (In other words, both. Although the media in general seems to act less like jerks than some on PPRUNE )

No it wasn't.

I would suggest that the reason the Red Arrows don't do aerobatic displays at Shoreham is because of the high ground at 700 Ft directly to the north of the airfield, less than 2 miles away, to fly aerobatics over Shoreham would mean having an 1000 Ft ceiling, and with Gatwick not far away, and the TMA base at FL55, that's effectively limiting them to a horizontal display, which at 1000 Ft is going to look very mundane indeed.

Shoreham has some very specific and difficult issues with terrain, I trained there 20 years ago, and the approach to runway 20 can be very tricky in some winds, due to that high ground and the Arun valley that is just to the north of the airfield. The descent from the loop on Saturday would have been in the area that can be most tricky, with Easterly winds, both downdraught and a tail wind could have been part of the scenario on Saturday, which would not have helped.

I wouldn't hold my breath.

True, Concorde was grounded a few days later, rather like this event. Personally I think it is a sensible decision until mechanical failure is discounted by AAIB/CAA.
Curious to know whether the Gnat has been grounded?

My heart still goes out to the victims of this tragedy, but I am quite annoyed over the knee-jerk reaction from the CAA.

As much as I and thousands of others will protest, air shows will never be the same again. I'm just pleased that I was able to attend shows "when they were good".

I would speculate that there has been absolutely no knee-jerking from the CAA; they are the DfT's whipping boy.

Indeed JSF and Cows. I suspect someone's been told to do something quick before more simple minded MPs jump on the ban the airshows bandwagon.
CAA becomes more like the alternative meaning of the TLA.....

Good job it was not them on the train to Paris.........

Grounding the Hunter is knee jerk, but it's easy to do, with limited consequences as there are so few of them flying.

Quite why the Gnat hasn't, by the same logic, been grounded as well tends to reinforce that the grounding is more to do with public feeling given the tragic consequences of the Hunter crash whereas in the Gnat accident 'only' the pilot died.

Air France grounds Concorde until cause of crash is known - Europe - World - The Independent

Apology accepted

The aircraft and why it crashed is not the problem. It's where the aircraft crashed which should be causing consternation.

I have no intention of apologising Old Fat One, I have nothing to apologise for. I didn't dispute that Concorde was grounded eventually, I disputed your assertion that it was grounded IMMEDIATELY, it wasn't. BA kept on flying their Concordes for a couple of weeks. It was only grounded after relevant facts came to light early in the investigation.

Amusingly, the report you linked to makes it perfectly clear that BA kept flying them after the crash, so they can't have been grounded.

So despite what you say, the grounding of an entire aircraft type the day after the crash is a highly unusual step.

A terrible tragedy and simply unacceptable that this has happened on a busy public highway. There are a great many people involved with the organisation of this airshow and the flying displays who will need to answer some tough questions. I saw the Gnat crash a few weeks ago and that made me shudder with thoughts of what could have happened, and then this happens.

I may be wrong, but I don't recall quite so many (if any) vintage jets being displayed like this a few years ago. There are many who have said on this on this thread, and the one following the Gnat crash, that these pilots do it to entertain. I don't really buy that. Being much more cynical about this, I feel that it's more about the personal enjoyment for the flyers. Doing it at displays just helps fund it.

Finally, some of you morons who were calling for the pilot not to be named on the early pages of this thread, whilst it was clear that many others had died, should hang your heads in shame.

This was an appalling accident, and clearly very much avoidable.

S-D

I for one think "over the sea aerobatics" is the only way too go from now on after such a tragic event, anyone who thinks otherwise should try and put themselves in the innocent victims family's shoes, in any case after the forthcoming multi million pound compensation pay outs future insurance premiums will settle the argument £100 per ticket anyone? RIP all affected. Sean.

I may be guilty of a degree of wishful thinking here, but I understand the rule simply prohibits inverted manoeuvres, so no rolling or looping. I would like to hope that tight/climbing turns and steep climbs would still be ok in which case the Vulcan should be ok. I recall back in the good old days that the RAF put together formation drill teams of Hunters, Lightnings, Phantoms etc all formation turns, changes and climbing turns then a spectacular formation break or run down the crowd line before disappearing up to the edge of the troposphere.

Leuchars squadrons used to work up such display teams each year for the home show, long after they fizzled out elsewhere.

FB