Plane crash at Shoreham, UK airshow.

[elaw]

That's one perspective.

Here's other perspective: many regulations exist because certain delusional people think that it's possible to legislate all unhappiness out of life and if you do so everyone will be happy all the time.

And another: many regulations exist because legislators are constantly being bombarded with people trying to make this, that, and the other thing illegal, and sometimes they give in for no good reason other than to make the whiny people go away. And/or because they "were sent there to do something" therefore they have to do something... even if it's the wrong thing.

I live in a state where it used to be illegal to sell donut holes, it's still illegal to kiss in public on Sundays (please explain to me how a dumb person doing that could cause harm to a smart person or anyone else), and it's illegal to do ANY of your own plumbing work. A homeowner cannot legally even change a washer in a faucet.... seriously!

I actually consider myself a liberal and think there is a legitimate place for some regulations to protect people against the ill-considered or deliberate harmful acts of others. And I think maybe 10% of regulations fall into that category. The others? Not so much.

[Evan]

And so it is the 'nanny state' wins...

Restrictions exist to protect smart people from the recklessness, carelessness, indifference or just plain stupidity of people who don't really think very well. This is why we have things like speed limits, health codes, wiring codes, gun control, animal control and (hopefully soon) drone control.

But restrictions on doing asinine things with an airplane over a populated area...? Naaaaany Staaate.... Naaaaany Staaate....

[vaztr]

And so it is the 'nanny state' wins...

I feel for the families who lost loved ones, but surely sanity must prevail.

The pilot was negligent/made a mistake/was incapacitated/was a terrorist/had an in flight failure/etc. and the whole of aviation pays.

Where I live it is against the law to leave a child alone in a car, why? because 1 individual did this and cooked his kiddie while they went to the casino for nn hours - these don't need to be laws, it's (un)common sense

Remember when you got a knife and fork with your airline meal? And shoes weren't weapons of mass destruction???

What did we used to do in the bad old days???

[3WE]

What? Control surface failure must be the least common cause.

1) Context, Context, Context....a rule to raise the minimum altitude for airshows was mentioned in this thread...my context was, that higher altitude gives planes more latitude to deviate sideways (when something bad happens) into the crowd instead of crashing behind the flight line...

...I do not think that has any relevance to this crash.

2) Ummm...I think control failures are fairly common in air show crashes...not so much fighter jets, but when you see those hot little aerobatic planes crashing while appearing to be out of control...I can think of several of those where the control surface failure was visible in the film- so I dare say it's not uncommon.

(And would repeat your words from above, that the plane in this incident seemed to be functioning quite well and dutifully responded as it was driven into a situation where it could not avoid ground contact.)

[AVION1]

Do you really need an altimeter at all to tell that you are 5 and not 500 ft AGL???

Flying that low you can scratch the paint of the airplane....

[3WE]

Do you really need an altimeter at all to tell that you are 5 and not 500 ft AGL???

...kind of looking for the elusive middle ground here...

"This maneuver should begin at 500 ft AGL so if you blow it on the pull out and sag 300 feet too low, you have a buffer"... (definite unsubstantiated BS parlour talk).

So ideally (that's ideally from my keyboard at 0 ft agl and 0 kts) you glace at the altimeter (and ASI) (but definitely NOT the AOA monitor) as you enter a loop...

...then again, you've done it a thousand times and everything feels and looks fine...

[3WE]

Surely he would have re-set his altimeter to local/regional QNH settings 2-3 times during the run down from North Weald to Shoreham.

Surely, he glanced at the airspeed from time to time on short final.

Surely, he evaluated if pulling up the whole time might have something to do with the fast, wallowing descent.

Surely, he remembered to add in some power as the flaps and gear came down.

Surely, they remembered to extend the flaps for takeoff.

Surely, they checked to see that they were on the correct runway.

Surely, they kept their eye on the aircraft that ATC was calling out to them.

[Gabriel]

If they were not of such a tragedy, I would say that these photos are excellent. Unfortunately, they are very sad.

Very detailed close-up photos of the sequence of the crash. View at your discretion.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtbHD8rf_AY

[Gabriel]

many airshow crashes happen when there's a control surface failure...so if you are higher, it's that much easier to veer off into the crowd.

What? Control surface failure must be the least common cause. Yes it has happened, but unable to clear the ground in high Gs / high AoA pull ups out of dives and loss of control (tipically in a stall and/or spin condition) are by far the most common ones. And altitude is what will let you recover from something going wrong in those cases. If you plan to recover ant 500 ft and are 300 ft too low, you will still recover (at 200ft) and I hope that you will take this as a very serious lesson learned and go and find out what on Earth you did wrong and how you prevent that it ever ever happens again. If you planned to recover at 50ft and end 100ft too low, well, look at the video.

I also don't like to hear "The pilot made a bad decision"(Not_posted by Brian)...That gives the implication the dude is saying, "I formally and in full knowledge, decide to make this loop 300 feet too low"...

I cannot imagine that the pilot didn't know that he was extremely low. You don't perform aerbatics by instruments or in IMC. But maybe he wasn't 300ft too low but about where he wanted to be, he had pulled this maneuver before pulling out skimming the ground, and this time he pulled a up a bit too much in the up run or a bit too little in the beginning of the low part, or he was a bit faster or slower than the corner speed, or started just 50 ft below what he intended, and because he had no margins built in the design of the maneuver, he colud not recover from that little mistake. Maybe.

[Gabriel]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-34044383

Why? Was the fact that it was a vintage a factor? It looks like the jet was respondoing quite well to the pilot's inputs.

Better ban pilots that don't design, train and perform the maneuvers well within the flight envelope (including the aerobatic flight envelope) and with a good margin of safety to be able to recover if something goes wrong, and with a projected impact point that is free of people if something goes even worse.

[Gabriel]

Do you really need an altimeter at all to tell that you are 5 and not 500 ft AGL???

[sjwk]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-34044383

An update on the above:

The Civil Aviation Authority said [vintage jets] would be "limited to flypasts", which meant "high-energy aerobatics" would not be permitted in displays over land.
...
A spokesman for the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) confirmed that all Hawker Hunter aircraft had been grounded until further notice.
The regulator added that it would be conducting "additional risk assessments on all forthcoming civil air displays".

Is grounding of aircraft normal in this sort of situation, or does that imply some sort of finger pointing at aircraft failure?

[elaw]

Is there any evidence at all to indicate the age of the aircraft was a factor in this accident?

To me (and here comes the parlour talking...), it looks like the maneuver was just performed too low, and at the bottom when the pilot tried to pull up to avoid the ground, the aircraft just said "no". Aka an accelerated stall.

[ClarkF1]

Also a full review under way, restrictions on Hunter flights and additional risk assessments on future displays to see if further restrictions applied.

[sjwk]

UK's aviation regulator announces "significant restrictions" on vintage jets in air displays after Shoreham crash

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-34044383