Another airshow plane crash!

[Oberon]

The picture making most of the headlines tomorrow:

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/...r_3415985b.jpg

Shocking, absolutely shocking...

[eddie]

Reminds me of the time the Air Florida flight left Reagan National Airport during a winter storm, wings iced up and it pancaked right on top of cars on the 14th Street bridge, poor folks never knew what hit them, sadly just like this accident.

[BossMark]

And the pilot survived the carnage all though he is in a bad way, my thoughts with all those involved in this sad and bad accident.

[HunterICX]

Originally Posted by Oberon

The picture making most of the headlines tomorrow:

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/...r_3415985b.jpg

Shocking, absolutely shocking...

Now that's a sight that comes straight out of a terrible nightmare

[Oberon]

Life is strange, really.

After the Hawker Hunter crash yesterday, the Sea Vixen was already up, ready to do its display, it flew in salute overhead, and a short while after the Vulcan came through in tribute as well.

The last time we had an airshow crash of this magnitude when spectators or people outside of the airshow were involved was in 1952 at Farnborough when a de Havilland 110, the prototype for the Sea Vixen, broke up during a manoeuvre and crashed into the crowd, killing 29 people. There was a pause in the displays while the runway was cleared, and then an aircraft took off and did displays for the crowd.
That aircraft...a prototype Hawker Hunter.

Bookends in a tragic history.

[Torplexed]

Would a plane of this vintage have had a ejection seat? Seems like it would, but maybe the aircraft was demilitarized for civilian airshow use.

Of course, I suppose that would look even worse in retrospect if the pilot bails in a vertical direction and parachutes to safety while his errant plane belly-flops in a major motorway.

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by Torplexed

Would a plane of this vintage have had a ejection seat? Seems like it would, but maybe the aircraft was demilitarized for civilian airshow use.

Of course, I suppose that would look even worse in retrospect if the pilot bails in a vertical direction and parachutes to safety while his errant plane belly-flops in a major motorway.

The original had a Mk2 Martin Baker, that may have been upgraded since then, but yes they do have ejection seats, not sure if it's a zero/zero though.
Honestly though I think the pilot was trying to bring the nose up to the last second but the sink rate was just too high.

Really there's two things that I expect the AAIB will be looking at, control failure or pilot error. Either the pilot misjudged his available altitude when he commenced his loop, sadly that is easily done, or the aircraft elevators did not work correctly to make the loop tighter. You can see in the video that there was possibly a stall while he was attempting to pull up out of the dive, so it looks like he had full control, just not enough height.

Must have been a terrible few seconds for him, realising that the aircraft wasn't going to climb up out of the dive, and realising where his flightpath was.

Terribly tragic for all involved.

[Stealhead]

I don't think ejection sets are permitted in a civil aircraft even a demilitarized fighter.
The maintainence would be very cost prohibitive ejection seats and related systems require a lot of routine attention. The rocket motors that power the seats is the biggest issue.

Never mind FAA says that you can have functioning seats in a demilitarized aircraft but they must be fully maintained. So at least in the US you can again though I can see it becoming a cost vs need situation.

[Jimbuna]

Terribly tragic...a few of the gang were there but nowhere near the crash site.

[Herr-Berbunch]

Active ejector seats in civvy aircraft aren't allowed in the UK.

There's been a mid-air collision today at Dittigen airshow in Switzerland, one dead and one parachuted to safety.

https://twitter.com/News_Executive/s...559104/photo/1

Not the best weekend in aviation, but far from the worst.

[eddie]

Reports on the news over here are saying a number of people on the ground are unaccounted for and the death toll will go higher. As if it needs to get worse.

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by Herr-Berbunch

Active ejector seats in civvy aircraft aren't allowed in the UK.

There's been a mid-air collision today at Dittigen airshow in Switzerland, one dead and one parachuted to safety.

https://twitter.com/News_Executive/s...559104/photo/1

Not the best weekend in aviation, but far from the worst.

Rgr that

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by Herr-Berbunch

Active ejector seats in civvy aircraft aren't allowed in the UK.

They are if they're an integral part of the aircraft escape system, in fact it's required for some ex-military aircraft:

http://www.caa.co.uk/docs/33/CAP%206...20Aircraft.pdf

[Admiral Halsey]

Originally Posted by Herr-Berbunch

Not the best weekend in aviation, but far from the worst.

Quite true and hopefully nothing will ever come close to matching Tenerife.

[Schroeder]

Originally Posted by Torplexed

Would a plane of this vintage have had a ejection seat? Seems like it would, but maybe the aircraft was demilitarized for civilian airshow use.

Of course, I suppose that would look even worse in retrospect if the pilot bails in a vertical direction and parachutes to safety while his errant plane belly-flops in a major motorway.

Happened here in Germany with a Canadian F104 in 1983. The plane crashed on a motorway while doing a display with 4 other Starfighters and killed 6 people. The pilot ejected before impact.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...incidents#1983