Air Crash At Shoreham

[poliphilo]

You take a veteran plane up into the air and make it perform party tricks over an area where there are houses and a major road and lots of people rubbernecking...and...and...

I don't know, but isn't it a pretty stupid thing to do?

It's not as though crashes at air shows were a rarity. It's only a few weeks since a stunt pilot was killed at Chris Evans' CarFest.

Comments

[matrixmann]

It actually is a thing you need to calculate with when professionally doing such kinds of things. But the security for the audience, if you look at the incidents, even should almost be more a first before your own because these people aren't professionals. Sure then it sounds like a stupid idea to do this in an area which is already crowded right from the start.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

This plane came down on a very busy road- and I gather most, if not all the dead- were in the cars it ploughed through.

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

I really hope they are going to take a long hard look at the advisability of old planes doing dramatic stunt flying. Perhaps the time has come to limit them to a sedate fly past? Also, I don't know what checks are done on airworthiness. I know that this is the last year that the last Vulcan bomber will be flying due to concerns about the airframe, but are all these old planes being as carefully scrutinised?

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

A colleague of the pilot said this was "a very safe plane" And I found myself shouting at the radio, "But it just crashed- so it wasn't."

[davesmusictank.livejournal.com]

Isn't it about time that these amateurs in the biplanes should refrain from such stunts. Leave it to the professionals.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

It was a jet, not a biplane.

[davesmusictank.livejournal.com]

I got confused with another crash some weeks back, but you are right.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I gather the pilot works for an airline

[halfmoon-mollie.livejournal.com]

Air shows are one of the stupidest ideas ever come up with. They scare the crap out of me. Four of the Blue Angels killed in one (years ago) and the incident you talk about here...no thank you very much. Too many people can get hurt both in the planes and on the ground.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

if the flyers were only risking their own necks it would be different- but the victims in this incident weren't even at the show, but just driving by on the coastal road.

[qatsi.livejournal.com]

I think you've hit the nail on the head here.

[ingenious76.livejournal.com]

Tragic - yes.

Stupid - even more so.

[howlin-wolf-66.livejournal.com]

Originally when I first heard it, I thought the plane had crashed into cars parked AT the airshow...

I can't believe they let it go ahead with a busy road in such close proximity. :-(

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I know the road quite well. It runs past my old school- and carries a lot of traffic.

[puddleshark.livejournal.com]

Air shows are one of those noisy, environmentally-unfriendly things (like fireworks) that I have to work really hard not to be a puritanical killjoy about. My brother-in-law for one loves them.

But it's hard to believe that there are no regulations governing stunt-flying over a busy main road.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I'm not keen either.

I don't want to spoil people's fun, but...

[w. lotus (from livejournal.com)]

Good point. Better to do those things over water or over fields.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

He could actually have done his loop over the sea. Shoreham airport is right on the coast. I know the area well.

[ooxc.livejournal.com]

thinks perhaps we should wait for the enquiry?
We don't know what went wrong.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

What went wrong was the pilot was pulling stunts over a populated area, that can't be right.

[rosamicula.livejournal.com]

It's sad, but no worse than idiots making errors in cars and killing innocent bystanders.