Crash at Shoreham Air show

[Dr Jekyll]

AW111 said:

We get the other argument here all the time : "no-one was hurt by my risky driving, so why am I being prosecuted?"

You can't have it both ways.

No we don't. We do get 'This piece of illegal driving wasn't risky in that particular set of circumstances, so what's the issue?'

[Dr Jekyll]

jamieduff1981 said:

Pilots have to switch between settings at different points in the flight.

It was that sort of confusion that lead to the USAF Thunderbirds crash in 2003. The pilot went into a manoeuvre too low and the result was very similar to Shoreham except that he came down on an empty piece of airfield.

The pilot was sacked but there was no question of prosecution, he made a mistake that's all.

[Getragdogleg]

The correct driving comparison to use in this case is rally driving.

A rally car being driven flat out on a stage, driver makes error and goes into the crowd is never going to result in a death by dangerous driving prosecution. Even if the out of control rally car goes off stage and into a non spectator area its still an accident.

This air show accident is not comparable to driving like a tt on the roads so stop using that as the go to argument as to why the pilot ought to be prosecuted. Put it in mind that this is a spectacle event just like the rally driving is and is a world away from Baz doing 121 up the bypass or Trev doing burnouts in town.

[eccles]

Dr Jekyll said:

jamieduff1981 said:

Pilots have to switch between settings at different points in the flight.

It was that sort of confusion that lead to the USAF Thunderbirds crash in 2003. The pilot went into a manoeuvre too low and the result was very similar to Shoreham except that he came down on an empty piece of airfield.

The pilot was sacked but there was no question of prosecution, he made a mistake that's all.

He was a military pilot , employed by the military, flying a military jet on a military base and no one died. Why would there ever be a prosecution unless it was found in the inquiry that it was deliberate?

[Dr Jekyll]

eccles said:

Dr Jekyll said:

jamieduff1981 said:

Pilots have to switch between settings at different points in the flight.

It was that sort of confusion that lead to the USAF Thunderbirds crash in 2003. The pilot went into a manoeuvre too low and the result was very similar to Shoreham except that he came down on an empty piece of airfield.

The pilot was sacked but there was no question of prosecution, he made a mistake that's all.

He was a military pilot , employed by the military, flying a military jet on a military base and no one died. Why would there ever be a prosecution unless it was found in the inquiry that it was deliberate?

Exactly.

[HoHoHo]

Getragdogleg said:

The correct driving comparison to use in this case is rally driving.

A rally car being driven flat out on a stage, driver makes error and goes into the crowd is never going to result in a death by dangerous driving prosecution. Even if the out of control rally car goes off stage and into a non spectator area its still an accident.

This air show accident is not comparable to driving like a tt on the roads so stop using that as the go to argument as to why the pilot ought to be prosecuted. Put it in mind that this is a spectacle event just like the rally driving is and is a world away from Baz doing 121 up the bypass or Trev doing burnouts in town.

But what if the rules of the rally say you drive between the lines, not to the left or not to the right but the driver doesn't take any notice of those rules and drives outside the lines and then kills someone.

Slightly different to the normal rally scenario you mentioned and I'm guessing it would almost certainly end in a prosecution, if nothing else a private one.

[Getragdogleg]

HoHoHo said:

Getragdogleg said:

The correct driving comparison to use in this case is rally driving.

A rally car being driven flat out on a stage, driver makes error and goes into the crowd is never going to result in a death by dangerous driving prosecution. Even if the out of control rally car goes off stage and into a non spectator area its still an accident.

This air show accident is not comparable to driving like a tt on the roads so stop using that as the go to argument as to why the pilot ought to be prosecuted. Put it in mind that this is a spectacle event just like the rally driving is and is a world away from Baz doing 121 up the bypass or Trev doing burnouts in town.

But what if the rules of the rally say you drive between the lines, not to the left or not to the right but the driver doesn't take any notice of those rules and drives outside the lines and then kills someone.

Slightly different to the normal rally scenario you mentioned and I'm guessing it would almost certainly end in a prosecution, if nothing else a private one.

Its not actual lines in the air though is it and its all moving fast and in more dimensions than the land based "turn left or right". If you go out by a little at one point by the time a second or so has passed you are way out on some other axis very easily.

[SilverSpur]

None of the victims were spectators at an air show.

[eccles]

Dr Jekyll said:

eccles said:

Dr Jekyll said:

jamieduff1981 said:

Pilots have to switch between settings at different points in the flight.

It was that sort of confusion that lead to the USAF Thunderbirds crash in 2003. The pilot went into a manoeuvre too low and the result was very similar to Shoreham except that he came down on an empty piece of airfield.

The pilot was sacked but there was no question of prosecution, he made a mistake that's all.

He was a military pilot , employed by the military, flying a military jet on a military base and no one died. Why would there ever be a prosecution unless it was found in the inquiry that it was deliberate?

Exactly.

So nothing like Shoreham at all then?

[Dr Jekyll]

eccles said:

So nothing like Shoreham at all then?

I was replying to a point made about the way a mistake about altitude is easy to make and that this COULD have happened at Shoreham.

The pilot involved made a mistake about altitude and entered a vertical manoeuvre too low. The manoeuvre ended in a vertical dive and the pilot did not quite have room to pull out. So almost exactly what it was suggested may have happened at Shoreham.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUNhg9y2i6o

[HoHoHo]

Getragdogleg said:

HoHoHo said:

Getragdogleg said:

The correct driving comparison to use in this case is rally driving.

A rally car being driven flat out on a stage, driver makes error and goes into the crowd is never going to result in a death by dangerous driving prosecution. Even if the out of control rally car goes off stage and into a non spectator area its still an accident.

This air show accident is not comparable to driving like a tt on the roads so stop using that as the go to argument as to why the pilot ought to be prosecuted. Put it in mind that this is a spectacle event just like the rally driving is and is a world away from Baz doing 121 up the bypass or Trev doing burnouts in town.

But what if the rules of the rally say you drive between the lines, not to the left or not to the right but the driver doesn't take any notice of those rules and drives outside the lines and then kills someone.

Slightly different to the normal rally scenario you mentioned and I'm guessing it would almost certainly end in a prosecution, if nothing else a private one.

Its not actual lines in the air though is it and its all moving fast and in more dimensions than the land based "turn left or right". If you go out by a little at one point by the time a second or so has passed you are way out on some other axis very easily.

I wasn't talking literally!

He was a pilot in charge of a very powerful machine, I just hope he followed the rules amd regulations and it was not his fault.

If it was his fault he deserves to get punished accordingly, the result of his aircraft hitting the ground killed 11 and changed the lives of countless more.

If you drive at 80mph on the motorway and get stopped for speeding more fault you, rules are rules.

[eccles]

Dr Jekyll said:

eccles said:

So nothing like Shoreham at all then?

I was replying to a point made about the way a mistake about altitude is easy to make and that this COULD have happened at Shoreham.

The pilot involved made a mistake about altitude and entered a vertical manoeuvre too low. The manoeuvre ended in a vertical dive and the pilot did not quite have room to pull out. So almost exactly what it was suggested may have happened at Shoreham.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUNhg9y2i6o

I thought your point was more to do with the driver making a simple fault and not getting prosecuted, where as in reality in that incident a prosecution was never going to be on the cards.

To my mind, if it turns out to be the case at the Shoreham crash that the altimeter was not set correctly, then he should be prosecuted. Yes, I know it probably wasn't deliberate, but his simple failure to follow SOP's has led to the death of 11 people.

[SMB]

There has been a lot of focus on here and the media that prior to the loop the plane may have been low. I didn't see anything in the reports so far that actually confirmed the height at the start of the loop for us to be sure about. The AAIB statement leaves that slightly ambiguous .

Also the release gave the altitude at the top of the loop, no one with more knowledge than us has said that was too low to safely complete the loop.

Shoreham is at sea level , and I' m no expert but I'm not sure what setting on an altimeter would make you think you had more height to the ground in that scenario.

As a suggestion for comment I still wonder if the fact that shoreham is a short narrow runway made the pilot think he was higher than he was ( if used to a long wide runway). A split second look at the ground may have been misleading. If this was the cause would that still warrant prosecution?

[Dr Jekyll]

eccles said:

I thought your point was more to do with the driver making a simple fault and not getting prosecuted, where as in reality in that incident a prosecution was never going to be on the cards.

To my mind, if it turns out to be the case at the Shoreham crash that the altimeter was not set correctly, then he should be prosecuted. Yes, I know it probably wasn't deliberate, but his simple failure to follow SOP's has led to the death of 11 people.

And if he had crashed from the same cause without killing anybody would it still merit prosecution? Or if like the other Hunter pilot referred to above, had set the altimeter incorrectly but not crashed?

[eccles]

Dr Jekyll said:

eccles said:

I thought your point was more to do with the driver making a simple fault and not getting prosecuted, where as in reality in that incident a prosecution was never going to be on the cards.

To my mind, if it turns out to be the case at the Shoreham crash that the altimeter was not set correctly, then he should be prosecuted. Yes, I know it probably wasn't deliberate, but his simple failure to follow SOP's has led to the death of 11 people.

And if he had crashed from the same cause without killing anybody would it still merit prosecution? Or if like the other Hunter pilot referred to above, had set the altimeter incorrectly but not crashed?

To answer your questions in order, No, and what would you prosecute him for?

[Dr Jekyll]

eccles said:

Dr Jekyll said:

eccles said:

I thought your point was more to do with the driver making a simple fault and not getting prosecuted, where as in reality in that incident a prosecution was never going to be on the cards.

To my mind, if it turns out to be the case at the Shoreham crash that the altimeter was not set correctly, then he should be prosecuted. Yes, I know it probably wasn't deliberate, but his simple failure to follow SOP's has led to the death of 11 people.

And if he had crashed from the same cause without killing anybody would it still merit prosecution? Or if like the other Hunter pilot referred to above, had set the altimeter incorrectly but not crashed?

To answer your questions in order, No, and what would you prosecute him for?

I wouldn't prosecute someone for simply setting an altimeter incorrectly. It would be counter productive for safety.

[Sylvaforever]

Pointless arguing until the AAIB produce the report.

After the report is published we will know, as far as possible, what happenned.

Personally , unfortuantly, at the present time, cannot find any mitigation for the loss of life.

That however may change and I hope my suspicions are unfounded.

[mybrainhurts]

AW111 said:

mybrainhurts said:

Hmmm...punishment for an accident.

This legal concept has long made me uneasy.

It depends on how you define "accident".

If I were to drive flat out through a pedestrian mall, and accidentally run over a handful of pedestrians, it would be resonable for me to be punished.
We get the other argument here all the time : "no-one was hurt by my risky driving, so why am I being prosecuted?"

You can't have it both ways.

I refer to human fallibility, not stupidity.

[Chrisgr31]

Dr Jekyll said:

dr_gn said:

Dr Jekyll said:

dr_gn said:

Because they know perfectly well prosecution is only considered in exceptional cases,

Wouldn't you consider this an exceptional case?

Yes, which is exactly the problem.

The problem here is that those killed were all outside the airfield boundary, some of them may have been spectating but a number were definitely just driving past. It is not the pilots fault that the the airspace he required to do his display included areas outside the airfield.

One outcome of this event, and other recent accidents has been the tightening up of air display rules. Its obvious that there was always a risk of people being hurt by plane ending up on the A27, but the same risk applies to the M25 and Heathrow, the M23 and Gatwick etc however the chances were presumably always felt to be an acceptable risk by the organisers.

Is it the pilots fault that the organisers believed the risk was slight enough? Should he have felt there was a risk he would end up on the A27 and therefore not performed in the first place?

[eccles]

Dr Jekyll said:

eccles said:

Dr Jekyll said:

eccles said:

I thought your point was more to do with the driver making a simple fault and not getting prosecuted, where as in reality in that incident a prosecution was never going to be on the cards.

To my mind, if it turns out to be the case at the Shoreham crash that the altimeter was not set correctly, then he should be prosecuted. Yes, I know it probably wasn't deliberate, but his simple failure to follow SOP's has led to the death of 11 people.

And if he had crashed from the same cause without killing anybody would it still merit prosecution? Or if like the other Hunter pilot referred to above, had set the altimeter incorrectly but not crashed?

To answer your questions in order, No, and what would you prosecute him for?

I wouldn't prosecute someone for simply setting an altimeter incorrectly. It would be counter productive for safety.

Even though it's part of your job to set it correctly, and if you don't set it correctly you may end up killing people?