Airshow Accident

Very sad news coming in this morning...

A Hawker Hunter T mark 7 aircraft slammed into the A27 in West Sussex killing seven, which at the time, was filled with traffic headed to the Shoreham Airshow.

 
That's just unspeakable.

When I first heard about the Hunter crash my first thought was I hope it's not any of my friends which feels awfully selfish. Seeing that he impacted automobile traffic I'm just blown away.
 
I don't know what the showline was out there, and how it related to where the motorway was located, but once his nose was about 45 degrees nose low, he was committed either way. You can see the wings wobble as the jet is passing through the horizon, so he's in an accelerated stall/high AOA and pretty much just along for the ride at that point.

Reminds me of this one:
 
I'm curious if his ejection seat was still active. The Hunters I fly with still have live seats in them so if they were that might mean he was trying to avoid traffic until the end.
 
esa17 said:
I'm curious if his ejection seat was still active. The Hunters I fly with still have live seats in them so if they were that might mean he was trying to avoid traffic until the end.
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There's no way, even with current advanced ejection seats like are in fourth generation fighters, that you would have a successful ejection with that much sink rate.
 
Hacker15e said:
I don't know what the showline was out there, and how it related to where the motorway was located, but once his nose was about 45 degrees nose low, he was committed either way. You can see the wings wobble as the jet is passing through the horizon, so he's in an accelerated stall/high AOA and pretty much just along for the ride at that point.

Reminds me of this one:
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Or the F-86 at El Toro too. Almost a carbon copy.

 
Hacker15e said:
I don't know what the showline was out there, and how it related to where the motorway was located, but once his nose was about 45 degrees nose low, he was committed either way. You can see the wings wobble as the jet is passing through the horizon, so he's in an accelerated stall/high AOA and pretty much just along for the ride at that point.

Reminds me of this one:
Click to expand...


Did the F-18 pilot survive?
 
MikeD said:
Or the F-86 at El Toro too. Almost a carbon copy.

Click to expand...


The instantaneous fireball and abrupt breakup of the airplane just shows what kind of energy he was carrying. Confused as to why he was doing acro with drops on board... Not saying the F-86 can't, but if I remember correctly on the F-18 they were pretty limiting. Also looks like he might have blacked out about a second before impact.
 
Inverted said:
The instantaneous fireball and abrupt breakup of the airplane just shows what kind of energy he was carrying. Confused as to why he was doing acro with drops on board... Not saying the F-86 can't, but if I remember correctly on the F-18 they were pretty limiting.
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Probably too much a pain to down/upload. And possibly empty. With their smaller size, may not be as limiting a factor symmetric/asymmetric G-wise as current jets.

Also looks like he might have blacked out about a second before impact.
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Inverted said:
I feel like I see a back pressure release.
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Possibly so, though not able to specifically say why.
 
Amazingly, it looks like the pilot survived. Though I'd rather be dead than live with the consequence of taking innocent lives it turns out to be pilot error.
 
Hacker15e said:
Yes, but with severe back injuries.
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Cadick had his fair share of luck. Flying a T-33, he chose to take his chances wheels up in a corn field rather than eject at 800 feet (I think the min was 1000). Later, he dead-sticked an A-4. He almost lost his wings over that. Instead of making a case for the soundness of his decision he made the case for prolonging his squadron's record for avoiding a hull loss.
 
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