Plane crashes onto A27 at Shoreham Air Show

[mauvais]

Think about it; if that were the case there'd be no profitable/break-even events anywhere.

Nope. Go to Bournemouth and watch the show - aside from VIP, it's free. The money comes from other streams like advertising, tourism etc. Now obviously that's a different model to the RAFA thing at Shoreham, but just as people want to go to a football stadium and watch it live in person rather than a second class view on a big screen, people pay to be at the heart of it.

 

[brogdale]

It isn't one pilot is it? How many pilots die vs members of the public over all?

The stunt pilots decide to accept the risk as part of their contract; members of the public going about their daily lives don't.

 

[redcogs]

Just in the interests of accuracy, it is probably worth pointing out that this display took place neither over residences nor huge assembled crowds.

ETA: nor did it hit residences or huge assembled crowds.

But in the interests of accuracy don't we also need to take into account the physics of a loop the loop, which could mean that a catastrophe involving public fatalities might occur depending upon the exit point from the loop (in the event of some unidentifiable failure) regardless of the aircrafts immediate proximity to the assembled hoards?

Displaying over large bodies of water (the seas surrounding UK shores ;-) ) at a suitable distance from crowds would minimise the risk to both public and property.

 

[brogdale]

Nope. Go to Bournemouth and watch the show - aside from VIP, it's free. The money comes from other streams like advertising, tourism etc. Now obviously that's a different model to the RAFA thing at Shoreham, but just as people want to go to a football stadium and watch it live in person rather than a second class view on a big screen, people pay to be at the heart of it.

So they could be held 'over the sea', then?

 

[mauvais]

So they could be held 'over the sea', then?

Do you even read my posts?

 

[existentialist]

Are you familiar with the geography?

But it hit a busy main road.

I'm not saying that what happened was right, or that we shouldn't have concerns about it.

But it seems silly to me to be using hyperbolic arguments about something that didn't actually happen.

And I'm certainly not making a case for total complacency.

The Ramstein crash in the 80s was an example of what we'd now regard as reckless planning - planes were doing head-on flying manoeuvres in a situation where, when something went wrong, it was almost inevitable that a plane would then crash into a dense crowd.

Those manoeuvres don't happen any more.

It may be that we move from a post-Ramstein regime into a post-Shoreham one, where flight rules are further restricted to minimise the risk of a plane crashing onto a road, though that may well be much more difficult - even impossible - to organise.

But it seems to me to be silly to be saying "but, but, but, this might happen..." when changes have already been in place to ensure that the risk of such things happening is already minimised. If we're going to have a debate about airshow safety, it might be more useful/constructive/interesting if we constrain ourselves to the facts, rather than hyperbole about things that have already been addressed. Which doesn't mean we shouldn't talk about addressing problems that still remain, or be complacent about them.

 

[redcogs]

Nope. Go to Bournemouth and watch the show - aside from VIP, it's free. The money comes from other streams like advertising, tourism etc. Now obviously that's a different model to the RAFA thing at Shoreham, but just as people want to go to a football stadium and watch it live in person rather than a second class view on a big screen, people pay to be at the heart of it.

They may (and do) pay to be "at the heart of it" but the heart of it doesn't appear to be determined by adequate legislative scrutiny.

Lets give public safety absolute centrality, not this or that business model, or any other factors.

 

[mauvais]

They may (and do) pay to be "at the heart of it" but the heart of it doesn't appear to be determined by adequate legislative scrutiny.

Lets give public safety absolute centrality, not this or that business model, or any other factors.

This may or may not be the case, but so far you don't seem to know very much about what legislation does exist, and the metric of "20 deaths in fifty years" is not a very informative one with which to make decisions for or against. Existentialist's post above yours is a start in that respect.

 

[Spymaster]

They may (and do) pay to be "at the heart of it" but the heart of it doesn't appear to be determined by adequate legislative scrutiny.

Lets give public safety absolute centrality, not this or that business model, or any other factors.

We need to keep a bit of perspective.

Accidents at UK air shows are incredibly rare and incidents of people hurt on the ground are vanishingly small.

 

[brogdale]

I'm not saying that what happened was right, or that we shouldn't have concerns about it.

But it seems silly to me to be using hyperbolic arguments about something that didn't actually happen.

And I'm certainly not making a case for total complacency.

The Ramstein crash in the 80s was an example of what we'd now regard as reckless planning - planes were doing head-on flying manoeuvres in a situation where, when something went wrong, it was almost inevitable that a plane would then crash into a dense crowd.

Those manoeuvres don't happen any more.

It may be that we move from a post-Ramstein regime into a post-Shoreham one, where flight rules are further restricted to minimise the risk of a plane crashing onto a road, though that may well be much more difficult - even impossible - to organise.

But it seems to me to be silly to be saying "but, but, but, this might happen..." when changes have already been in place to ensure that the risk of such things happening is already minimised. If we're going to have a debate about airshow safety, it might be more useful/constructive/interesting if we constrain ourselves to the facts, rather than hyperbole about things that have already been addressed. Which doesn't mean we shouldn't talk about addressing problems that still remain, or be complacent about them.

Which is all fair enough, (& you clearly know more about this than I do)...but...your arguments above against the notion of over-the-sea displays seem tenuous in the extreme. Yes, there may be a greater risk to pilots (?) but then they would presumably factor that into their decision to enter into a commercial contract or not, and yes there may be a risk of spectators taking to boats under the display. But in both cases these people would be choosing to put themselves in harms way. The people driving on the A27 did not.

 

[redcogs]

i'm sick of the 'health and safety gone mad' brigade's opposition to thoughtfully applied legislation which could potentially reduce future fatalities.

Dying in a fire storm when your out on a Sunday bike ride is an avoidable event. Forcing air displays to perform only in the safest possible areas could make such tragedies even rarer than they are.

 

[Citizen66]

i'm sick of the 'health and safety gone mad' brigade's opposition to thoughtfully applied legislation which could potentially reduce future fatalities.

Dying in a fire storm when your out on a Sunday bike ride is an avoidable event. Forcing air displays to perform only in the safest possible areas could make such tragedies even rarer than they are.

The middle of the Sahara Desert could certainly do with the boost in tourism.

 

[existentialist]

We need to keep a bit of perspective.

Accidents at UK air shows are incredibly rare events and incidents of people hurt on the ground are vanishingly small.

It's always going to be a bit of a vexed question, isn't it?

Nothing is risk-free. Somewhere, the balance between risk and benefit has to be struck.

Clearly, for many, the "benefits" accruing from something like an airshow will never warrant the risk to even a single other life; but for other people, that same argument might apply to, say, driving - how many "innocent" (uninvolved) people are killed each year by cars? Can we say that the benefit to them of driving is so small that we shouldn't allow people to drive if doing so puts them at risk?

There are all kinds of non-essential activities that create small amounts of risk for uninvolved people - if we are to say "ban airshows", then perhaps we need to examine those risks, too, and consider banning them as well. And some may not simply want to draw the line at instant death - what about, for example, the long-term health consequences of certain activities on others? For example, we seem to be starting to realise that diesel particulate emissions are a significant cause of serious health problems for people, particularly in cities. Yet nobody is seriously suggesting that we should simply ban all diesel vehicles, even though I suspect that the (albeit more indirect) harms they cause result in far more significant levels of death or harm.

And, of course, there are plenty of activities that some might regard as non-essential but which others might regard as essential. I've already spoken about the need for a military, which some on this thread clearly regard as not essential. Who gets to decide? If an airshow, for example, results in a significant economic benefit to the country, how do we quantify that benefit in terms of the number of deaths that might be caused, particularly in view of the fact that the larger airshows are usually part of a sales exercise for military hardware? It's easy enough to castigate the military-industrial complex for its ethics, but what effect would closing it down have directly on the lifestyles and incomes of those employed within it, or indirectly on the potential for us as a nation to defend ourselves or simply deter aggressors?

Someone mentioned "absolute" earlier - I am always a little uncomfortable about absolutes, because very little in life IS absolute. and there is almost always a complex interplay of factors, risks, benefits, and so on...to the extent that when I see an "absolute" argument being made, I am immediately suspicious that something is being missed.

 

[5t3IIa]

Are you familiar with the geography?

Are you from around there? This is a neutral question

The plane hit the ground around 30 metres from a busy (I assume it would have been extremely busy due to weather, big garden, airshow, being a pub) pub. Could have squashed it flat, plus all those cars.

 

[existentialist]

Which is all fair enough, (& you clearly know more about this than I do)...but...your arguments above against the notion of over-the-sea displays seem tenuous in the extreme. Yes, there may be a greater risk to pilots (?) but then they would presumably factor that into their decision to enter into a commercial contract or not, and yes there may be a risk of spectators taking to boats under the display. But in both cases these people would be choosing to put themselves in harms way. The people driving on the A27 did not.

It wasn't really intended to be a coherent argument against over-sea displays - more a collection of immediate reactions to the suggestion. It may well be that, when all the facts have been gathered, and all of the relevant risks assessed, moving to an over-sea approach ends up being the best one to adopt. I certainly wouldn't be in any position to make that argument one way or the other.

 

[brogdale]

Are you from around there? This is a neutral question

The plane hit the ground around 30 metres from a busy (I assume it would have been extremely buy due to weather, big garden, airshow, being a pub) pub. Could have squashed it flat, plus all those cars.

I have family in Southwick.

 

[mauvais]

i'm sick of the 'health and safety gone mad' brigade's opposition to thoughtfully applied legislation which could potentially reduce future fatalities.

Dying in a fire storm when your out on a Sunday bike ride is an avoidable event. Forcing air displays to perform only in the safest possible areas could make such tragedies even rarer than they are.

No, that's not my complaint. It is this: why do you feel qualified to repeatedly comment on a requirement for increased legislation, when you don't appear to know anything about what legislation already exists? You don't even know that the display didn't breach it.

 

[mauvais]

Yet nobody is seriously suggesting that we should simply ban all diesel vehicles, even though I suspect that the (albeit more indirect) harms they cause result in far more significant levels of death or harm.

Deeply O/T, but they are actually - Paris and possibly ultimately London

 

[brogdale]

No, that's not my complaint. It is this: why do you feel qualified to repeatedly comment on a requirement for increased legislation, when you don't appear to know anything about what legislation already exists? You don't even know that the display didn't breach it.

That seems overly harsh/restrictive. We most of us talk about issues underpinned by complex legislation of which we have little or no knowledge.

 

[existentialist]

i'm sick of the 'health and safety gone mad' brigade's opposition to thoughtfully applied legislation which could potentially reduce future fatalities.

Where is this "health and safety gone mad" brigade's opposition here? All I am seeing - and, hopefully, posting - are reasonable arguments against simply responding to a catastrophe by trying to ban something, when we don't actually know what was responsible for the catastrophe yet.

History is too littered with knee-jerk responses to events that turned out not only to fail to achieve what they intended, but have often created other problems in the process to really think that's a sensible way to go about responding to a disaster like this.

 

[mauvais]

That seems overly harsh/restrictive. We most of us talk about issues underpinned by complex legislation of which we have little or no knowledge.

And talk away, but at least do so with an interest in understanding the context around something, otherwise it's just uninformed rhetoric. I suspect you would (rightly) object to me stating with certainty that the legislation is adequate without possession of the facts of this case.

 

[brogdale]

And talk away, but at least do so with an interest in understanding the context around something, otherwise it's just uninformed rhetoric. I suspect you would (rightly) object to me stating with certainty that the legislation is adequate without possession of the facts of this case.

My objection would centre on the fact that evidence would suggest otherwise. I don't need detailed legislative knowledge to do so.

 

[mauvais]

My objection would centre on the fact that evidence would suggest otherwise. I don't need detailed legislative knowledge to do so.

And as before, the evidence - of which so far there is little beyond the event itself having happened - is a poor metric for broad decision making.

 

[brogdale]

And as before, the evidence - of which so far there is little beyond the event itself having happened - is a poor metric for broad decision making.

Yep, but we're not making any decisions, are we? We're discussing the event and the issues that it raises.

 

[existentialist]

Yep, but we're not making any decisions, are we? We're discussing the event and the issues that it raises.

I can't speak for mauvais, but my take on this is that such discussions can be far more interesting and enlightening if we are all able to hold ourselves to a reasonable standard in terms of sticking to the facts. While this is also a great place for venting our feelings about what has happened, it's a lot harder to engage in a sensible discussion when it's all just about feelings.

 

[Boudicca]

And I am not sure that we can necessarily assume that a display over water which went wrong would be any less potentially dangerous to bystanders - I imagine that quite a few over-water demonstrations end up having people watching from boats, and are a lot more difficult to police.

Yes, lots of boats - this is from the Bournemouth Air Show a couple of days ago. I've only been here a year, so I really enjoyed the show. I love the Red Arrows and the Volcans used to be based at an RAF station near to where I was brought up.

Nope. Go to Bournemouth and watch the show - aside from VIP, it's free. The money comes from other streams like advertising, tourism etc.

It's the biggest weekend of the year here, there's 7 miles of cliff and beach and all pretty packed with people.


The Typhoon is out of shot, sorry.

 

[brogdale]

I can't speak for mauvais, but my take on this is that such discussions can be far more interesting and enlightening if we are all able to hold ourselves to a reasonable standard in terms of sticking to the facts. While this is also a great place for venting our feelings about what has happened, it's a lot harder to engage in a sensible discussion when it's all just about feelings.

Again, no issue with that, but the facts (as they stand at present) demonstrate the risks of stunt air-show activity over built-up, urbanised areas with busy infrastructure. To suggest that such risks would be reduced by limiting such entertainment to the sea does not IMO appear over emotive.

 

[redcogs]

No, that's not my complaint. It is this: why do you feel qualified to repeatedly comment on a requirement for increased legislation, when you don't appear to know anything about what legislation already exists? You don't even know that the display didn't breach it.

What i have deduced from the tragedy at Shoreham is that many members of the public have died as a consequence of an accident. Some of those people were probably disinterested in the air display, and were simply going about their daily activities. Had this display taken place at a venue overlooking the sea, then there could still have been a tragedy, and a pilot may have died, but the scale of the incident would probably have been greatly reduced. i'm not aware that there is existing legislation that has been infringed by this catastrophe, i doubt that such infringements could have occurred without experts in the field (yourself?) revealing that law breaking contributed. So, it is reasonably safe to conclude that existing legislation could be enhanced to include the demand for future air displays to be organised only over areas of open sea (or possibly large areas of unpopulated moorland?).

Such a reform wouldn't even involve too much inconvenience would it? Banning is out of the question for me (i agree with existentialist's main thrust above), but reform with public safety in mind seems essential.

BTW, as a sentient human being and forum member i'm qualified to remark on this matter. And i also know that there are those here who can apprise me of current regulations as and when necessary. Please don't hesitate to be helpful in this matter.

 

[Citizen66]

Yes, lots of boats - this is from the Bournemouth Air Show a couple of days ago. I've only been here a year, so I really enjoyed the show. I love the Red Arrows and the Volcans used to be based at an RAF station near to where I was brought up.



It's the biggest weekend of the year here, there's 7 miles of cliff and beach and all pretty packed with people.
View attachment 75770

The Typhoon is out of shit, sorry.

I caught that typo.

 

[Boudicca]

I caught that typo.