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On reflection, my reaction to the news reporting was probably due to the emphasis on the cognitive stuff, which does leave a bad taste if it is, as it appears, evidence-free, and you suspect it was just thrown in to muddy the legal waters a little more.
Agree. Two words coming out of the mouth of the defence and reported by the media mean nothing.
He “was “ a BA pilot, no longer.
Having flown aerobatic displays in the past, the fault of flying that manoeuvre over the road lies with the Airshow Management, not the pilot. He flew the loop in the correct place, just made a mistake.
Whether or not we think flying old warbirds at Airshows is too risky, this accident has been coming for years. He was as experienced an ex-RAF and display pilot as there was. He made an error that cost 11 lives, unbelievably he survived.
As a professional pilot myself I’m very uncomfortable with the concept of an error meaning Manslaughter. Any aircraft crash results in a high energy fireball contacting the ground. Whether people are hit is the lap of the gods. Every airport in the world is surrounded by roads, so any crash is likely to kill innocent bystanders.
He, in theory at least, is now free to fly again
I imagine cognitive impairment would be an issue for retention of an aviation Class 1 medical. A concussion will see you banned from flying for six months.
I wouldn’t want to judge the outcome as the evidence presented will be far more detailed than the outrage-inducing headlines. Beyond reasonable doubt is a high hurdle.
Two words coming out of the mouth of the defence and reported by the media mean nothing.
A news report early said the jury found effects G Forces were to blame.
A news report early said the jury found effects G Forces were to blame.
LOL.
AAIB say:
"The g experienced by the pilot during the manoeuvre was probably not a
factor in the accident"
the jury found effects G Forces were to blame
when I was on a jury we weren't asked why or how we'd reached a verdict, just what it was.
when I was on a jury we weren’t asked why or how we’d reached a verdict, just what it was.
I have a vague memory it is actually illegal for a jury to explain their decisions. (Quite rightly otherwise we'd all know when they'd got it wrong which would undermine confidence in the system.)
when I was on a jury we weren’t asked why or how we’d reached a verdict, just what it was.
I guess you weren't at the same trial.
As a professional pilot myself I’m very uncomfortable with the concept of an error meaning Manslaughter. Any aircraft crash results in a high energy fireball contacting the ground. Whether people are hit is the lap of the gods. Every airport in the world is surrounded by roads, so any crash is likely to kill innocent bystanders.
Do we need a "death by careless aviation" offence?
but I’m not a legal expert or privy too what the jury heard.
I think that probably captures it.
As a professional pilot myself I’m very uncomfortable with the concept of an error meaning Manslaughter.
Hence this trial to establish if the error in this case met the legal criteria for 'gross negligence'. The jury decided it didn't.
DOes the phrase cognitive impairment refer not just to the pilots mental awareness/state, but also the fact that some of the instruments were not functioning correctly thereby the information he was receiving and acting on was not completely accurate?
The court case just concluded he was not negligent. IT WAs a tragic accident and as is the case with almost all accidents it’s not the result of one error or cause in isolation, but the stack up of several all concurring at crucial times. In these cases it’s hard to apportion 100% of the blame onto the pilot if they are following procedure to the best of their ability and information presented to them at the time.
This is where the phrase ‘pilot eror’ A bit misleading. Almost all air accidents these days are down to ‘pilot error’, but that doesn’t always mean the pilots are negligent, it just means the system, which includes the pilot, is flawed and has enabled a situation where the pilot can make poor decisions under a very rare and specific set of circumstances. The point is to understand those set of circumstances in Ann unprejudiced way and put in place measures to make that situation impossible to repeat. It is the secret to aviations astonishing safety record and a continual and uninterrupted drive towards improving safety.
'Do we need a “death by careless aviation” offence?'
No. No more than we need an offence of death by careless surgery, death by careless sex, death by careless drinking, death by careless sneezing, death by careless youth activity leading, death by carelessly upsetting someone etc.
It serves no useful purpose other than satisfying a desire for revenge and inhibits positive activity.
It serves no useful purpose other than satisfying a desire for revenge and inhibits positive activity.
NOOOO! Someone has to be hung out to dry! It's the way we rock nowadays.
Didn't you see 'Sully'?
... but also the fact that some of the instruments were not functioning correctly thereby the information he was receiving and acting on was not completely accurate?
I think there may have been two altimetres , and a discrepancy between them, but the discrepancy was not (I think) thousands of feet - I don't think that at any point his instruments were telling him he was at a safe height for the planned manoveure.
you can be cognatively impaired just flying this way when you have no previous history of this, then surely this could happen to any pilot and therefore the risk is too great to the public.
Or he could just be full of shit.
Cognitively likely impaired means he blacked out during the manoeuvre due to G loading. Not that he was pissed or suffered temporary mental retardation.
Experienced combat pilots still get caught out by it.
G force has been discounted by the AAIB report, hasn't it? Certainly his Go Pro reportedly shows him active throughout.
This is where the phrase ‘pilot eror’ A bit misleading. Almost all air accidents these days are down to ‘pilot error’, but that doesn’t always mean the pilots are negligent, it just means the system, which includes the pilot, is flawed and has enabled a situation where the pilot can make poor decisions under a very rare and specific set of circumstances. T
+1
Also the reason why pharmaceutical safety procedures and investigations share a lot in common with aviation, we know that humans make basic mistakes all the time. We rarely try to blame the human, instead the root cause is usually training, overly complicated procedures and systems etc and the resultant corrective and preventative actions are designed to reduce that human error through better operating procedures and equipment.
People make deadly mistakes, it's inevitable. The reason why we have to use criminal courts and send people down to deal with it in daily driving is that we as society can't be ****ing arsed to deal with the root causes of road deaths.
G force has been discounted by the AAIB report, hasn’t it? Certainly his Go Pro reportedly shows him active throughout.
That was perhaps the prosecutions line, that the media ran with because they smelled blood - but the go-pro was from behind the ejection seat.
There has been plenty of good evidence given in his defence it seems.
But there were no "slumped in the seat" moments - I dunno, it seems to me that he just started way too low. If that was an instrument error, fair enough - doesn't seem like it though.
I think there may have been two altimetres , and a discrepancy between them, but the discrepancy was not (I think) thousands of feet – I don’t think that at any point his instruments were telling him he was at a safe height for the planned manoveure.
True, IIRC the over reading altimeter was only 100ft out, but we're only talking about "reasonable doubt" here and there were other factors mentioned above. (However, looking at the photo of the aircraft a fraction of a second before impact I wouldn't be at all surprised if that extra 100ft would have saved the day. I assume if he'd cleared the M27 by 14ft it would still have ended his Airshow career.)
G force has been discounted by the AAIB report, hasn’t it?
Pretty much. AAIB say:
“The g experienced by the pilot during the manoeuvre was probably not a
factor in the accident”
Civil suit is inevitable. Only imo, shouldn't have been performing that manoeuvre over a populated area.
If there is to be any legacy from this incident it's that airshows should be over the water.
Entirely avoidable incident.
Pilot may have been found not guilty but essentially he's responsible for killing all of those men.
A terrible cross to bear.
Civil suit is inevitable.
A few posts back says perhaps not:
From the civil claim point of view it’s probably already been settled. Whether they could go to a private prosecution I doubt (public interest?)
Anyway from Ashford Law:
In the UK, where a person on the
ground is injured or killed by an aircraft
crash or debris from an aircraft,
section 76 (2) of the Civil Aviation Act
1982 imposes strict liability on the
owner of the aircraft. This means that
damages for losses and injuries are
recoverable from the owner without
having to prove negligence.
A very stark example of such a case
is the Shoreham Airshow crash in
England in 2015, where a flying display
aircraft crashed onto a road, killing 11
on the ground and injuring a number
of others (see the Shoreham case on
the Ashfords aviation webpages).
Does it expand on "probably"?
But there were no “slumped in the seat” moments – I dunno, it seems to me that he just started way too low. If that was an instrument error, fair enough – doesn’t seem like it though
You don't always just slump over.
Another possibility is that he was suffering from hypoxia I guess? Did AAIB rule that out? This happens more than you might think in fighter aircraft, especially those with defective systems, at low altitude under high G manouvers. The US air force had to limit not only the ceiling height but also arobatics of the F-22 until they resolved issues with its oxygen system.
Entirely avoidable incident.
The vast majority of incidents are - you look at most car "accidents" and no-one is held to account even 1/10th as much as something like the aviation industry or public transport bodies.
As mentioned above, most air accidents are not one error; they're a cumulation of often small errors, malfunctions, misinterpretations etc combined with flawed training or maintainance, sometimes coupled with external factors like weather which give rise to a vanishingly rare set of circumstances from which a crash is ineveitable.
In this instance it's a combination of misreading instruments, a below par-engine giving lower power than indicated, an expectation (perhaps forgetfulness based on the number of different types of aircraft that he's flown) that the speed and altitude were sufficient (which they would have been had he been in the smaller Jet Provost which he was more used to) and a very unfortunate set of circumstances over the exact location of the manoeuvre and the layout of the roads below him.
It is just a tragic accident - lessons will be learnt (far more robustly than in the case of car accidents), regulations have already been updated regarding use of private ex-military jets (now restricted to flypasts only, no aerobatics), location of airshows and so on.
The vast majority of incidents are – you look at most car “accidents” and no-one is held to account even 1/10th as much as something like the aviation industry or public transport bodies.
I can't recall a car crash where 11 people were killed and the driver walked away with not so much as a slap on the wrist. He's basically walked away from this without so much as a black mark against his name.
You don’t always just slump over.
Another possibility is that he was suffering from hypoxia, to a greater or lesser degree. This happens more than you might think in fighter aircraft, especially those with defective systems, at low altitude under high G manouvers. The US air force had to limit the arobatics of the F-22 until they resolved issues with its oxygen system.
I'm pretty sure the AAIB would have considered that if it was feasible.
I can’t recall a car crash where 11 people were killed and the driver walked away with not so much as a slap on the wrist.
Can you think of some car crashes which lead to a prosecution for Manslaughter by Gross Negligence? If there was a "death by careless flying" offence they might (or might not) have got a conviction but there isn't.
I can’t recall a car crash where 11 people were killed and the driver walked away with not so much as a slap on the wrist.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-kent-23970047
OK, no-one died in that but ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY cars wrecked - all becasue of shit driving in poor conditions, all because of human error - and not one person was ever charged with any offence over it. No changes in law or in driving standards training. No restrictions on any type of vehicle. In fact, no real investigation - certainly not to the standards of the AAIB.
There was this one as well:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-25316055
Again, no motorists were ever charged with any offence, instead it was going afer the organiser of a local fireworks display (who was cleared of any H&S breaches).
If there was a “death by careless flying” offence they might have got a conviction but there isn’t.
But it wasn't careless flying - it was a host of cumulative factors, possibly / probably involving some carelessness at some part of it. You prosecute on the offence, not the outcome. It's just that in this case the outcome was far worse than if he'd come down harmlessly in the sea or a ploughed field. The offence (let's say for a moment that it was careless flying) would be the same but the outcome would be very different.
It’s just that in this case the outcome was far worse than if he’d come down harmlessly in the sea or a ploughed field.
There's the rub.
Over the sea the pilot is the one who pays the price for miscalculation not some blokes making their way to football training/cycling along a road, driving to see their families.
The pilot didn’t just decide to fly his Manouvre over the road. It as planned by the Airshow Authorities to be flown in that location.
I guess you weren’t at the same trial.
Drac, surely you know that no UK jury is ever asked, nor are they permitted to voluntarily explain to the press the logic/decision making process that lead them to reach a verdict.
Where the press say “the jury concluded” they really mean “we presume the jury concluded”. I didn’t hear the judges charge but it may even be that the judge made clear the factors the jury should consider. But you will never know exactly why those 11 jurors came to that conclusion.
I can’t recall a car crash where 11 people were killed and the driver walked away with not so much as a slap on the wrist. He’s basically walked away from this without so much as a black mark against his name..
realistically 99% of accidents of that severity would not result in the driver walking away - it was only a freek set of circumstances that meant the pilot survived and so could face prosecution.
However here is one with 6 dead, 15 injured, the driver survived and no prosecution for the events that day: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Glasgow_bin_lorry_crash
Some interesting coverage on the beeb about him as a pilot - "the prof".
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-sussex-47004138
I'm drawn to comparisons between this case and Colin McRae's - at the time, every opinion seemed to say "not Colin, he was just too good" and the fault must have lain with his helicopter. The AAIB report wasn't conclusive but basically said the best info they had was that he stacked it while showing off, killing all the occupants. Oh, and his licence wasn't up to date and various other things.
I can't help but think that Hill basically ****ed up, and in the same way that if I nipped out in the car and ****ed up a turn knocking down a bus queue of nuns and orphans, then I should face the consequences of the law. That may mean 6pts and a £500 fine or it may mean imprisonment. In this case, there isn't an option other than to try for manslaughter and that seems... poor.
This. The recovered footage from McRaes helicopter shows he was taking unecessary risks with devastating consequences..
The pilot at Shoreham was doing the same.
I really don't see the issue with airshows being held at coastal areas.
The difference is that McRae was a normal civilian pilot, so shouldn’t have been taking risks. The Shoreham pilot was flying an aerobatic display, was trained and experienced to do so, so there is an inherent risks associated with that which the pilot was aware of and should have been mitigated as much as possible. So no real comparison with McRae situation at all. McRae was an inexperienced (relatively) amateur pilot with a fraction of the skills and experience of the Shoreham pilot. Like equating popping sown to the shops on your ford fiesta to Walter rhorl ripping a group b Audi Quattro rally car through a parting crowd of people. Completely different circumstances in terms of the skills and experiences of the pilots and scenarios.
I’m pretty sure the AAIB would have considered that if it was feasible.
And it could well be a possibility.
But good luck proving or disproving that in a 1950s analogue fighter jet, with no black box and **** all in the way of electronic sensors. It seems the AAIB couldn't even definitively rule out G-Lock.
The US airforce has spent years chasing it's tail over issues with the T-6, F22 and F35. Those are state of the art, with every systems sensor you could possibly think of and they still didn't know what the hell was wrong with them.
My point being - proving this case beyond reasonable doubt was always going to really really hard.
People talk about this pilot taking risks as if he did it on purpose like Colin McCrash did. We don't know that, even if he was totally with it in a subsonic fighter jet - if you think a 10 second quarter of a mile is fast in a car? Then you should try 7 seconds in a fighter and you are a mile down the road. You have next to no time to think between a series of manoeuvres you have lined up and simple, small errors lead to huge consequences because of the amount of distance you are covering so quickly.
Personally, I am will to give him the benefit of the doubt and apportion blame to the CAA who should have seen this coming and adjusted display routines years ago.
The reason why we have to use criminal courts and send people down to deal with it in daily driving is that we as society can’t be **** arsed to deal with the root causes of road deaths.
No, it's because the standard of driving of even the average person if equated to a professional activity would probably get you in trouble.
Imagine if your doctor did the equivelent of going through an Amber light despite there being a traffic jam and blocking a junction.
Or pilots routinely flew at 10%+3mph above the safe speed for their plane, because despite knowing it was unsafe but it wouldn't trigger a prosecution.
I used to work in HSE and as someone said it's very rare to blame a person directly, it's always an overly complicated task or their tirednesss that get the blame. I.e. "it could have happened to anyone". Car driving on the other hand, it seems like a majority or drivers just willfully act like dicks. Car crashes have very different causes to other incidents.
All this baying for a persecution. Do people really think this guy set off thinking today I’m going to **** this one up, and try and crash on a road, create a big fireball and kill 11 people !?!
Sounds like a combination of errors, air show in wrong place, aircraft not in great condition, pilot error.
Let’s hope lessons are leanrned and things move on
All this baying for a persecution. Do people really think this guy set off thinking today I’m going to **** this one up, and try and crash on a road, create a big fireball and kill 11 people !?!
Did th prosecuting authority think there's a reasonable chance of a conviction for manslaughter which requires different parameters to those you've used, yes. Did the case get thrown out at half time, no. So obviously there was a case of suspected manslaughter to answer to.
Do people really think this guy set off thinking today I’m going to **** this one up, and try and crash on a road, create a big fireball and kill 11 people !?!
No I don't think it was planned at all but 11 people were killed when he created a great big fireball.
And, he alone had control of a plane and chose to commit to aerobatics over the land and ultimately failed to control the vehicle he was piloting.
Did he “plan” to kill people ? No. I don’t think he did. Did he make massive errors of judgment? Undoubtedly. Did those massive errors of judgement lead to the deaths of 11 people ? Yes, no single doubt about that. Should a criminal case have been brought against him ? Absolutely. Should a civil case be brought against him ? Absolutely. Does the law look an arse in a situation where 11 people died at the hands of one person? Unilateral Yes.
One thing this modern society misses is the lack of responsibility, taking ownership of ones actions.
when I was on a jury we weren’t asked why or how we’d reached a verdict, just what it was.
I believe you’d be found in contempt for revealing any of the reasoning behind a decision. I’m not a fan of this, personally - life changing decisions that affect another person should come with the courtesy of an justification.
Any pilots care to give an opinion ?
There are 3 pilots at my club, none would comment when asked..
Did he “plan” to kill people ? No. I don’t think he did. Did he make massive errors of judgment? Undoubtedly. Did those massive errors of judgement lead to the deaths of 11 people ? Yes, no single doubt about that. Should a criminal case have been brought against him ? Absolutely. Should a civil case be brought against him ? Absolutely. Does the law look an arse in a situation where 11 people died at the hands of one person? Unilateral Yes.
You have literally not read ANY of the previous 88 posts have you?
Any pilots care to give an opinion ?
There's at least one professional commercial airline pilot on this thread. Which you'd know if you read it...