Red Arrows - Dartmouth Show Cancelled

[lakelandterrier]

For some unfathomable (to me) reason the CAA imposed new restrictions on the Red Arrows flight lines over Dartmouth so they were unable to perform their display today but they did grace the regatta with a flypast in each direction (waste of time & fuel really).
Other displays including vintage planes did perform including doing acrobatics over the river.
Maybe my logic is at at fault but I can't see any parallels between a vintage privately owned jet crashing off the flight line, and the performances from an RAF team at a very well established venue.
I can fully understand the ruling that vintage jets - or any vintage aircraft should only perform acrobatics over the sea after recent events - but restricting the Red Arrows so they can't perform at a regular site...bonkers.
Lots of disappointed people today who weren't aware the show had been cancelled .

[ShinyShoe]

I was under the impression (may be wrong) that the CAA didn't have any authority over the Red Arrows and that they worked to a different set of rules (which were actually tougher).

But presumably the issue lay in the magic words "Risk Assessment"... Did those other displays involve multiple aircraft flying at high speed in close proximity to each other?

[treerat]

Read this earlier today - but then saw that the Vulcan is making an appearance tomorrow

[Starovich]

Originally Posted by treerat

Read this earlier today - but then saw that the Vulcan is making an appearance tomorrow

That makes sense, stop highly trained fully funded planes with full time aircrew and no budget cap.
Allow a 50 year old plane funded by donations on the edge of its airframe life!

[willk]

Originally Posted by lakelandterrier

For some unfathomable (to me) reason the CAA imposed new restrictions on the Red Arrows flight lines over Dartmouth so they were unable to perform their display today

Can't imagine. Could it be because of all the dead people?

[willk]

Originally Posted by Starovich

That makes sense, stop highly trained fully funded planes with full time aircrew and no budget cap.
Allow a 50 year old plane funded by donations on the edge of its airframe life!

Can't imagine why! How dangerous is life as a Red Arrow? - BBC News

[ShinyShoe]

If you read the statement on the Red Arrows website - they weren't stopped from displaying, but the flying height was changed and the Red Arrows felt the display wouldn't work at the height and angle involved.

They have a pre-planned choreography and changing that in 2 days would have added its own risks.

Its very easy to say these things are over reactions. I was stood alongside 30,000 others who saw the GNAT fall out the sky at Oulton Park. The emotion in that audience was something I'd rather never experience again.

It was obviously well clear of the crowd - but I'm not sure it was 100% certain that it would come down in an area with no cars in it. Planes do seem to regularly crash at air shows, and it seems to me that anyone dying who didn't "sign up" for the risks is hard to justify in the name of entertainment.

[Poly]

Originally Posted by lakelandterrier

... the performances from an RAF team at a very well established venue.... - but restricting the Red Arrows so they can't perform at a regular site...bonkers.

How does the fact it is a regular site or established venue derisk the consequences of pilot or equipment failure? It's not like the red arrows and RAF have never had any accidents in their history.

[Crusher]

Not sure who pulled the plug (or why)
But I think this article puts a few things into a bit more perspective.......
http://www.theguardian.com/science/2...-crashed-on-it



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[Starovich]

Originally Posted by willk

Can't imagine why! How dangerous is life as a Red Arrow? - BBC News

Father in law is ex RAF display pilot, and has lost friends in display work.

My point (now moot as the weather was the factor) that a 50yr old plane at the end of its life funded by donations is more risky than newer planes with all the backup the RAF can muster.

[ShinyShoe]

Originally Posted by Crusher

Not sure who pulled the plug (or why)
But I think this article puts a few things into a bit more perspective.......
For drivers, the A27 is far more dangerous than any air show | Science | The Guardian

Although it very much depends on your perspective. They seem to be basically saying 11 deaths in 60 years so less than 2 deaths per year. Far more people die on the same road in a year so its the wrong perspectyive of risk. But risk needs to take into account:

• Did the activity NEED to happen
• Did the people involved make an informed decision about risk
• Can we do anything else to REASONABLY minimise the risks

Now I'd argue that the airshow didn't NEED to happen. That means we should be less accepting of risk. Not every other death on a road needed the journey to happen, but if you look at the roads when there is bad weather and the advice has been to only travel when absolutely necessary there would appear to be a lot of people who do feel they need to travel.

I've seen people elsewhere saying this isn't the first accident at an airshow so why is this SO different? Well in my opinion its different on two levels. Every time a pilot gets into a plane they know they may crash. They are, to some extent, in control of that. They make the choice if its worth the risks to them to do the flying. I might even accept that those who go to an airshow (a bit like those going to watch motorsports) accept that they've gone to watch a high risk activity and they must understand there is an inherent level of risk to them (although I think they would expect the risk to be minimised). But as a person in a crowd you can usually make some choices about where to stand and you may either consciously or sub-consciously do that to minimise your risk. The people at Shoreham didn't choose to be at the event. They could have been driving the safest car available, within the speed limit, having undertaken an advanced driving course and they still could do nothing to mitigate that risk.

There is probably a load of things that the council could do to make the A27 safer. That shouldn't cloud what else could be done to make airshows safer. There was no height restriction in place until this week. You couldn't perform over the crowd but you could perform very close to them at very low level. Its a bit like speed limits on roads. Lets face it most of us could safely get from A to B on a motorway at 90mph instead of 70mph... but if that increases the risk can it be justified as a new speed limit?

[willk]

Originally Posted by Starovich

My point (now moot as the weather was the factor) that a 50yr old plane at the end of its life funded by donations is more risky than newer planes with all the backup the RAF can muster.

I understood that the issue with the Vulcan was that the airframe was nearing EOL, so the donations were neither here nor there (I believe money was not an issue). If the Vulcan was not conducting operations that stressed the airframe then I'd have thought the risks were extremely small. Failure during aerobatics happens and I am always amazed that the Safety Elfs allowed shows over heavily populated areas.

An aside on old airframes: DC-3

[lakelandterrier]

But by that logic, no-one would ever do anything. There's as much chance of an aircraft on a routine or pleasure flight crashing and injuring people on the ground as a random chance, but we still have take off / landing approaches over major cities for example.

In my mind I can entirely see that there are greater risks of failure with an elderly airframe, and possibly greater risks with one maintained privately as opposed to the RAF, and I agree with the restrictions put in place about aerobatics on older planes.

Can't see that anything has changed in the Red Arrows ability to perform "safely" at Dartmouth from previous years, apart from some Regatta Committee clever-cloggs claiming in local press the only proper and "safe" place to watch the show from is Dartmouth with anyone watching from Kingswear itself or surrounding fields does so "at their own risk" (although he didn't mention "or the river"), presumably to drive more people into town to swell the regatta coffers. Well I think his plan has somewhat backfired, and might have signalled the end of this spectacular display that has pulled thousands of people to Dartmouth for many years

[Starovich]

Shinyshoe,
Kegworth 1989 Nothing to do with an Airshow.
Airbus A320 crash Habsheim airshow 1988, crashed in field(missed all roads)
New York Air Show 2015 Airshow Crash In field. (missed all roads)

With any air crash there is a chance it will be into a road/crowd, but the square footage of the "people" is small in comparison with the square mile or so of area the plane could crash in. 500 feet in most directions the A27 would have been missed. no one would knee jerk into reactions and we would not be having this discussion.

It was an accident, you could have a plane land on your house while at home today, as the passengers don't need to travel should we ban all flights just incase?

The rules on air shows are in place and quiet strict, sometimes sh1t just happens.

Here Wikipedia list is a list of crashes at airshows, note how most do not include deaths of people not in the plane, i think this indicates that airshows on the whole are safe enough.

[Poly]

Originally Posted by lakelandterrier

There's as much chance of an aircraft on a routine or pleasure flight crashing and injuring people on the ground as a random chance, but we still have take off / landing approaches over major cities for example.

You think there's as much chance of civilian aircraft crashing on routine flight during take off and landing, as a display aircraft crashing during a low-level manouvre? I believe you are wrong. I also suspect there is some planning into escape routes when planning airports / flight paths.

... and possibly greater risks with one maintained privately as opposed to the RAF,

RAF aircraft crash due to mechanical failure on routine operations and they have had mechanical issues on display aircraft too - I certainly wouldn't assume the RAF are infallible especially in times of budget cuts.

Can't see that anything has changed in the Red Arrows ability to perform "safely" at Dartmouth from previous years,

Are you using the fact there were no accidents in the past as a measure of safety? That could just be good fortune.

Originally Posted by Crusher

Not sure who pulled the plug (or why)
But I think this article puts a few things into a bit more perspective.......
For drivers, the A27 is far more dangerous than any air show | Science | The Guardian

Sadly the article is based on some fundamentally flawed statistical analysis. It makes a perfectly good point about the atrocious safety on our roads and our ability to perceive risk. However the A27 must be about 60+ miles long, and had traffic on it 24/7. Very short sections of it are overflown by aircraft for very short time windows. Comparing average risk of driving along a road and the risk of a plane crashing into that road during a specific event is misleading and moreover implying that because roads are dangerous anyway its OK to add to that risk is crazy.

Originally Posted by starovich

With any air crash there is a chance it will be into a road/crowd, but the square footage of the "people" is small in comparison with the square mile or so of area the plane could crash in. 500 feet in most directions the A27 would have been missed. no one would knee jerk into reactions and we would not be having this discussion.

I'm not a big fan of knee jerk reactions, although I suspect you might still be having a similar debate if it had avoided any deaths but the media felt that was just luck.

Here Wikipedia list is a list of crashes at airshows, note how most do not include deaths of people not in the plane, i think this indicates that airshows on the whole are safe enough.

Well probably the CAA are basing there decision on something more systematic than looking at Wikipedia, although may have been that kind of complacency was prevalent before the crash? I'm not saying airshows are fundamentally unsafe (and I don't think anyone else was) but you'd want to have good answers to these questions for the coroner if you didn't appear to have reviewed the rules and it happens again:

1. Do you know what caused the crash on the A27?
2. Do you know that such circumstances could never happen again? [Hint, if you don't yet know what caused it you can't]
3. Why do you restrict display aircraft from performing directly over the crowds they are entertaining?
4. Why then are they allowed to perform over other areas of population?

Increasing restrictions on Airshows might actually be good for most shows in the short term. Following this crash I am sure there will have been many risk averse families who decide its too dangerous (even though being in the crowd might be the safest place to be!) and so stay away - public awareness of tightened restriction probably reassures those people (perhaps falsely as the risks to the crowd remain the same!).

[Crusher]

What an interesting topic,
All in all this boils down to differing levels of risk acceptance, I agree with most of the comments above, and only posted the Guardian article as a point of view, not whole heartedly my own, just a different view.
Life itself incurs a level of risk. It is very easy to focus on a tragic event such as this, as it gets a lot of media attention. There are numerous tragic events happen to individuals who were as 'unlucky' to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, either due to another individuals poor choice(drunk, travelling too fast, on the phone, etc) or a 'unforeseeable' mechanical failure. These other individual events will often get little (or even no) media attention and don't result in rule changes overnight.
While I have no interest in, or ever been to an air show, this certainly feels like a knee jerk reaction to what was a tragic accident.


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[Starovich]

Poly, sorry i am not privy to the CAA investigation, my apologies for sourcing available data, and drawing conclusions based on data going back to 1911.

I am using data available to me, and presenting an opinion based on that data.

I could of course provide no data to support my opinion and just make wild claims with no evidence either way if you'd prefer, that seems to be the ribnet way after all

[Poly]

Originally Posted by Starovich

Poly, sorry i am not privy to the CAA investigation, my apologies for sourcing available data, and drawing conclusions based on data going back to 1911.

The CAA don't conduct the investigation the AAIB do. The point is NOBODY knows the outcome of that investigation. As a result the CAA have to assume that the circumstances that caused the plane to crash could happen again at any time to any other display aircraft.

When the CAA announced the tighter rules I believe they said they would remain in place until the crash investigation report was available. That seems a fairly logical step.

I am using data available to me, and presenting an opinion based on that data.

The person making the decision is the one who will have to stand in front of the coroner though not you! He's probably got information on what the rules are in all the other countries and so is better placed to interpret "your" data.

Originally Posted by Crusher

What an interesting topic,
All in all this boils down to differing levels of risk acceptance, I agree with most of the comments above, and only posted the Guardian article as a point of view, not whole heartedly my own, just a different view.
Life itself incurs a level of risk. It is very easy to focus on a tragic event such as this, as it gets a lot of media attention.

Indeed. There's a book you might enjoy http://www.amazon.co.uk/Risk-Science...ords=risk+book

While I have no interest in, or ever been to an air show, this certainly feels like a knee jerk reaction to what was a tragic accident.

I hate knee jerk policies because they are rarely properly thought out, however I can't really imagine them having come to any other conclusion. It is peak Airshow season and they would have looked totally ridiculous to come out on Monday and say "we are confident that the current rules are perfectly adequate to protect the public". The media would have had a field day - probably with massively exaggerated statistics / nonsense but it would have undermined the confidence in the CAA.

[Starovich]

Originally Posted by Poly

The CAA don't conduct the investigation the AAIB do. The point is NOBODY knows the outcome of that investigation. As a result the CAA have to assume that the circumstances that caused the plane to crash could happen again at any time to any other display aircraft.

The person making the decision is the one who will have to stand in front of the coroner though not you! He's probably got information on what the rules are in all the other countries and so is better placed to interpret "your" data.

TBH I don't care which three letter acronym do the investigation it makes no difference. i still am not privy to the findings.

Read once more, no where did i say the data was mine, I merely did some research and formed an opinion based on that.
No where did i say i had more/better data than the person making the decision, or that i was the font of all knowledge on the subject.

For those with short attention spans..

I am using data available to me, and presenting an opinion based on that data.

I could of course provide no data to support my opinion and just make wild claims with no evidence either way if you'd prefer, that seems to be the ribnet way after all

Its a shame you feel the need to nit pick, please disprove my theory and point of view with logical arguments based on fact, that's the beauty of debate.

[Pikey Dave]

Originally Posted by Starovich

Its a shame you feel the need to nit pick..................that's the beauty of debate.

At what point does one mans debate become another mans "nit pick"