Hunter crash

[tut]

Unbelievable how the pilot can still be alive.

Just watched an amateur video showing the whole of the loop and he did not eject, the A/C went up in a ball of flames, yet it would seem he was pulled from the wreckage.

tut

[David]

I think he almost made it - in a nose up attitude but in a high G stall. In the the dash cam image you can see the aircraft is essentially intact. I guess the cockpit slid clear of the fuel and flame.

[tut]

That looks like the pilot in the ejector seat on fire, but that would not make sense.

The photo of the A/C level before it probably stalled in would have been the ideal time to eject.

tut

[tenkfeet]

That is horrendous. Maybe the wing fuel tank is the object on fire.

Don't know what ejection seat was fitted but on older hunters the minimum ejection altitude could be as high as 400 ft or on later seat 125 ft. That figure is from a FAA document. Assumed they were all zero zero.

[robin]

I know we all like to speculate about these things and look at the pictures, but remember those people whose relatives are being incinerated in the photographs you've just put up here. Personally I could live without those photos being published anywhere.

[Dominic]

This one feels a bit too close to home for me - a lot of my family are from Shoreham and I am down there often - have stayed in the hotel at that junction quite a few times and use to take my Grandpa (former pilot) to the airfield for morning coffee. That road is always very busy, really sad accident. My thoughts are with those who have lost loved ones.

[Scotty C]

that last picture is pretty horrific, i wonder how many of this people survived.

RIP

[tut]

I started the thread without pictures for that reason, they are all over the news and Internet anyway, but as a pilot I was as usual trying to work out what was the likely cause. Normally in a situation like that, and I have seen quite a few of them, it was purely down to the pilot misjudging ground height and pulling up too late.

I was expecting to find out that the A/C had gone in at speed nose down, but the opposite was true, it was completely flat looking at the photo, and as it had external fuel tanks there is a very good chance that they were ripped apart by the trees and that caused the trail of flames before the crash.

There is speculation that there was an engine flameout but that would have made no difference anyway, it had the speed it needed in the dive which is why a glider can loop. There is a possibility of a hydraulic lock to the controls if the stick was pulled back out of limits, but pilot error speculation should be kept out of it until the findings are released.

tut

[David]

If mods don't like the pictures feel free to delete them - they're just links from public domain and the press.

There have been some knowledgeable comments that suggest, whatever happened, it was around the point it was vertical and the pitch rate seems to slow. I suspect, like most accidents, it was a chain of events that's best left to the AAIB to piece together.

[woody]

(snip) it was a chain of events that's best left to the AAIB to piece together.

My thoughts entirely.

[Daveb]

but as a pilot I was as usual trying to work out what was the likely cause.

No offense tut but you do create a thread for every plane or helicopter crash now and try to guess the cause.

[David]

It's only natural for those who have spent their careers flying have an interest in these events. Tut probably understands the pilot's perspective better than most and why, or what, they did is a valid topic for those with flying experience. That doesn't reduced the sympathy for those caught up in it, but self censorship, in fear of political correctness, does the forum no favors.

[woody]

It's by and large uninformed BS though.

[robin]

Don't get me wrong - I am more than happy for people to speculate on the causes of events like this, regardless of how well informed they may or may not be - but at a personal level I don't want to look at the moments where people died - it used to be the case that the television wouldn't show these things either - but these days they seem to be willing to broadcast the pictures and footage too.

IMHO it's not a matter for moderation.

Cheers,
Robin

[tut]

but as a pilot I was as usual trying to work out what was the likely cause.

No offense tut but you do create a thread for every plane or helicopter crash now and try to guess the cause.

Read back through my posts, it is not a question of guessing the cause, if I could be flying that type of AC the next day it is wanting to know or try to extrapolate the likeliest cause, before I even consider taking off in it, and you could be sitting in the back. If a helicopters rotors stop turning, lots of likely explanations will be bandied around, whereas I can go straight to the cause that the transmission gearbox has seized, which was the case both times. It is usually weeks or months before the AAIB come out with their conclusions, and with thirty years flying experience behind me I have a damned good idea of the likeliest cause, which unfortunately is normally pilot error.

If that is the case then I have no worries about flying the same type before the report is published. A similar occurrence happened in F1 this weekend, two tyres shredded at high speed for no known cause initially other than it was not driver error. Either could have ended in disaster. It is doubtful if the race would have gone ahead if they had not concluded that Rosberg's was none foreseeable and unlikely to happen again, and Vettel's was caused by leaving the car out beyond the safe life of the tyre.

tut