At least three killed in Reno P51 crash.

Manic Moran

http://www.rgj.com/article/20110916/EVENTS05/110916036/Update-Three-confirmed-dead-air-races-crash-blood-donations-sought?odyssey=mod|breaking|text|FRONTPAGE

From videos, the aircraft augered straight in. There wouldn't be any parts left to identify if it landed on anyone.

NTM

overhead

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSrsV9QC65s


Scary Stuff

foxtrot hotel

Christ ! That was some way to end 80 years of life!
I hope everyone in the stand make a full recovery. Im hearing 75 people?

AfterDusk

That 2nd picture in the OPs link is frightening! Made me feel sick

280special

Awful scenes and an awful tragedy.

If you look at #35 of the series of photos you will notice that a trimtab is missing, on a tread over on the flypast forum there is another photo which appears to show it detaching.

whatever the cause, my thoughts are with those who are injured, those who have died and their families.

Cormic

Just saw some of the pictures from the links. Terrible accident.

RIP those who were killed and I wish the injured a speedy recovery.

BrianD

The death toll is now 9 plus over 50 injured.

The safety standards at American events (in general) seems to be appalling. I know it's difficult to predict what will happen if a plane goes out of control but there has been safety concerns raised about this race before. Seems to be money over safety.

Manic Moran

BrianD wrote: »

The death toll is now 9 plus over 50 injured.

The safety standards at American events (in general) seems to be appalling. I know it's difficult to predict what will happen if a plane goes out of control but there has been safety concerns raised about this race before. Seems to be money over safety.

In the, what, sixty years plus that the event has been running, this is the first time that someone other than a pilot has been killed. I believe the events death toll now is fifteen pilots, eight others. Just across the water from Ireland, the toll of the Isle of Man TT race over a similar time period is about 185 competitors and 8 others. 83 spectators (and a driver) were killed in a single race at Le Mans, and that's still going strong. I don't think Reno's record is particularly bad.

Pilots and aircraft both have to go through specific FAA certification in order to compete. There's nothing unusually dangerous about the Reno air races compared to other motor sports.

NTM

BrianD

Manic Moran wrote: »

In the, what, sixty years plus that the event has been running, this is the first time that someone other than a pilot has been killed. I believe the events death toll now is fifteen pilots, eight others. Just across the water from Ireland, the toll of the Isle of Man TT race over a similar time period is about 185 competitors and 8 others. 83 spectators (and a driver) were killed in a single race at Le Mans, and that's still going strong. I don't think Reno's record is particularly bad.

Pilots and aircraft both have to go through specific FAA certification in order to compete. There's nothing unusually dangerous about the Reno air races compared to other motor sports.

NTM

Completely agree with you regarding the risk element and this should be borne by the competitors not the spectators.

Even so, look at F1 racing, for example, not a single driver death since Senna because safety became a priority.

The TT races are an endangered species over safety.

Google Reno AIr Races and nearly every article refers to "safety concerns". What these are nobody seems to specify.

Manic Moran

BrianD wrote: »

Google Reno AIr Races and nearly every article refers to "safety concerns". What these are nobody seems to specify.

Which makes one wonder... How many of those concerned people have concerns because they actually know something about the subject matter and have issues in mind, and how many have concerns because, damnit, isn't it obvious that racing airplanes is incredibly dangerous, serves no purpose, and shouldn't happen?

People around here (Bay Area) had safety concerns a few years back when a single light aircraft crashed when landing at a local airfield (Concord). It hit a shopping mall which had been built near to the field. The safety solution? Clamours to shut down the airfield.

I'm running through a similar problem now. I'm running a driving course at my local tank museum for the staff. The practical reason is so that the volunteers (not tankers) don't break the tanks (I spend a lot of time on maintainance). The official reason is to keep people happy because, damnit, isn't it obvious that tanks are incredibly dangerous things and you must have an approved training course of so many hours before you can drive one without killing someone? In reality, nothing is further than the truth, the things are designed to be so simple to drive that an illiterate communist peasant plucked from the ukrainian potato fields can be given one to drive it in battle. But try convincing the public or the insurance companies of that. I can come up with numerous examples. My favorite is the complaint about the safety records of the local commuter railways (Caltrain and Amtrak). People keep getting run over by trains around here, it seems to be a monthly event at the least. The trains are fine. It's the idiots who use railways as jogging tracks, hiking trails, or even short cuts without as much as checking to see if a five hundred ton, four meter high thing with a massive exhaust and lots of lights might just happen to be coming along which are the problem. That's not a the railway having a safety problem, no matter what the local CBS affiliate has on its website as the story, it's just normal attrition.

American events usually don't have safety problems. Americans have a 'perception of what is practical safety' problem.

Sortof sorry for the rant, the subject has hit a bit of a nerve.

NTM

Tenger

Manic Moran wrote: »

Which makes one wonder... How many of those concerned people have concerns because they actually know something about the subject matter and have issues in mind, and how many have concerns because, damnit, isn't it obvious that racing airplanes is incredibly dangerous, serves no purpose, and shouldn't happen?.......


.......American events usually don't have safety problems. Americans have a 'perception of what is practical safety' problem.

I agree. Airshows of any type have an element of danger as the aircraft are being pushed to their limits. That is why we see crashes at airshows year in, year out.

I wonder, if the incident had of occurred approx 3-5 seconds later we may have only seen 'aircraft crash at Reno, pilot dead'. It is a tragedy but it seems very unfortunate that it occurred just as the aircraft was pointed towards the crowd.

xflyer

Airshows of any type have an element of danger as the aircraft are being pushed to their limits.

Disagree in relation to airshows. Aircraft are not pushed to the limit at airshows. That lesson was learnt back in the fifties when John Derry's DH110 disintegrated over Farnborough, although ironically it wasn't been pushed to the limit on that run.

Airshows are carefully choreographed affairs these days. The days of pilots pushing their aircraft to the limit and beyond are long gone. So to the days of supersonic passes by jet fighters. As a result most airshow accidents only result in the pilot paying the price. There were a couple of Luftwaffe Tornados at one of the Baldonnel airshow some years ago. They put on a good display on the day. But I was there as they left to go home. With no crowd, they let rip in a big way. I think every house and car alarm in a three mile radius went off from the noise of the their final low pass. It was subsonic......but only just. That would never happen on the day.

I saw the one and only fatal accident at an Irish airshow. That happened at Fairyhouse racecourse in an airshow that would never go ahead today because it was too close to the crowd. Having said that the crash was never dangerous to the crowd although it nearly took out a bunch of skydivers.

Reno on the other hand is an air race and the aircraft ARE pushed to the limit. Any form of motorised racing is dangerous. Go to Mondello park and signs will be everywhere advising you of that fact. There is quite a difference. I do suspect that one of the main thrusts of the investigation will be to understand why the crippled aircraft ever ended up hitting spectators.

It's a cliche to say it but the biggest danger is the drive home after the airshow.

Nforce

Another eye-witness video on this link... http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/bestoftv/2011/09/20/ac-reno-brent-wilson.cnn?&hpt=hp_c2

nag

Absolutely frightening.

Nforce

nag wrote: »

Absolutely frightening.

Yep...as is the following eye-witness account

http://ignomini.com/reno.html

Turbulent Bill

xflyer wrote: »

Reno on the other hand is an air race and the aircraft ARE pushed to the limit. Any form of motorised racing is dangerous. Go to Mondello park and signs will be everywhere advising you of that fact. There is quite a difference. I do suspect that one of the main thrusts of the investigation will be to understand why the crippled aircraft ever ended up hitting spectators.

It's a cliche to say it but the biggest danger is the drive home after the airshow.

I think this is the central point. Racing always carrys a risk, but the assumption is that the risk is on the competitors rather than the spectators.

It looks like Reno was just bad luck - a mechanical failure at a moment when it could affect crowd safety. I'd still be interested though in how preventable the crowd deaths / injuries were.

Nforce

It appears as though the number of dead and injured was purely down to fate after the trim tab failed on the Mustang at 500mph+. Some reports say that at the moment of the tab failing the aircraft went into a 22G climb that incapacitated the pilot (likely causing him to double up with his helmet wedged against or possibly even under the panel as per a previous incident involving another Mustang flown by Bob Hannah) . When the aircraft rolled inverted and dived in it could have just as easily went full tilt into the viewing stands. They couldn't really plan for that eventuality.

Stovepipe

Like MM and others have said, it's a risky sport yet thousands turn out to see it. This wasn't an airshow in the conventional sense, either, so considerations about which way the aircraft operate in relation to the crowdline is different. I'd equate it to an aerial Nascar or F1 event.
Personally, I'd rather the Mustangs be kept stock but that's me. You couldn't predict a trim tab failure in a thousand years, either.

regards
Stovepipe