I should think all the locals know by now. A Hawker Hunter crashed into the A27 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-sussex-34029764) near the Sussex Pad right on top of a busy intersection. The plane was doing a loop at the Shoreham Air Show and it seems he misjudged his height or possibly an engine issue. 7 dead and 14 injured, 2 seriously including the pilot. So far...
It's seems more scary when it's an intersection I regularly drive through on the way to the supermarket.
As an update to this.......I was there :(
The pilot has actually survived the crash and is currently fighting for his life in the Royal Sussex County Hospital
Unfortunately people I know have lost friends in the accident, as such currently I'm not sure I will post any of the pictures I took (on the ground) from the show.
Edit: current toll is now 11, and is likely to get worse by the sounds of it
Sad times :(
I haven't watched the videos Snowy posted, out of respect.
Yes I wouldn't bother posting any pics DD, not really something we need to see right now or ever.
The pictures were only of aircraft at the show Data, not of the crash but right now I'm not sure I even want to post those.
It was a nice touch that the Vulcan did a slow fly-past after the incident, at the time no-one knew the severity but it brought out the emotion of what had happened.
Well we don't need to see any shots or vids of the carnage that occurred, I don't believe that it would be inappropriate to see nice images of what occurred during the course of the day so unless you have a compelling reason to not do so, I encourage you to post some of the nicer images to help counterpoint the tragedy, at least to some small degree. Of course, I could be wrong in this but that's just my opinion. My thoughts are with those who have suffered loss or injury during this airshow. :(
I did only post the shots of the crash. Phones being so prevalent, there are other vids on the ground directly after.
All rather nasty. I would love to see any pics of the air show. In a different thread of course. Data, if you feel these vids are inappropriate, feel free to delete links.
OK guys I'll load up the pictures at some point and start a new thread with them.
There aren't that many to be honest, I didn't really feel like taking a lot under the circumstances
No, I would imagine that there wouldn't be. An incident of that sort would generally tend to kind of close the air show right then and there. So sad :(
Terrible thing to happen.
I've probably seen that same Hunter flying more than once.
Looks like he was doing the manoeuvre but didn't see he was so low, he looked like he was flattening out.
I once saw a plane crash at Duxford when I was an air cadet. Nowhere near as bad as this - the pilot heroically flew the plane into a field just 100m from the main road. It was the end of the day and it was sad to see. The pilot survived as far as I know, could have been a lot worse, like this.
It's looking more like engine trouble. You see the plane wiggle when he's too low, looks like he was aiming at the field where he ended up.
We shall see in the weeks to come.
Actually Dave, the accident was right at one of two entrances to the airfield, the accident was at 1:20pm and we only managed to leave the airfield 8 hours later.
A lot of people have said about the height Freddy, but the pilot was performing at exactly the same height last year, and the Avon engine should have power to spare to pull up from the height he was at. You can see in the last moments the nose pitch up as the pilot desperately ties to generate some lift, presumably to try and get back onto the airfield on the other side of the road.
Yeah I agree, normally the Hunter should be very manoeuvrable. We did have the Black Arrows after all.... would be pretty regular stuff for them.
I dare not speculate but it might have been something like a bird strike ?
Dunno but I see in the news they are already talking about tightening up on vintage jets at shows.
Yup, vintage jets not allowed to perform high energy aerobatics over land as a temporary measure. Flypasts only until decisions are made on the back of this tragic accident.
I suspect that the Shoreham Airshow in it's current format may well not happen again. :(