FAA and The Reno Crash

[Bill Greenwood]

You can love a sport or avocation or hobby and still know it is dangerous. I really loved playing football, despite an injury. I really loved ski racing, yet virtually every ski racer has had a knee injury, many have had a broken bone. I'd never tell anyone you can go down a steep hill on icy snow at 70 mph and be perfectly safe. Yet I only know of 3 fatalities in ski racing, whereas in planes I know of dozens if not hundreds. The vital area of airshows and Reno, just like Nascar is crowd safety, We can do whatever we want to ourselves, but not to the public. I watched the jet raceat Reno and speeds are near 500 mph and coming toward the pits with wide turns at the corners. If there was a midair, or stall, loss of control the wreckage could go into the crowd.

[jlittle2]

I know this only touches the fringe of the topic, but I have wondered for many years why the crowd is on the "outside" of the race course as opposed to the interior of the course. Since a majority of air/ground fatalities have come not from the fact of the aircafts failure but the "developed energy" that an aircraft has produced and its continued flight path beyond the "incident" point, would it seem fair to say that the crowd would be considerably safer within the pylons ?

Am I being much too simplistic about this thinking ?

[RyanShort1]

I have wondered for many years why the crowd is on the "outside" of the race course as opposed to the interior of the course. Since a majority of air/ground fatalities have come not from the fact of the aircafts failure but the "developed energy" that an aircraft has produced and its continued flight path beyond the "incident" point, would it seem fair to say that the crowd would be considerably safer within the pylons ?

Am I being much too simplistic about this thinking ?

Way to think outside, er, inside the box! Ya know, that kind of makes sense - to me anyway.
But then again, I think the response would be something along the lines of - how many spectators have died at Reno at this point. I think if I remember correctly that there have been either some injuries, near misses of photographers or folks near pylons.
On the other hand - if a set of controls got stuck - say in a left hand turn - which would be TOWARDS the center, then I think that could be an issue. If all of the turns are to the left, and the crowd is outside the course, then only one turn should be towards the crowd, and if it's far enough away, there is probably less danger.

Ryan

[jlittle2]

I have wondered for many years why the crowd is on the "outside" of the race course as opposed to the interior of the course. Since a majority of air/ground fatalities have come not from the fact of the aircafts failure but the "developed energy" that an aircraft has produced and its continued flight path beyond the "incident" point, would it seem fair to say that the crowd would be considerably safer within the pylons ?

Am I being much too simplistic about this thinking ?

On the other hand - if a set of controls got stuck - say in a left hand turn - which would be TOWARDS the center, then I think that could be an issue. If all of the turns are to the left, and the crowd is outside the course, then only one turn should be towards the crowd, and if it's far enough away, there is probably less danger.

Ryan

That makes as much sense as my thoughts. And I should have qualified the fact that I was talking about not Reno based crowd incursions, but what occures even at many parallel line airshows. Potential energy seems to be the key word, when discussing death and injuries resulting from an aircraft involved incident.

[JDK]

Thanks, jlittle2. Energy management as a safety factor is something mostly misunderstood when regarding airshows (races are, again, subject to specific different factors also.) For instance aircraft flying over the crowd don't worry me, but when their energy is directed towards the crowd, there's a greater risk, and that flight direction is sometimes unavoidable; therefore removing other risk factors is desirable there - for instance not having jet crossovers arrowing towards the crowd.

This is exactly the kind of attitudes I'm trying to find data to address - as we all should - thanks for raising it Muddy.

It's all about perception, and a big engine with a buzz saw attached to it is going to get lots more attention (no matter how true) than a car. Everybody drives cars. They aren't scary, unless a teenager (or maybe Eric) is behind the wheel. We're used to cars. But you don't see a thousand airplanes zipping around all day with very few accidents. However, it seems like almost every time you see an airplane in the news or on TV...it's spiraling into the ground with a bunch of nuns tied to the wings, and there's a busload of challenged children singing "jesus loves me" in its trajectory. I mean, it's all about perspective and perseption, you know?

The last big loss of spectator life at a car race (IIRC) was LeMans in '55(?) when the engine of a car that had just wrecked went thru the crowd at head height with fairly predictable results. Something like 80 deaths & in the video I saw there's a rather gruesome sound not unlike someone smashing cabbages with a large mallet..
Mass fatalities have been more recent at airshows (Rammstein etc)

The last injuries to a spectator at a UK air show was the DH110 accident with John Derry in 1952 - 1952! I know 'no accident' is no news, but that's an enviable safety record, and one that can be matched by taking the same precautions as the UK requirements.

Ramstein also wasn't recent - 1988. Subsequent airshow accidents where the public have been injured have, AFAIK, occurred in countries with a limited airshow array and experience, including on the continent. (EDIT: Ukrane, 81+ killed in 2002, Germany; 1 killed, 2008 - given their relatively low number of air events, it's interesting that having more airshows is therefore literally safer than having a few...)

From the Ramstein and Derry accident, the lessons can (and have, in most places) be learned and minimise the chance to near-zero of them happening again. The airshow environment has also changed utterly since 1952 and 1988 as well - just take a look at the safety features in cars of those eras compared to today as a rough example. I don't know what the US safety record is like, again, the cardinal rule of not killing the public seems to have been held.

Just looking at the info on that 1955 Le Mans crash. The reaction is interesting.

After the race, an official inquiry into the accident ruled that Jaguar was not responsible for the crash, and that it was merely a racing incident. The death of the spectators was blamed on inadequate safety standards for track design, leading to a ban on motorsports in France, Switzerland, Germany, and other nations until the tracks could be brought to a higher safety standard. Switzerland's ban allowed for the running of timed motorsports such as hillclimbs, yet banned sport which allowed two cars to compete alongside one another. This forced swiss racing promoters to organize circuit events in foreign countries like France, Italy and Germany. In June 2007 the Swiss government lifted the ban on racing.[1]

After winning also the last major race of the 1955 season, the Targa Florio, Mercedes-Benz announced that they would no longer participate in factory sponsored motorsport in order to concentrate on development of regular cars. The self-imposed ban on circuit racing lasted until the 1980s.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1955_Le_Mans_disaster

What, if anything, would prevent airshows being banned in a country in the event of a spectator-killing accident? (IIRC, the Ramstein accident resulted in an airshow ban in Germany).

[k5083]

Apropos of this, I just received some spam from the airshowbuzz forum about the arrival of young Steven Hinton on the air racing scene:

This week at Stead Field the two generations come together as Steve Jr. unseats his father as the youngest Reno Air Racer at 21 years of age. The races are mentally and physically exhausting for the pilots, teams and families. The danger is real. Mistakes are often deadly. It is a world few of us get to see, but Steven will take you into the pits for a glimpse of the real life drama as the racing begins.

I was surprised, given ASB's relatively informed audience, that it would feel the need to titillate with talk of danger. I am reminded of Hawkeye's answer when asked if he was going to the MASH cockroach races: "Nah, people just go to those things hoping to see a cockroach crash."

August

[51fixer]

Apropos of this, I just received some spam from the airshowbuzz forum about the arrival of young Steven Hinton on the air racing scene:

This week at Stead Field the two generations come together as Steve Jr. unseats his father as the youngest Reno Air Racer at 21 years of age. The races are mentally and physically exhausting for the pilots, teams and families. The danger is real. Mistakes are often deadly. It is a world few of us get to see, but Steven will take you into the pits for a glimpse of the real life drama as the racing begins.

I was surprised, given ASB's relatively informed audience, that it would feel the need to titillate with talk of danger. I am reminded of Hawkeye's answer when asked if he was going to the MASH cockroach races: "Nah, people just go to those things hoping to see a cockroach crash."

August

I have worked for Steve and my wife baby sat SteveO and his sister Amanda back in the timeframe of when Young Steve 1st attended the races. So I feel the context of this message was performing the mechanical work where what you do has no margin of error. The vast majority of pilots, mechanics and even the people with a little interest in aviation barely know of Reno. The ASB website is possibly the 1st contact that many have with air racing. That is whom this is probably aimed at as it was sent to many thousands of these uninformed persons with an interest in what flies above them.
Rich

[muddyboots]

you're right, of course. But here is the problem:

The danger is real. Mistakes are often deadly

when the sport dramitizes how dangerous it is, or in this case overstates the dangers, it's not really doing itself any favors. Auto racing does the same thing, only without telling people taht they may die. And look at how many people go to races?

[k5083]

Yes, that was my point. And in context of the email, it was pretty clear that it was talking about mistakes while flying, not fixing, but it hardly matters. If the sport feels that the speed, noise, beautiful machines, and competitive drama aren't alluring enough, and it needs to draw attention to the danger, it is playing with fire.

August

[muddyboots]

Sorry, I missed the jist of what you were saying I was so busy beating myself on the forehead about the email. I think part of the problem is that pilots have always seen themselves as an elite. It IS a dangerous occupation if you're a dumbass. Which is why I am not a pilot And so pilots want to brag about how awesome they are, and how awesome their toys are, and you should of seen how this one time, I was in a flat spin and my engines had flamed out and...

It makes it a hard sell when almost ALL of popular literature and film exaggerate this, and when so many pilots seem to point out the complexity of it. While it IS complex, and not everybody need do it, it would help if there were a stronger inclination not to "talk it up"

I'm not saying that I know much about anything, but I've certainly heard more than one pilot talking this way--if only among themselves. Heck, I could point to threads on this site that laugh about it (anyone remember the one about bad landings, the lady who landed on an AF runway to the shock of the ground crews?) That kind of thing just can't be healthy for the whole "sell it to the masses" ideal...