AAIB report released on the 2007 Fatal Hurricane Crash

[Warbirdnerd]

Stunt caused fatal airshow crash
A fatal crash at an airshow in West Sussex was probably caused by an unplanned manoeuvre by the World War II fighter plane's pilot, a report found.

Brian Brown, an experienced pilot from Doncaster, South Yorkshire, was flying the Hurricane when it crashed at Shoreham Airshow on 15 September 2007.

The Air Accident Investigation Branch (AAIB) report said Mr Brown had stated he would not be rolling the aircraft.

However, he did roll the privately-owned plane during a mock dogfight.

Although the aircraft's airspeed was adequate, the AAIB report said, its pitch meant it had insufficient height for the stunt to be completed safely.

No evidence of any defect or malfunction that would have contributed to the accident was found in the Hurricane, the report added.


It concluded the crash "probably occurred as a result of the pilot attempting an unplanned rolling manoeuvre" which had not been practised as part of the sequence.

The report recommended the sequence of manoeuvres should be clearly specified in advance of flying displays.

After the accident, Mr Brown's colleagues at the Real Aeroplane Company in Breighton, North Yorkshire, described him as "one of the most experienced Hurricane pilots in the country".

He had been flying the plane for 10 years and had amassed 400 hours' flying time.

Mr Brown had taken part in major air shows around Europe but was not originally due to fly at the event in Shoreham. He volunteered his services due to a shortage of available pilots.

His plane crashed into a field about one-mile north of the airshow.

Found it here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/8315514.stm

[Randy Haskin]

Additional discussion:

http://warbirdinformationexchange.org/p ... hp?t=32575

[Dudley Henriques]

Additional discussion:

http://warbirdinformationexchange.org/p ... hp?t=32575

At least a few of us who have engaged in "tail chase" type routines in prop fighters at low altitude had educated opinions that more or less postulated the following when this came in and in fact the discussions are in progress as we speak;

The "offical AAIB notwithstanding, these tail chases as I'm sure you know already Randy, pose subtle issues involving position for the trailer. The turn that caught Brown was an over the top reversal with his aircraft flying the number 2 following lead's execution of the same maneuver.
A few of us believed Brown simply might have gotten caught with a multi-task error as he executed the reversal mirroring the lead caused by what might have looked like to him as his being dragged out too far behind lead as he exited the maneuver.

It's conjecture pure and simple of course, but human factors being what they are, as lead exited the turn reversal he went nose down coming out of it to the right. Following lead, Brown executed correctly going into the reversal nose high and had ample energy and altitude to complete an over the top reversal had the maneuver gone through normally to its completion.
It's entirely possible that as Brown passed the first knife edge into the reversal his attention would have been split between maintaining his trail position and executing the maneuver WITH THIS ADDED FACTOR IN MIND splitting his execution control inputs between the two tasks of position and maneuver completion as initiated.
His visual cue peripherals would have caught lead's exit going away and nose down with lead gaining airspeed and nose to tail separation at the exact instant he was losing energy in the reversal augmenting the nose to tail separation issue.
IF, and this is of course a BIG if, Brown's unconscious reaction to losing his position caused him to increase his pitch rate early with his lift vector pointed downward in an attempt to maintain positional awareness instead of holding in the required aileron, the result could easily have been exactly what happened, a nose low accelerating pitch rate spiral that was unrecoverable with the remaining altitude.

These accident reports do the best they can to reconstruct accidents and serve a purpose in that respect. The reports present the cold hard facts but in many cases don't make the needed impression on the pilots who follow the release of these reports and will be engaging in these activities after the fact.
In the end analysis, it has to be pilots in the community who have to take an active interest that goes beyond an MIR or a AAIB report and form useful opinion that can be carried into subsequent pre-show safety briefings as "factors to consider" in helping to prevent a like accident from occurring again.
Dudley Henriques

[Oscar Duck]

The situation seems that the flight may not have followed the brief. Having flown in many airshows I've seen it happen a few times. My answer is to 'bug out' if we're not following the script otherwise you don't know where it will wind up.

[warbird1]

Here is a link to the original source report on the AAIB website:

http://www.aaib.gov.uk/publications/for ... ctions.cfm

It's quite an extensive and detailed report, some 45 pages long. I haven't had a chance to read it yet, but it looks extremely fascinating.

I'm impressed by the level of detail and research that the AAIB has taken for this accident report. I really wish our NTSB would issue such detailed reports. These days, we're lucky if we get more than a couple of paragraphs on any accident report involving anything other than an airliner with fatalities.

[51fixer]

Here is a link to the original source report on the AAIB website:

http://www.aaib.gov.uk/publications/for ... ctions.cfm

It's quite an extensive and detailed report, some 45 pages long. I haven't had a chance to read it yet, but it looks extremely fascinating.

I'm impressed by the level of detail and research that the AAIB has taken for this accident report. I really wish our NTSB would issue such detailed reports. These days, we're lucky if we get more than a couple of paragraphs on any accident report involving anything other than an airliner with fatalities.

The CAA seems to like to get detailed whether they need to or not.
Rich

[JohnH]

Here is a link to the original source report on the AAIB website:

http://www.aaib.gov.uk/publications/for ... ctions.cfm

It's quite an extensive and detailed report, some 45 pages long. I haven't had a chance to read it yet, but it looks extremely fascinating.

I'm impressed by the level of detail and research that the AAIB has taken for this accident report. I really wish our NTSB would issue such detailed reports. These days, we're lucky if we get more than a couple of paragraphs on any accident report involving anything other than an airliner with fatalities.

I just cant believe as many people were filming this and nobody filmed the crash. I've looked for it. A few seconds of video is worth the 10,000 words in that report. (Im going to read it too).

John

[warbird1]

Here is a link to the original source report on the AAIB website:

http://www.aaib.gov.uk/publications/for ... ctions.cfm

It's quite an extensive and detailed report, some 45 pages long. I haven't had a chance to read it yet, but it looks extremely fascinating.

I'm impressed by the level of detail and research that the AAIB has taken for this accident report. I really wish our NTSB would issue such detailed reports. These days, we're lucky if we get more than a couple of paragraphs on any accident report involving anything other than an airliner with fatalities.

I just cant believe as many people were filming this and nobody filmed the crash. I've looked for it. A few seconds of video is worth the 10,000 words in that report. (Im going to read it too).

John

It actually was filmed quite extensively. Like all aviation crashes involving fatalities, they are usually not made public out of respect to the deceased and their families.

From the report, page 13 :

"Members of the public attending the airshow provided a large number of video and still photography images to the investigation."

Also, if you go to page 15 of the report, it shows a chronological time sequence of the last few seconds prior to impact taken from video capture stills.

Also, right after the crash, somebody posted video footage of the actual crash on youtube. Shortly after, the video was pulled though, and it's no longer there.

[Baldeagle]

I spent a couple of months around Brian in the summer of 2005 (my avatar photo was taken in that aircraft during that time), he was a great guy and a very talented pilot, and while I realise that neither of those things will keep you alive sometimes it's still hard to believe he would have a problem doing a roll in the Hurricane, unplanned or not. Very sad in any event.




-

[Firebird]

The CAA seems to like to get detailed whether they need to or not.

AAIB has no connection with the CAA

[Dudley Henriques]

I spent a couple of months around Brian in the summer of 2005 (my avatar photo was taken in that aircraft during that time), he was a great guy and a very talented pilot, and while I realise that neither of those things will keep you alive sometimes it's still hard to believe he would have a problem doing a roll in the Hurricane, unplanned or not. Very sad in any event.
-

You are absolutely correct that Brown was a talented pilot.

It's an unfortunate fact that the act of flying high performance airplanes has an extremely high degree of risk and when you add close ground proximity and a display scenario the risk intensifies to an even greater factor.
It's seldom a single glaring mistake that causes accidents like the one that caught Brown. Rather it's a series of errors, some perhaps not even involving the pilots themselves that add up to a final instant in time where the total offset to something planned or executed exceeds a pilot's ability to correct.
I've been involved personally in flight safety almost all of my adult life and I would be the first to tell you that I'm not even close to finding the magic bullet that will prevent accidents like the one that nailed Brown from occurring.
One thing that has become perfectly clear over time concerning those of us who are engaged in display safety is that a pilot actively engaged in flying high performance airplanes in the venue regardless of experience and skill will most likely sooner or later come face to face with a moment in time where a split second decision will determine the outcome of a series of events.
Discovering how to keep these decisions in the positive side of the outcome equation is an ongoing process.
Dudley Henriques

[Flat 12x2]

Here is a link to the original source report on the AAIB website:

http://www.aaib.gov.uk/publications/for ... ctions.cfm

It's quite an extensive and detailed report, some 45 pages long. I haven't had a chance to read it yet, but it looks extremely fascinating.

I'm impressed by the level of detail and research that the AAIB has taken for this accident report. I really wish our NTSB would issue such detailed reports. These days, we're lucky if we get more than a couple of paragraphs on any accident report involving anything other than an airliner with fatalities.

I just cant believe as many people were filming this and nobody filmed the crash. I've looked for it. A few seconds of video is worth the 10,000 words in that report. (Im going to read it too).

John

It actually was filmed quite extensively. Like all aviation crashes involving fatalities, they are usually not made public out of respect to the deceased and their families.

From the report, page 13 :

"Members of the public attending the airshow provided a large number of video and still photography images to the investigation."

Also, if you go to page 15 of the report, it shows a chronological time sequence of the last few seconds prior to impact taken from video capture stills.

Also, right after the crash, somebody posted video footage of the actual crash on youtube. Shortly after, the video was pulled though, and it's no longer there.

It has been reported on our local news with film of the roll (but not the actual crash)
Why did plane crash?
5.07PM Tue, 20 Oct 2009
http://www.itv.com/meridian-west/

[Ztex]

And that video is gone now too...

[Flat 12x2]

And that video is gone now too...

I just tried it again & its working fine.

[RyanShort1]

And that video is gone now too...

My browser puts up a bit of text that says the video is only available in the UK.

Ryan