Hunter crashes at shoreham airshow

[gumbyk]

That's the end of any criminal proceedings. Manslaughter in English law quite rightly sets a very high bar for the prosecution and the jury obviously did not feel it was met. I still think Hill has been a bit fortunate, but what I think doesn't matter.

Yeah, me too. To be honest, with what I know about the case I thought he wasn't going to be so lucky.

 

[gumbyk]

I just got this message through - the pilot has been acquitted of manslaughter:

Hawker Hunter Pilot Acquitted Of Manslaughter In Shoreham Airshow Accident
Andrew Hill Found Not Guilty On All Counts

A former RAF pilot who was flying a Hawker Hunter aircraft during the 2015 Shoreham Airshow which went down during a maneuver and went up in a fireball on a highway has been acquitted by a jury on charges of manslaughter by gross negligence.

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The newspaper Stock Daily Dish reports that Andrew Hill had been charged in the deaths of 11 people when his plane went down on a highway near the airport. Several others on the ground were injured. Hill was also seriously injured, but miraculously survived when he was ejected from the airplane during the accident sequence.
Hill's attorney, Karim Khailil QC, said the pilot suffered from "cognitive impairment" possibly caused by hypoxia due to high G-forces experienced during the maneuver ... a "bent loop" ... which led to the accident. Hill was placed in an induced coma after the accident, and he told the court that he had no memory of the three days that preceded the accident. He said he has spent the last three years "trying to resolve what happened."
Britain's AAIB determined that the cause of the accident was "pilot error". They said the plane was too low when he began the loop maneuver.
The former RAF instructor said he blacked out in the air during the maneuver.
The accident led the U.K. CAA to make substantial changes in its rules governing air shows in an effort to improve safety.

 

[pbehn]

they know what they are talking about. Early reports said the pilot had been pulled out of the wreckage and the plane was resting under a bush then there was no word then there are cars involved and so on and on.

Well he hit a motorway, reports of deaths on the road came later, I was incredulous that the pilot had survived, its the first time I remember a pilot surviving a fireball crash in a jet aircraft.