I wanted to provide some clarification after reading some comments. There was no airshow during the takeoff. Caselle Airport is a purely civilian airport, where a Leonardo facility is located (an Italian company that produces aircraft and helicopters), and they assemble and test military aircraft there. As a result, military traffic often mingles with civilian traffic, but the airport remains civilian. Caselle was used during those days as a support base for two airshows taking place in different and distant locations from Caselle where the incident occurred. One was in Vercelli (where they were headed during that takeoff), approximately 80 kilometers away from Caselle, and the other, on the following day, at the Turin Aeroclub a few kilometers away. Both airports are quite small, which is why the Frecce Tricolori used Caselle as their base. What you are witnessing is a standard takeoff by the Frecce Tricolori; they always perform it this way, even when nobody is watching. Since there was no airshow at that location, there were only a few curious onlookers and some spotters. Therefore, there was no dangerous maneuver or lack of safety (Regarding this last point, we can probably discuss it; safety is never enough) just a tragic accident and a grim day to remember.
Correct! I live in Turin near Collegno Aeroclub. Official comunication by Aeronautica Militare released that it was a Bird strike the main cause that damaged the single turbofan engine of the mn 339 Pan version.
Bloody shame. Horrific and so sad. Words don’t relate how awful this accident is and I hope the young boy recovers. The pilot is blameless but I bet he’s in a world of guilt. A respectful video and one you never wanted to make.
This absolutely heartbreaking in every possible way. 😢 sending my love to the pilot, his family, his fellow pilots, ground crew and everyone in the Italian Airforce. Sending my condolences to to the family of the little girl tragically killed and their son who has been badly injured. May God bless you all. I love the Freece Tricolouri. They are my favourite display team. I was gutted that they weren't at RIAT this year
It was all over in 10 seconds, but that young pilot will live it every day for the rest of his life. Horrific! and so many others will have damaged memories too.
That young pilot never saw the cars. He was fighting a broken jet going nowhere. Truth be told he probably should have ejected sooner. My heart goes out to the child lost.
What a tragedy. I am retired AF and was at the Ramstein air show and left minutes after they started flying. As I drove down the road beside the base I saw the smoke and instantly knew something bad happened and then I saw the remainder of the team circling above. The sad truth is many of these display teams have had incidents like this. Prayers for everyone involved with this devastating accident.
A couple of weeks before the tragedy at Ramstein, the Frecce Tricolore team displayed at the RAF Cottesmore open day. I watched them rehearsing a day or two before the open day and I'm sad to say I thought then they were a bunch of nutters. Apart from the display which was the same as at Ramstein, I remember watching the solo display where one of them flew slowly about 200 ft above the runway whilst the pilot quickly stirred the stick into the 4 corners of the movement, just like you do on the ground before take-off to check full and free movement. The aircraft yawed, rolled and pitched all over the place and I'd never seen anything like it before. I think I even turned away as I thought it was going down. Ramstein was a turning point for many displays and the team must have had a real good shake up afterwards . This latest tragedy is unfortunately a demonstration of the "Swiss cheese" phenomenon where several factors all occur and the problem happens.
@@125brat that "bunch of nutters" are perfectly trained also you probably never worked with Italians and you don't have any idea about their safety standards ....believe me ...if you are Italian and you are a military you don't want the left party being able to even just say a word about safety because that would mean having your career burned and having good founds denied ......of they do thet they are confident more than enough.... Accidents during air displays ofthen happens....
Excellent video Tim. This was a superb commentary on a hugely tragic situation. The fact the car involved was shown in the video seconds before is, for me, the most upsetting aspect of this. I saw the team at RIAT a couple of years ago, and they are an excellent display team. I'm genuinely sad this has happened to them. I can't imagine the pain that the family, the pilot and the team are going through. Thanks for your analysis Tim. It is always a privilege to hear from someone in the military aviation world who, not only knows what they're talking about, but explains it in a sensible compassionate way.
RAF Waddington (Lincolnshire) does have traffic lights on the A15 (public road) that nears the runway. I believe others do also. Although the RAF have reported people "jumping the lights". Crazy..
Hi Tim, Ex Armourer here. Just a quick one, you mentioned that RAF seats have a small chute, That will stay with the pilots main chute. The only seats I am aware of with their own chutes are the Martin Baker test Seats, used to reciver the test items. Cheers. Hugh
Thanks for the debrief, Tim - professional and suitably compassionate. A tragic incident and a dark day for international aviation. My thoughts are with the poor family who lost their little girl :(
Tim, as usual you give insight, depth and clarity into the world of fast jet aviation. This is such a sad & tragic event and I hope the family will come to terms with their loss but just as importantly, the pilot finds a way of dealing with this also. As you say, at the altitude, speed & flight regime the aircraft was in he was out of options very quickly. Nevertheless, it is wise to await the official cause of the crash and our thoughts are with all those involved. Thank you Tim for your service & all you do for this channel.
Tim, I got very emotional in this video. watched this before work, which probably wasn't a good idea. I saw a pilot die in an English Electric Lightning in 2009 in South Africa. I burnt with petrol when I was aged 15. This triggered so many things. Thank you for sharing. Hope many airports around the world will learn from this and get traffic lights on roads at the end of runways around the airports. Thanks for a great channel. I play a little DCS by the way and I love doing aerobatics in fast jets.
I can’t imagine the heartbreak of the toddlers parents. They live every parents nightmare, as a father myself with one daughter I could never ever imagine losing her. It was a while ago now, but it will never fade in their lifetimes. Condolences to the young ladies family. The pilot wasn’t to blame of course, I hope he gets over this trauma. A tragic incident.
I think your video shows it was a tragic case of a family car being in the worse place at the worse time. Neither the pilot nor the driver of the car have any reason to blame themselves. It is just one of those tragedies which happen. So very sad.
If I remember correctly, didn't the Tonka and possibly the Hawk as have a drogue chute that deployed initially and if ejection was above 10,000 ft the main chute stayed stowed until the baro unit released as the seat descended? The drogue stabilised the seat so the main chute would deploy correctly. It may have been the drogue that Tim was thinking of?
@@125bratYes, a stabilising drogue deploys to stabilise the seat until the barometric unit allows the main chute to deploy. Seats like those fitted to typhoon have winglets that also allow the seat to 'fly' with the crew member in a head-down attitude to allow them to regain consciousness before the main chute deploys & the seat separates.
only a matter of time before something like this happens, im a keen spotter and the amount of people who stand directly under the flight path over the road on the grass at Lakenheath is ridiculous. We need to remember the most dangerous part of flight is take of and landing. I know is this case it was wrong place wrong time for the family in the car but we all need to stay safe !! Great Video explaining what is happening.
How people get over something like that is beyond me. I have two daughters and if that had happened to one of mine, I don't think I'd make it. That poor pilot will no doubt suffer the anguish and burden for the rest of his life. Sometimes life is just shit!
Great breakdown. For someone who has been involved in air shows (Police Commander) this reinforces so many planning considerations and the issues that can happen when members of the public do not listen to safety advice. Not that this was the case as it appears that the road was open for traffic.
Good point about the traffic lights. I was a controller at Valley and we also used to set lights off for the railway line in the 01 overshoot, just beyond the road, though I think it was advisory for trains. We did have control over traffic lights on the civilian road running past Mona, though traffic often just ignored it.
Tragic crash in Reno's final race meeting too, Tim. After the end of the T-6 Gold race, two a/c collided midair, killing both pilots. Terrible way to end 69 years of racing at Reno Stead.
Just a tiny bit of clarification: the MB339 (aircraft in question) pre-ejection procedure indicates that the pilot should apply full trim down before leaving the aircraft in order to prevent it from flying/gliding away without a pilot and potentially causing more damage. That's why the aircraft pitches down after ejection.
Makes sense, suprised he would have time to do this in the moment but I expect the weight of the seat and pilot suddenly being removed necessitates this action - thank you for the clarification.
Hi Tim, I was RAF police for twelve years (so no doubt you consider me pond scum), but we had to attend all fatal air incidents (in case they were crimes) and two incidents stick in mind to this day (I'm sixty now). They were an F-111 crew bailing out over Donna Nook and the Chinook crash at Machrihanish; the outcomes for aircrew can be catastrophic and they don't have control over the outcome. Mach was particularly upsetting for reasons I'd rather not repeat but it goes to show that however competent the pilot (s), fate sometimes intervenes.
No chute on the seat is to separate pilot and seat as much as possible in low level ejection AFAIK They're MB seats as well Though I doubt the pilot's gonna wear the tie ... Stayed with it to the last second to get out - and that may well be why the plane slid as far as it did ... but you can What If ? this as long as you want
The seats don't have separate chutes, they use the drogue to stabilise the at altitude but at low level this simply releases from the seat to pull the main canopy out.
When I saw the road layout, and you mentioned there's something that can be done at military bases, my thoughts immediately went to Valley (I used to live on Anglesey). There's a handful of civilian airports in UK with roads close, and they have lights similar to valley... I don't know if they have the net though. Thoughts are with the family & pilot. That's going to be tough to live with mentally, even though he had no options.
Very sad indeed I cant imagine as a dad what they must be going through heartbreaking. You can hear the engiine rolling back in the video absolutely nothing he could have done hope the pilot and little boy recover fully.
Andy Hill's 'thing' came immediately into my mind. As an aside, if I may. I once did almost the complete opposite. Short finals into EGVN noticed a car and a lorry on the similar civvy road had hit head on with no sign of blue light activity. Called it in to ATC, who then did the 999 thing. Sadly, the car driver didn't survive. Brize, of course, also has traffic lights on the civvy road. This coming together was about .5 mile north. I guess that my point is the irony that had we been on short finals a few moments before or after they hit, said lights (at red) might have kept the vehicles apart. My heart does, of course, go out to all involved here. Also, to the ground crew who serviced the jet and the seat.
Tim, I’ve clicked the ‘like’ on this to aid your channel algorithms. However, like you, I don’t ‘like’ the outcome, no one with any humanity could. As you suggest, these things happen but are never nice and leave a lifetimes worth of hurt in their trail. Any air incident where innocents are killed and hurt are horrible, I saw it in 1988 when I was in the RAF when I spent my Christmas looking for bodies in the wake of the Lockerbie air disaster, both passengers and those on the ground. Memories which stay with me and all those with a connection to the event for a lifetime. Thanks for posting this video. Best wishes Brian
The same thing happened to the display team in Cornwall helston, hms culdrose. 1994/5 crashed, I think, during practice. My father wasn't on duty but rolled his eyes in disappointment
I still remember watching the crash at Mildenhall in 1979. Aviation is a risky business and people on the ground don't and shouldn't have to know the risks at airshows. I was also at Mildenhall in 1986 with the mid air and at Reno in 2011 with the crash into the crowd. I often wonder if it is worth it.
Just found your channel, very interesting indeed. I was a long time drinking buddy and covers band-mate with the late Wing Co. Gus Crockatt. He used to regale me with great tales of flying Lightnings and training pilots to fly Hawks. I also did some work for Bill Ramsey, (BBMF, Arrows and Vulcan pilot) who had some great stories too. We all very much miss Gus still.
Thank you for a considered and conserderate explanation. My dad was based at Farnborough as a medic. I'm filled with sorrow for the girl and her family, for the emergency services and for the pilot. The plane was going to stall and that close to the stall the pilot had run out of ability to influence the future trajectory of the plane, had he stayed onboard there would, in my opinion, have been one more fatality, the pilot. i hope that he survives his burns and he and the emergency service people get the mental health support they may well need.
rip to the little girl and speedy recovery for all injured ! Tim you speak so strong and true ive just started Na due to beer id love for u to come for a chat with the group u are a powefull speaker thanks again sir.
Hi Tim hope your well? Nice to see your perspective on this, its a very sad affair! there are "stop when lights show signs" and an aircraft sign above it from both sides on the civvie rd @ the end of Valley's runway 01, I drove around at the weekend. In my teens I used to sit on the grass near the Landing approach lights to runway 13, i used to sit there until the arrestor barrier was lowered at the end of the day scary thought now!
Our local civvy airport has what looks like level crossing lights that flash when theres aircraft movements... The last time there was a display maybe 20 years ago. The police did traffic control and stopped the traffic on the road.
Uggg. Unspeakable tragedy. The worst nightmare for every military pilot, who by nature would willingly sacrifice their life to protect the vulnerable, is to survive an ejection with fatalities on the ground. RIP little one.
How tragic...that poor family in the car....of all the times to be driving by and the jet has a failure...a very sad and tragic occurrence of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Similar to the crash near Subang airport, Malaysia, where the executive jet crashed by the motorway and a car driver and motorcyclist were passing by just as the plane exploded on impact.
When the Kalitta Air B747 overshot the runway in Brussels on take off, it nearly slid onto an active railway. Somewhat impractical to stop railway traffic every few minutes It's quite common not to stop traffic unless the runway threshold is close to the road
This tragic event is the worse possible scenario and a case of wrong place, wrong time. So very heartbreaking for the family and something that will affect them for the rest of their lives. The same for the poor pilot who I would think will never get over this. Nobody is to blame, these things sadly happen. 😢Sending my deepest condolences to this broken family. 😢
I think a good method to mitigate the risk would be to not take off in formation from a civilian airport, when they aren't doing a show (and in Turin airport there was no show indeed, they were going to another place something like 70 Km away... So what was the need to take off in formation, significantly increasing the risk???)
Well said Tim but Sadly the Frecce Pilot did everything possible in tragic circumstances. My sincere heart felt sympathy for the death and injury of the Children and their families
A friend of my dad stayed in his crippled F104 to avoid a village school, ejected late and got killed. Ended up with his seat in the ground. Difficult to decide when and how to get out 😢
So unlucky, and desperately sad. Superb commentary Tim. It wouldn't have helped the dead girl, and no slight on good piloting, but I can see a build, at low level on the stall, why not drop a wing 5-10deg and eject to throw to the side away from the flames?
Tim New ops at Waddington for the Reds has me worried - the case to move a new danger area overhead impinges significantly on the local populace and it seems to be an argument of convenience being made rather than a balanced risk decision…..
I noticed just after the parachute opened the drogue parachute blows around to the right side indicating the aircraft were flying downwind. I could not see which way the smoke was going from your clips.
So sad for the little girl and this pilot and the team. Maybe improvements to safety could be made from what you have said, not allowing formation flying on take off to allow faster speeds to get to a safer place., single plane departs only, traffic lights at both end of runway like waddington and Coningsby. Just ideas, always risk in life, this was a 1 in million.
It was a no options incident. The pilot did all he could, which was slow down as much as possible (MB339s have a very low stall speed), turn left to avoid the buildings off the right side of the runway (they were turning right after takeoff, hard to notice from the video) and punch out. All in about 10 seconds. As usual it was a matter of multiple things occuring at the same time: bird strike + wet / humid grass + that car passing right at that moment rather than 10 seconds earlier or later. I hope the outcome of this incident will be traffic lights at each end of runways for every airport as we have TONS of them with similar comformation.
A very sad incident but mixing planes with the public has massive risks i just hope the right lessons are learned and good procedures put in place not a kneejerk emotional response
Bournemouth International Airport has lights to stop traffic however I don't believe they used them this year forthe bournemouth air show for the Red Arrows taking off, I would think they will now though. There are usually also lots of plane spotters right along the fence line which might be changed from this incident.
Tragic. And even more so that with such a long runway, the engine out happened far enough down the runway where he couldnt just set it back down on the gear.
Think you were at 208 when Fletch had a bird strike in the WX ship on climb out from 36 and tried to turn back to 19 but had to leave it. The Hawk bounced across the back road and was seen in the wing mirrors of one very lucky BRAMA engineer on his motor bike on his way in. This incident is just tragic. Poor family poor pilot. I’ve heard an F35 has gone down in the states too. Not sure of any details
The seat in the MB-339 is the Mk-10L, virtually the same seat as the Hawk. The seat itself doesn't have its own parachute. There are two parachutes, the first being the duplex drogue assembly, which deploys when the drogue gun fires, and stabilises the seat. It is momentarily attached to the seat until the BTRU fires, at which time it is released and drags the other chute, the main chute, out of the head box. The seat occupant decelerates away from the seat under the rapidly deploying canopy, and the seat carries on its merry way. That's shown really clearly in this footage. Ex RNZAF MB-339 Mk10 technician.
It would be insurance to build a small road tunnel where there are public roads at the end of runways. I've seen instances where traffic is stopped by MOD police while certain types of aircraft land. I do not think that it would be too expensive if this was gradually introduced across the World. But I can say for certain that it would eventually save a life.
So unbelievably sad, bless her 😢❤...I hope her brother and the pilot make a very swift recovery. A very tragic accident. If only there were traffic lights in place at this airfield, this could have been avoided.
@@flybobbie1449 In this instance, traffic lights would have most certainly prevented the car from being hit. There wouldn't have been any cars at the end of thr runway.
The Team had just Taken Off from Caselle airport to travel a few minutes to the city of Vercelli, where the show was going to take place. Logically, after this accident, the show was cancelled.
Thank you for the video, very well done and professionaly exposed, that was very interesting. Unfortunately like 90% of the airports around the world, every takeoff and landings present critical feauters because of the space which is never enough, no matter what. As rightly said the pilot could have done nothing different and it's a pity to see such a crusade against him by the usual haters and poor loosers who are always ready to solve the case by blaming the pilot, especialy when from the Armed Forces. Frecce Tricolori are a superb team and a very safe one too as you correctly stated, that accident could have happened to anyone, from a Cessna172 to a 747.
No altitude. No airspeed. No time. This is a case where I see only one option. We were to attempt to level the wings, zoom and hit air start. I can't see having the time to establish getting power back from a improbable restart if it was a bird strike. As for zoom you're at critically low speed already so you're trading a potential loss of control from a stall resulting from a zoom and rather opting for a controlled slight turn away from the formation while trying to plant it along where you would see open runway ahead with it being 10,000' long.
Unfortunately, this accident hasn't only ended in tragedy, the pathetic Italian legal system is now charging the pilot with manslaughter: "omicidio colposo". Sadly, this is standard practice here in Italy whenever a death is involved, as I learned some years ago through personal experience. The legal system in Italy is broken.
Good point. This reminds me of Senna's death and Italy wanting to charge Williams personnel for mansluaghter. I think the statute of limitations expired after 7.5 years and no charges were made.
The blue angels trim nose down and the pilots pull against that nose down trim to help smooth out their formation corrections, reasonably heavy too, they talk of something like 20lbs of force if my memory serves me right, maybe the Freece Tricolori's do the same, and that is why the nose dropped so fast once the pilot released the stick. My heart goes out to everyone involved, just horrible, such horrific bad fortune that the car passed at that exact moment, unbelievable.
Further mitigation. One wonders whether, 'run of the mill' non-display departures in good vis should be flown as singletons with normal T/O power. 3 sec sep or something? Armchair knackered old armchair pilot speaking here, using a retrospectoscope.
Possibly more. Take a look at their calendar for 2023 - maybe a bit busier due to the AMI 100th anniversary this year - but the Italians always have a lot of air shows each year, and the Freccie display all over Europe too....
Obviously this is devastating. To be honest traffic lights wouldn't be a bad idea. Here in LGPZ Greece a military airport open for civilian flying too they have lights. The airport has 2 parallel rwys 07 and 25. Rwy 07L/25R is used as a twy permanently. The end of rwy 25R ends up in a civilian road, a national road with heavy traffic too. They have placed traffic lights on both lanes pf the road right before the rwy as planes get low when landing there. It's a short rwy with a very small threshold too and road passes directly on the other side of the fence
Thing is in the commercial world everything is twin or more, and commercial aircraft are all rated to climb on one engine. As Tim says, there's always something you can do to mitigate it, but there's really no need for commercial ops where a crash on take off is near unheard of.
I wanted to provide some clarification after reading some comments. There was no airshow during the takeoff. Caselle Airport is a purely civilian airport, where a Leonardo facility is located (an Italian company that produces aircraft and helicopters), and they assemble and test military aircraft there. As a result, military traffic often mingles with civilian traffic, but the airport remains civilian. Caselle was used during those days as a support base for two airshows taking place in different and distant locations from Caselle where the incident occurred. One was in Vercelli (where they were headed during that takeoff), approximately 80 kilometers away from Caselle, and the other, on the following day, at the Turin Aeroclub a few kilometers away. Both airports are quite small, which is why the Frecce Tricolori used Caselle as their base. What you are witnessing is a standard takeoff by the Frecce Tricolori; they always perform it this way, even when nobody is watching. Since there was no airshow at that location, there were only a few curious onlookers and some spotters. Therefore, there was no dangerous maneuver or lack of safety (Regarding this last point, we can probably discuss it; safety is never enough) just a tragic accident and a grim day to remember.
@Merk-IV
100% spot on, very accurate and simply a perfect comment which, unfortunately not everyone understands....
Correct! I live in Turin near Collegno Aeroclub. Official comunication by Aeronautica Militare released that it was a Bird strike the main cause that damaged the single turbofan engine of the mn 339 Pan version.
Bloody shame. Horrific and so sad.
Words don’t relate how awful this accident is and I hope the young boy recovers. The pilot is blameless but I bet he’s in a world of guilt.
A respectful video and one you never wanted to make.
So very sad, how could you not feel so. Thank you for you tube for your compassion and understanding. Typical ex Raf very humble
This absolutely heartbreaking in every possible way.
😢 sending my love to the pilot, his family, his fellow pilots, ground crew and everyone in the Italian Airforce. Sending my condolences to to the family of the little girl tragically killed and their son who has been badly injured. May God bless you all.
I love the Freece Tricolouri. They are my favourite display team. I was gutted that they weren't at RIAT this year
A tragic incident. So very sorry for their loss. I genuinely hope the injured parties have a speedy recovery.
Devastating RIP to the little one and all the best to the pilot.🇬🇧
It was all over in 10 seconds, but that young pilot will live it every day for the rest of his life. Horrific! and so many others will have damaged memories too.
That young pilot never saw the cars. He was fighting a broken jet going nowhere. Truth be told he probably should have ejected sooner. My heart goes out to the child lost.
What a tragedy. I am retired AF and was at the Ramstein air show and left minutes after they started flying. As I drove down the road beside the base I saw the smoke and instantly knew something bad happened and then I saw the remainder of the team circling above. The sad truth is many of these display teams have had incidents like this. Prayers for everyone involved with this devastating accident.
A couple of weeks before the tragedy at Ramstein, the Frecce Tricolore team displayed at the RAF Cottesmore open day. I watched them rehearsing a day or two before the open day and I'm sad to say I thought then they were a bunch of nutters. Apart from the display which was the same as at Ramstein, I remember watching the solo display where one of them flew slowly about 200 ft above the runway whilst the pilot quickly stirred the stick into the 4 corners of the movement, just like you do on the ground before take-off to check full and free movement. The aircraft yawed, rolled and pitched all over the place and I'd never seen anything like it before. I think I even turned away as I thought it was going down.
Ramstein was a turning point for many displays and the team must have had a real good shake up afterwards .
This latest tragedy is unfortunately a demonstration of the "Swiss cheese" phenomenon where several factors all occur and the problem happens.
@@125brat that "bunch of nutters" are perfectly trained also you probably never worked with Italians and you don't have any idea about their safety standards ....believe me ...if you are Italian and you are a military you don't want the left party being able to even just say a word about safety because that would mean having your career burned and having good founds denied ......of they do thet they are confident more than enough.... Accidents during air displays ofthen happens....
That pilot had seconds to make so many decisions - such a tragic incident - God bless the little girl
Excellent video Tim. This was a superb commentary on a hugely tragic situation. The fact the car involved was shown in the video seconds before is, for me, the most upsetting aspect of this. I saw the team at RIAT a couple of years ago, and they are an excellent display team. I'm genuinely sad this has happened to them. I can't imagine the pain that the family, the pilot and the team are going through. Thanks for your analysis Tim. It is always a privilege to hear from someone in the military aviation world who, not only knows what they're talking about, but explains it in a sensible compassionate way.
RAF Waddington (Lincolnshire) does have traffic lights on the A15 (public road) that nears the runway. I believe others do also. Although the RAF have reported people "jumping the lights". Crazy..
A spot on analysis of a tragic accident.
Hi Tim, Ex Armourer here. Just a quick one, you mentioned that RAF seats have a small chute, That will stay with the pilots main chute. The only seats I am aware of with their own chutes are the Martin Baker test Seats, used to reciver the test items. Cheers. Hugh
Thanks Hugh, my mistake.
Thanks for the debrief, Tim - professional and suitably compassionate. A tragic incident and a dark day for international aviation. My thoughts are with the poor family who lost their little girl :(
Tim, as usual you give insight, depth and clarity into the world of fast jet aviation. This is such a sad & tragic event and I hope the family will come to terms with their loss but just as importantly, the pilot finds a way of dealing with this also. As you say, at the altitude, speed & flight regime the aircraft was in he was out of options very quickly. Nevertheless, it is wise to await the official cause of the crash and our thoughts are with all those involved. Thank you Tim for your service & all you do for this channel.
Thanks Tim, concise and professional as always. My condolences to the poor family.
Thanks for covering this tragic event so expertly.
Tim, I got very emotional in this video. watched this before work, which probably wasn't a good idea. I saw a pilot die in an English Electric Lightning in 2009 in South Africa. I burnt with petrol when I was aged 15. This triggered so many things.
Thank you for sharing. Hope many airports around the world will learn from this and get traffic lights on roads at the end of runways around the airports.
Thanks for a great channel. I play a little DCS by the way and I love doing aerobatics in fast jets.
I can’t imagine the heartbreak of the toddlers parents. They live every parents nightmare, as a father myself with one daughter I could never ever imagine losing her. It was a while ago now, but it will never fade in their lifetimes. Condolences to the young ladies family. The pilot wasn’t to blame of course, I hope he gets over this trauma. A tragic incident.
My deepest condolences to the family of the little Angel 😢 To the pilot stay strong😢you did your best
A very sad event. Thanks for covering Tim
Tragic. Thanks for the insight and my heart goes out to the family and pilot.
I think your video shows it was a tragic case of a family car being in the worse place at the worse time. Neither the pilot nor the driver of the car have any reason to blame themselves. It is just one of those tragedies which happen. So very sad.
No parachute on your seat Tim, only your (aircrew) safety equipment. MB uses recovery chutes during testing.
If I remember correctly, didn't the Tonka and possibly the Hawk as have a drogue chute that deployed initially and if ejection was above 10,000 ft the main chute stayed stowed until the baro unit released as the seat descended? The drogue stabilised the seat so the main chute would deploy correctly. It may have been the drogue that Tim was thinking of?
@@125bratYes, a stabilising drogue deploys to stabilise the seat until the barometric unit allows the main chute to deploy. Seats like those fitted to typhoon have winglets that also allow the seat to 'fly' with the crew member in a head-down attitude to allow them to regain consciousness before the main chute deploys & the seat separates.
only a matter of time before something like this happens, im a keen spotter and the amount of people who stand directly under the flight path over the road on the grass at Lakenheath is ridiculous. We need to remember the most dangerous part of flight is take of and landing. I know is this case it was wrong place wrong time for the family in the car but we all need to stay safe !! Great Video explaining what is happening.
How people get over something like that is beyond me. I have two daughters and if that had happened to one of mine, I don't think I'd make it. That poor pilot will no doubt suffer the anguish and burden for the rest of his life. Sometimes life is just shit!
Great breakdown. For someone who has been involved in air shows (Police Commander) this reinforces so many planning considerations and the issues that can happen when members of the public do not listen to safety advice. Not that this was the case as it appears that the road was open for traffic.
Good point about the traffic lights. I was a controller at Valley and we also used to set lights off for the railway line in the 01 overshoot, just beyond the road, though I think it was advisory for trains. We did have control over traffic lights on the civilian road running past Mona, though traffic often just ignored it.
Tragic crash in Reno's final race meeting too, Tim. After the end of the T-6 Gold race, two a/c collided midair, killing both pilots. Terrible way to end 69 years of racing at Reno Stead.
Just a tiny bit of clarification: the MB339 (aircraft in question) pre-ejection procedure indicates that the pilot should apply full trim down before leaving the aircraft in order to prevent it from flying/gliding away without a pilot and potentially causing more damage. That's why the aircraft pitches down after ejection.
Makes sense, suprised he would have time to do this in the moment but I expect the weight of the seat and pilot suddenly being removed necessitates this action - thank you for the clarification.
Hi Tim, I was RAF police for twelve years (so no doubt you consider me pond scum), but we had to attend all fatal air incidents (in case they were crimes) and two incidents stick in mind to this day (I'm sixty now). They were an F-111 crew bailing out over Donna Nook and the Chinook crash at Machrihanish; the outcomes for aircrew can be catastrophic and they don't have control over the outcome. Mach was particularly upsetting for reasons I'd rather not repeat but it goes to show that however competent the pilot (s), fate sometimes intervenes.
No chute on the seat is to separate pilot and seat as much as possible in low level ejection AFAIK
They're MB seats as well
Though I doubt the pilot's gonna wear the tie ...
Stayed with it to the last second to get out - and that may well be why the plane slid as far as it did ... but you can What If ? this as long as you want
The seats don't have separate chutes, they use the drogue to stabilise the at altitude but at low level this simply releases from the seat to pull the main canopy out.
When I saw the road layout, and you mentioned there's something that can be done at military bases, my thoughts immediately went to Valley (I used to live on Anglesey). There's a handful of civilian airports in UK with roads close, and they have lights similar to valley... I don't know if they have the net though.
Thoughts are with the family & pilot. That's going to be tough to live with mentally, even though he had no options.
Very sad indeed I cant imagine as a dad what they must be going through heartbreaking. You can hear the engiine rolling back in the video absolutely nothing he could have done hope the pilot and little boy recover fully.
Andy Hill's 'thing' came immediately into my mind.
As an aside, if I may. I once did almost the complete opposite. Short finals into EGVN noticed a car and a lorry on the similar civvy road had hit head on with no sign of blue light activity. Called it in to ATC, who then did the 999 thing. Sadly, the car driver didn't survive.
Brize, of course, also has traffic lights on the civvy road. This coming together was about .5 mile north.
I guess that my point is the irony that had we been on short finals a few moments before or after they hit, said lights (at red) might have kept the vehicles apart.
My heart does, of course, go out to all involved here. Also, to the ground crew who serviced the jet and the seat.
Tim, I’ve clicked the ‘like’ on this to aid your channel algorithms. However, like you, I don’t ‘like’ the outcome, no one with any humanity could.
As you suggest, these things happen but are never nice and leave a lifetimes worth of hurt in their trail. Any air incident where innocents are killed and hurt are horrible, I saw it in 1988 when I was in the RAF when I spent my Christmas looking for bodies in the wake of the Lockerbie air disaster, both passengers and those on the ground. Memories which stay with me and all those with a connection to the event for a lifetime.
Thanks for posting this video.
Best wishes
Brian
The same thing happened to the display team in Cornwall helston, hms culdrose. 1994/5 crashed, I think, during practice. My father wasn't on duty but rolled his eyes in disappointment
I still remember watching the crash at Mildenhall in 1979. Aviation is a risky business and people on the ground don't and shouldn't have to know the risks at airshows. I was also at Mildenhall in 1986 with the mid air and at Reno in 2011 with the crash into the crowd. I often wonder if it is worth it.
Just found your channel, very interesting indeed. I was a long time drinking buddy and covers band-mate with the late Wing Co. Gus Crockatt. He used to regale me with great tales of flying Lightnings and training pilots to fly Hawks. I also did some work for Bill Ramsey, (BBMF, Arrows and Vulcan pilot) who had some great stories too. We all very much miss Gus still.
Tragic. Definitely out of energy as he banged out, nice anysis Tim. Prayers for all those affected
really sad. so sorry for the kids and the pilot!
Wow....excellent analysis....
I've only seen the Tricolori once when i was stationed in Germany in 1988. Not a good day then.
Thank you for a considered and conserderate explanation. My dad was based at Farnborough as a medic. I'm filled with sorrow for the girl and her family, for the emergency services and for the pilot. The plane was going to stall and that close to the stall the pilot had run out of ability to influence the future trajectory of the plane, had he stayed onboard there would, in my opinion, have been one more fatality, the pilot. i hope that he survives his burns and he and the emergency service people get the mental health support they may well need.
Indeed, the grim reality of an EFATO is that there is a distinct window where you simply have nothing whatsoever to play with
rip to the little girl and speedy recovery for all injured ! Tim you speak so strong and true ive just started Na due to beer id love for u to come for a chat with the group u are a powefull speaker thanks again sir.
Hi Tim hope your well? Nice to see your perspective on this, its a very sad affair! there are "stop when lights show signs" and an aircraft sign above it from both sides on the civvie rd @ the end of Valley's runway 01, I drove around at the weekend. In my teens I used to sit on the grass near the Landing approach lights to runway 13, i used to sit there until the arrestor barrier was lowered at the end of the day scary thought now!
Thanks Tim, prompt as always. Thoughts are with the family and hope pilot recovers
Hi Tim scary incident but he had no choice but to bang out thoughts with the family of the little girl ❤😢
Very sad. As garyc2276 said there seems to have been quite a few incidents this year. Two people killed in the Reno air races yesterday too.
So bad! Reminds me of the Canadian Snow Bird accident a few years ago...
So sad. No chance of recovery. Horrific. Best wishes to all who suffered.
Very good breakdown of the events! This is why you are one of the best in the world
Wow what are the chances of this . A million to one so sad . I agree with you no way could the pilot do anything about this . Nothing to add.
Our local civvy airport has what looks like level crossing lights that flash when theres aircraft movements... The last time there was a display maybe 20 years ago. The police did traffic control and stopped the traffic on the road.
Actually, quite a spot on informative vid. So sorry for the loss to the family. Condolences indeed.
Thank you for your clear and empathetic explanation. Best wishes from Amsterdam.
Uggg. Unspeakable tragedy. The worst nightmare for every military pilot, who by nature would willingly sacrifice their life to protect the vulnerable, is to survive an ejection with fatalities on the ground. RIP little one.
How tragic...that poor family in the car....of all the times to be driving by and the jet has a failure...a very sad and tragic occurrence of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Similar to the crash near Subang airport, Malaysia, where the executive jet crashed by the motorway and a car driver and motorcyclist were passing by just as the plane exploded on impact.
That is utterly tragic.. Nothing else to add sadly.. RIP that little girl
When the Kalitta Air B747 overshot the runway in Brussels on take off, it nearly slid onto an active railway.
Somewhat impractical to stop railway traffic every few minutes
It's quite common not to stop traffic unless the runway threshold is close to the road
This tragic event is the worse possible scenario and a case of wrong place, wrong time. So very heartbreaking for the family and something that will affect them for the rest of their lives. The same for the poor pilot who I would think will never get over this. Nobody is to blame, these things sadly happen. 😢Sending my deepest condolences to this broken family. 😢
fascinating as usual and sensitively handled, thank you Tim
I think a good method to mitigate the risk would be to not take off in formation from a civilian airport, when they aren't doing a show (and in Turin airport there was no show indeed, they were going to another place something like 70 Km away... So what was the need to take off in formation, significantly increasing the risk???)
Well said Tim but Sadly the Frecce Pilot did everything possible in tragic circumstances. My sincere heart felt sympathy for the death and injury of the Children and their families
A friend of my dad stayed in his crippled F104 to avoid a village school, ejected late and got killed. Ended up with his seat in the ground. Difficult to decide when and how to get out 😢
So unlucky, and desperately sad.
Superb commentary Tim. It wouldn't have helped the dead girl, and no slight on good piloting, but I can see a build, at low level on the stall, why not drop a wing 5-10deg and eject to throw to the side away from the flames?
Bournemouth Airport has traffic lights on the road that goes past the runway, good safety system
Tim
New ops at Waddington for the Reds has me worried - the case to move a new danger area overhead impinges significantly on the local populace and it seems to be an argument of convenience being made rather than a balanced risk decision…..
I noticed just after the parachute opened the drogue parachute blows around to the right side indicating the aircraft were flying downwind. I could not see which way the smoke was going from your clips.
So sad for the little girl and this pilot and the team. Maybe improvements to safety could be made from what you have said, not allowing formation flying on take off to allow faster speeds to get to a safer place., single plane departs only, traffic lights at both end of runway like waddington and Coningsby. Just ideas, always risk in life, this was a 1 in million.
Very sad.I wonder why they don't stop traffic during landings and takeoffs,like they do at some u.k. airports/ air based?
It was a no options incident. The pilot did all he could, which was slow down as much as possible (MB339s have a very low stall speed), turn left to avoid the buildings off the right side of the runway (they were turning right after takeoff, hard to notice from the video) and punch out. All in about 10 seconds.
As usual it was a matter of multiple things occuring at the same time: bird strike + wet / humid grass + that car passing right at that moment rather than 10 seconds earlier or later.
I hope the outcome of this incident will be traffic lights at each end of runways for every airport as we have TONS of them with similar comformation.
So sad when this happens.
Very sad. Thanks for the info.
A very sad incident but mixing planes with the public has massive risks i just hope the right lessons are learned and good procedures put in place not a kneejerk emotional response
Bournemouth International Airport has lights to stop traffic however I don't believe they used them this year forthe bournemouth air show for the Red Arrows taking off, I would think they will now though. There are usually also lots of plane spotters right along the fence line which might be changed from this incident.
Tragic. And even more so that with such a long runway, the engine out happened far enough down the runway where he couldnt just set it back down on the gear.
Think you were at 208 when Fletch had a bird strike in the WX ship on climb out from 36 and tried to turn back to 19 but had to leave it. The Hawk bounced across the back road and was seen in the wing mirrors of one very lucky BRAMA engineer on his motor bike on his way in.
This incident is just tragic. Poor family poor pilot.
I’ve heard an F35 has gone down in the states too. Not sure of any details
Sorry for the crap grammar and punctuation. Been a long day. 🤦🏽♂️
The F-35 has gone missing apparently after the pilot jettisoned it. Basically, they can't find it 😬
@@125brat super stealthy! 🥷 🤦🏽♂️
There’s traffic lights at humberside airport. A civilian airport, so it is possible for non military world too
Hi Tim. I think at the start you thought the pilot was injured with burns! Did the poor guy end up in the fuel trail!? 😳
Now the russians know where the RAF jet instructors offices are. PIN POINT. Tim, come one man....
Surely a joke
The seat in the MB-339 is the Mk-10L, virtually the same seat as the Hawk. The seat itself doesn't have its own parachute. There are two parachutes, the first being the duplex drogue assembly, which deploys when the drogue gun fires, and stabilises the seat. It is momentarily attached to the seat until the BTRU fires, at which time it is released and drags the other chute, the main chute, out of the head box. The seat occupant decelerates away from the seat under the rapidly deploying canopy, and the seat carries on its merry way. That's shown really clearly in this footage. Ex RNZAF MB-339 Mk10 technician.
It would be insurance to build a small road tunnel where there are public roads at the end of runways. I've seen instances where traffic is stopped by MOD police while certain types of aircraft land. I do not think that it would be too expensive if this was gradually introduced across the World. But I can say for certain that it would eventually save a life.
So unbelievably sad, bless her 😢❤...I hope her brother and the pilot make a very swift recovery. A very tragic accident. If only there were traffic lights in place at this airfield, this could have been avoided.
Not really the aircraft could have ended up anywhere, same as the RAF Valley airfield.
@@flybobbie1449 In this instance, traffic lights would have most certainly prevented the car from being hit. There wouldn't have been any cars at the end of thr runway.
The Team had just Taken Off from Caselle airport to travel a few minutes to the city of Vercelli, where the show was going to take place. Logically, after this accident, the show was cancelled.
Thank you for the video, very well done and professionaly exposed, that was very interesting.
Unfortunately like 90% of the airports around the world, every takeoff and landings present critical feauters because of the space which is never enough, no matter what.
As rightly said the pilot could have done nothing different and it's a pity to see such a crusade against him by the usual haters and poor loosers who are always ready to solve the case by blaming the pilot, especialy when from the Armed Forces.
Frecce Tricolori are a superb team and a very safe one too as you correctly stated, that accident could have happened to anyone, from a Cessna172 to a 747.
No altitude. No airspeed. No time. This is a case where I see only one option. We were to attempt to level the wings, zoom and hit air start. I can't see having the time to establish getting power back from a improbable restart if it was a bird strike. As for zoom you're at critically low speed already so you're trading a potential loss of control from a stall resulting from a zoom and rather opting for a controlled slight turn away from the formation while trying to plant it along where you would see open runway ahead with it being 10,000' long.
how the hell anyone in the car survived is a miracle
Unfortunately, this accident hasn't only ended in tragedy, the pathetic Italian legal system is now charging the pilot with manslaughter: "omicidio colposo". Sadly, this is standard practice here in Italy whenever a death is involved, as I learned some years ago through personal experience. The legal system in Italy is broken.
Good point. This reminds me of Senna's death and Italy wanting to charge Williams personnel for mansluaghter. I think the statute of limitations expired after 7.5 years and no charges were made.
Got me filling up. Poor poor family.
The blue angels trim nose down and the pilots pull against that nose down trim to help smooth out their formation corrections, reasonably heavy too, they talk of something like 20lbs of force if my memory serves me right, maybe the Freece Tricolori's do the same, and that is why the nose dropped so fast once the pilot released the stick.
My heart goes out to everyone involved, just horrible, such horrific bad fortune that the car passed at that exact moment, unbelievable.
If you watch the video you can hear a bang just before he starts dropping from the formation. Bird strike?
Further mitigation. One wonders whether, 'run of the mill' non-display departures in good vis should be flown as singletons with normal T/O power. 3 sec sep or something? Armchair knackered old armchair pilot speaking here, using a retrospectoscope.
How often does Frecci Tricalori display, compared to the hours that the Reds fly, that’s very relevant.
Possibly more. Take a look at their calendar for 2023 - maybe a bit busier due to the AMI 100th anniversary this year - but the Italians always have a lot of air shows each year, and the Freccie display all over Europe too....
Obviously this is devastating. To be honest traffic lights wouldn't be a bad idea. Here in LGPZ Greece a military airport open for civilian flying too they have lights. The airport has 2 parallel rwys 07 and 25. Rwy 07L/25R is used as a twy permanently. The end of rwy 25R ends up in a civilian road, a national road with heavy traffic too. They have placed traffic lights on both lanes pf the road right before the rwy as planes get low when landing there. It's a short rwy with a very small threshold too and road passes directly on the other side of the fence
I cannot believe the Frecce Tricoleri have had an accident.
Who would have thought a plane might have an engine failure on takeoff, apparently not the airport owners.
Thing is in the commercial world everything is twin or more, and commercial aircraft are all rated to climb on one engine. As Tim says, there's always something you can do to mitigate it, but there's really no need for commercial ops where a crash on take off is near unheard of.
that poor man that now has to live with that knowing he couldn't do anything about it.
Looking at that car, surprised anyone got out… just a horrible situation