Plane crashes at Reno air show, described as "mass casualty event"

[Seshmeister]

I wouldn't say that flying aircraft is particularly dangerous, but I think airshows are.

[FORD]

Yeah, it's not so much the planes themselves but rather the closeness of the audience. If you get a mechanical fuckup in your "trim tab" (part of the tail) that causes the plane to go vertical, then the pilot can pretty much kiss his ass goodbye, and that sucks for him, but, absent an air show, he wouldn't have taken 8 others with him.

At the very least, I'll bet they don't have "box seats" at this event in the future. Had the entire audience been in the bleachers when this crash happened, I doubt there would have been any other casualties at all, since the flying debris didn't seem to go that far, from the videos I've seen.

[Seshmeister]

After watching the Ukraine air show disaster on line a few months ago I vowed I would never go to one of those things.

Absolutely horrific.

I realise that statistically there is an argument that hundreds of them go off with no problem but the footage of bits of the 19 dead kids strewn all over the place was pretty convincing that standing underneath planes doing acrobatics with your family was taking a needless risk.

[Nitro Express]

I wouldn't say that flying aircraft is particularly dangerous, but I think airshows are.

Flying an aircraft low to the ground and pushing it hard is dangerous. Flying in the Reno air races is dangerous. The most dangerous part of flying is take off and final approach. If you lose an engine then you don't have time to restart it. Being up higher buys you time.

Air shows can be made safer by distancing the crowd from where the planes are flying. Notice at Reno the plane crashed into the VIP section. Why? Those were the seats closest to the action.

The closer you are the more thrilling but the plane might just crash where you are observing from. Maybe they should have general seating in a safe distanced area and then post it that you may be hit by airplane wreckage past a certain point. At least let the people know the risk they are taking.

I ski in avalanche areas and they post the dangers and let everyone know past that point you are on your own. I know how to read the snow and there are some days you do it and other days it's suicide to go in there. The fabulous untouched powder is worth the risk. I've done it for years.

[fifth element]

kudos to all of you pilots ...you're all doing something that i would have loved to try, but never got around to.

[PETE'S BROTHER]

kudos to all of you pilots ...you're all doing something that i would have loved to try, but never got around to.

ya need one of these?

[Nitro Express]

kudos to all of you pilots ...you're all doing something that i would have loved to try, but never got around to.

Flying has always been expensive but right now it's really expensive and it's all about flight hours. The more the better. What's funny is my flight instructor said so many beginning pilots use a flight simulator program to learn the instrument panel that when you get them into a real plane you have to tell them to look out the fucking window instead of being fixated on the instruments all the time.

He said before those programs became available you were always trying to get the newbies to learn their instruments and stop relying on visual references so much. Now he says instruments are no longer the challenge they were common sense seems to be missing. LOL!

Really if you want to start flying get you one of those flight simulator programs and go to it. You can actually learn a lot from them and will be better prepared than if you just showed up to a flight school with zero experience. You can learn the instrument panel, how to navigate, how to do a controlled turn. You can kill yourself many times over without actually dying. That's where I would start.

[fifth element]

thx, Nitro, my son actually has one of those Simulator programs, given to him from a friend of ours who is a pilot....
I'll have to give it a shot one day.

[Nitro Express]

thx, Nitro, my son actually has one of those Simulator programs, given to him from a friend of ours who is a pilot....
I'll have to give it a shot one day.

You can actually get real flight hours on simulator now. I got real stick time very young. My dad would let me fly his plane. He would tell me the compass heading and the altitude. I always went up in altitude though. I wasn't even big enough to reach the rudder pedals with my feet or see over the instrument panel. My job during the pre flight was to go under the wing and bleed the tank bottoms. I was short enough that I could get under the wing of a Piper Cherokee no problem.

[lesfunk]

Some pics just before impact

[Nitro Express]

With the G's that plane was pulling I'm sure the pilot blacked out before it crashed. He barely had time to shit his pants. If he was up higher he probably could have recovered from it and landed the plane. Pushing things that hard that low is extremely dangerous. Flying the air races is also very taxing on your body because of the high G load.

[SunisinuS]

The fight of flight goes on:

http://www.cnn.com/2011/10/14/world/americas/af447-transcript/index.html?iref=obinsite