Hawker Hunter crashes into main road at air show

[Tranquilis]

@LSLGuy

In March 2017 the UK AAIB has issued their final report on this accident. See Aircraft Accident Report AAR 1/2017 - G-BXFI, 22 August 2015 - GOV.UK for a summary and links to the full report and supporting documents.

As we speculated a couple years ago, the pilot arrived at the apex of the looping maneuver too low and slow to successfully complete it. But he was unaware of that error until much later in the last half of the loop.

The report also indicates that from the apex and as he started down the back side the pilot had about 4 seconds in which to recognize the error and abort the maneuver. Once past that point he was committed to ground impact.

A zombie thread with a valid purpose.
Thank you for the update.

[PastTense]

@Teuton

The Civil Aviation Authority has said today that vintage jets, such as the Hawker Hunter that crashed, will be limited to flypasts and not able to perform high-energy aerobatics over land until further notice.

I’m not sure if the suggestion is that this is a ban that they don’t intend to lift.

So did they lift that ban?

[LSLGuy]

From my reading (intro @ CAP 403: Flying Displays and Special Events: Safety and Administrative Requirements and Guidance) it seems that back in 2016 or so that guidance was relaxed a bit but also regularized. Fly-pasts are the norm, but with specific authorization pilots may be approved for loops and barrel rolls in ex-military jets. From context it appears to me that more complex maneuvers (such as the one the Hawker failed to complete) are flat prohibited.
The big outcome of the investigation was that in the UK as between the airshow pilots, the airshow organizers, and the government, each thought somebody else was doing an end-to-end risk analysis and establishing a controlled minimum level of safety. When in fact nobody was looking at the total picture and what work was done separately at all three levels left a lot of gaps.

Some things (such as I cite above) have already been changed. The AAIB final report carries recommendations for more changes in system-level safety management.