Frecce Tricolori crash on take off

[Alex Z]

One of the Frecce Tricolori jets (Italian national air display team) has crashed on take off, killing one person on the ground.
It looks like it lost power and dropped out of formation before the pilot ejected safely, but the road curves round the end of the runway. When the jet came down it went through the fence and across the road.

https://theaviationist.com/2023/09/16/frecce-trico...

[jamieduff1981]

That's awful.

[Alex Z]

jamieduff1981 said:

That's awful.

Indeed, but not much the pilot could have done differently in that situation. A second or two either way and the car would have been fine.

[stuthemong]

Can’t imagine having to live with that for the rest of his life. Awful.

[Simpo Two]

Anyone else thinking Shoreham Hunter?

[Jim H]

And Ramstein.

[Jake899]

To be fair both Ramstein and Shoreham were down to piloting error, this appears to have been down to a mechanical failure.
Both tragic nonetheless.
Video shows the force of ejection pushing the nose down, reminds me of the "cornfield bomber", the F106 that entered an unrecoverable spin, and when the pilot ejected, the force of the ejection stopped the spin and the plane came down almost intact in a corn field. In this case, ejector seat technology is marvellous and stopped adding another fatality to the accident. I hope the family and the pilot all recover as much as possible.

[Alex Z]

Simpo Two said:

Anyone else thinking Shoreham Hunter?

Nope. That was an avoidable pilot error. This appears to be a mechanical failure at the worst moment.

[Zippee]

I've seen a few reports it was a possible bird strike.
Absolutely tragic either way

[MarkwG]

Alex Z said:

Simpo Two said:

Anyone else thinking Shoreham Hunter?

Nope. That was an avoidable pilot error. This appears to be a mechanical failure at the worst moment.

Indeed, didn't cross my mind either - no logical reason why it would.

[tr7v8]

Zippee said:

I've seen a few reports it was a possible bird strike.
Absolutely tragic either way

That's what I've heard as well

[ChemicalChaos]

Absolutely tragic coincidence for there to be a car there just as it overran the runway.

I assume that even if he'd had the forethought to do so in a split second situation, there wouldn't have been enough airspeed/control authority for the pilot to pitch it vertical before ejecting to ensure it fell back on the runway, or would that have made it worse?

[Simpo Two]

MarkwG said:

Alex Z said:

Simpo Two said:

Anyone else thinking Shoreham Hunter?

Nope. That was an avoidable pilot error. This appears to be a mechanical failure at the worst moment.

Indeed, didn't cross my mind either - no logical reason why it would.

Only that an aeroplane at an airshow goes out of control and crashes onto a road killing a member of the public. That was the only connection, hardly anything really.

[MarkwG]

Simpo Two said:

MarkwG said:

Alex Z said:

Simpo Two said:

Anyone else thinking Shoreham Hunter?

Nope. That was an avoidable pilot error. This appears to be a mechanical failure at the worst moment.

Indeed, didn't cross my mind either - no logical reason why it would.

Only that an aeroplane at an airshow goes out of control and crashes onto a road killing a member of the public. That was the only connection, hardly anything really.

This accident wasn't at an airshow, or displaying.

[AlexIT]

ChemicalChaos said:

Absolutely tragic coincidence for there to be a car there just as it overran the runway.

I assume that even if he'd had the forethought to do so in a split second situation, there wouldn't have been enough airspeed/control authority for the pilot to pitch it vertical before ejecting to ensure it fell back on the runway, or would that have made it worse?

Sad thing when such accidents happen and take the life of children.

I don't think that the pilot could have done anything different.
The airport was active for passenger traffic when the accident happened, less than 5 minutes before the take-off of the Frecce a Royal Air Maroc flight landed there and at the time of the accident might well have been on the taxiway parallel to the runway, or there might have been other activity going on alongside it.
From the information loitering around it seems he tried to restart the engine but finally had to pull out, he definitely communicate the problem to the team, so I don't think it will take long before having a better understanding of the exact causes of the accident.

[aeropilot]

AlexIT said:

From the information loitering around it seems he tried to restart the engine but finally had to pull out, he definitely communicate the problem to the team, so I don't think it will take long before having a better understanding of the exact causes of the accident.

Unlikely to be a bird strike then, if he was trying a restart......... which I'm surprised he even had time to do, as its about 12 secs from time that aircraft could seen to be falling out of formation and it impacting the ground, so about 10 secs to ejection, and about 8 secs to likely initiating ejection sequence.

Very, very sad about the child, one of those horrible wrong place, wrong time situations, and the opposite of the Mig23 crash in USA a few weeks ago, which by a similar but opposite fate, no one on the ground was killed, which was just good luck given where the aircraft crashed into a residential area.

[eharding]

aeropilot said:

AlexIT said:

From the information loitering around it seems he tried to restart the engine but finally had to pull out, he definitely communicate the problem to the team, so I don't think it will take long before having a better understanding of the exact causes of the accident.

Unlikely to be a bird strike then, if he was trying a restart......... which I'm surprised he even had time to do, as its about 12 secs from time that aircraft could seen to be falling out of formation and it impacting the ground, so about 10 secs to ejection, and about 8 secs to likely initiating ejection sequence.

Very, very sad about the child, one of those horrible wrong place, wrong time situations, and the opposite of the Mig23 crash in USA a few weeks ago, which by a similar but opposite fate, no one on the ground was killed, which was just good luck given where the aircraft crashed into a residential area.

The T-28 crash at an airshow in Hungary last week very nearly did the same - fell out of a roll, tried to pull through and went in yards from where a couple of cars were parked in a field away from the airfield with families on board.

[happygoron]

The Canadian Snowbirds had a similar incident a few years back, nobody on the ground hurt but the passenger sadly didnt survive the ejection.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Snowbirds_cra...

[AlexIT]

aeropilot said:

AlexIT said:

From the information loitering around it seems he tried to restart the engine but finally had to pull out, he definitely communicate the problem to the team, so I don't think it will take long before having a better understanding of the exact causes of the accident.

Unlikely to be a bird strike then, if he was trying a restart......... which I'm surprised he even had time to do, as its about 12 secs from time that aircraft could seen to be falling out of formation and it impacting the ground, so about 10 secs to ejection, and about 8 secs to likely initiating ejection sequence.

Probably just speculations, as usual the best thing to do is let the investigation do its way and wait. Unfortunately the outcome will not change.

[MarkwG]

AlexIT said:

aeropilot said:

AlexIT said:

From the information loitering around it seems he tried to restart the engine but finally had to pull out, he definitely communicate the problem to the team, so I don't think it will take long before having a better understanding of the exact causes of the accident.

Unlikely to be a bird strike then, if he was trying a restart......... which I'm surprised he even had time to do, as its about 12 secs from time that aircraft could seen to be falling out of formation and it impacting the ground, so about 10 secs to ejection, and about 8 secs to likely initiating ejection sequence.

Probably just speculations, as usual the best thing to do is let the investigation do its way and wait. Unfortunately the outcome will not change.

It is speculation, but it looks more to me like, if the pilot was doing anything, he was using that small fraction of time to establish whether to risk staying with the aircraft in the hope the overrun was clear enough to survive, or eject, knowing ejecting at that low level includes massive risks of it's own.