Crash pilot was 300ft lower than allowed

THE pilot in the Shoreham Air Show crash was 300ft lower than he should have been as he looped the loop, a report revealed yesterday.

Andrew Hill was flying his vintage jet fighter only 200ft above sea level when he began the stunt.

He failed to pull the 1959 Hawker Hunter out of its loop, crashing on to the A27 in a fireball that killed 11 people on the ground.

Video footage from the cockpit showed ‘no abnormal indicators’ with the jet before the tragedy on August 22.

But Mr Hill’s licence to fly at air displays limited him to performing aerobatic manoeuvres above 500ft, the preliminary Air Accidents Investigation Branch report said. Former British Air- ways pilot Mr Hill, 51, was 300ft lower than he should have been, it added.

‘During the descent the aircraft accelerated and the nose was raised but the aircraft did not achieve level flight before it struck the westbound carriage of the A27,’ it said. On impact, the aircraft broke into four main pieces and came to rest more than 250 yards away.

Mr Hill and his seat were thrown clear from the cockpit. The investigation has not yet determined whether he ejected or was propelled from the wreckage by the force of the impact.

Mr Hill was seriously injured and remains in hospital, having been put in an induced coma.

Aviation expert David Learmount, consulting editor of Flightglobal online magazine, said the crash would not have happened if the plane had started at a higher altitude.

He said: ‘ With a vertical manoeuvre, you tend to go out of it in the same height you go in. But it’s easy to come out of it slightly lower – you don’t have to make much of a misjudgment.

‘If he had been at 500ft when he entered the manoeuvre and done exactly the same thing, 11 people would be alive today.’

‘No abnormal indicators’