I’m not cavalier ... I was being disciplined
Shoreham crash pilot insists he ‘aimed to avoid risk’
THE pilot accused of killing 11 people in the Shoreham disaster yesterday insisted he was no thrill- seeker.
Andrew Hill, who survived when his vintage jet crashed into cars on a busy road, said he had a disciplined approach to flying.
Prosecutors had told the old Bailey the 54-year-old former RAf instructor has a history of taking risks, often played fast and loose with the rules and had a ‘more cavalier attitude to safety than was appropriate’.
Karim Khalil QC, defending, asked Hill whether it was true that he was cavalier. Hill replied: ‘I would say I was probably one of the least people that applied to, in the sense that there are ways to be cavalier and some people are, some people are not. I believe I took a very structured, disciplined approach to flying.’
Hill told the court he sometimes held back from flights he was not comfortable with.
Before he took off on the day of the crash, he was seen walking through the flight plan on the ground – a practice he used for all his routines.
Hill said he was known for producing ‘lots and lots of paper work, details of planning’. Mr Khalil asked him whether he intended to endanger the public with his display at Shoreham Airshow in West Sussex on August 22, 2015. Hill, who was a British Airways captain at the time, replied: ‘Absolutely not, for a multitude of reasons. It was the primary aim of the display to avoid risk.’ Relatives of the crash victims sat in the packed courtroom quietly listening to his evidence. Eleven men were killed and 16 others injured when Hill’s fighter jet exploded. He denies 11 charges of manslaughter by gross negligence and a charge of endangering an aircraft. Hill had an incredible escape when his 1950s Hawker Hunter plunged onto the A27 and exploded after a failed attempt at carrying out a loop.
The court was told he experienced ‘cognitive impairment’ shortly before the crash and does not remember what happened. He was thrown from the cockpit and found in undergrowth. He told doctors he blacked out in the air.
Hill, who passed medical checks before and after the crash, told the court that he was in good health. Giving his life story, he described himself as an A- grade student who grew up in Kent and attended Tonbridge, a prestigious boarding school.
He won a place at Cambridge University and studied engineering and then computer science, graduating with an honours degree in 1985. He went straight into the RAf, quickly winning a flying competition and being selected to become an instructor because of his abilities.
A month of active service followed when he was assigned to monitor no-fly zones in northern Iraq. Hill left the RAf to become a commercial pilot with Virgin Atlantic and then British Airways, where he rose to the senior position of captain.
He has been married to Ellie, a retired flying instructor and BA captain, for 20 years. They live in Buntingford, Hertfordshire.
The jury has already been told of three incidents in 2014 when there were apparent concerns over Hill’s flying.
during a practice for the duxford Airshow in Cambridgeshire, Hill flew over the crowd line, prosecutors said.
The jury were also told he twice flew over the M11 much lower than permitted – but this assertion was later withdrawn.
The case continues.