16 September 2007

Tragedy at Airshow


RIP - Plume of smoke rises where a Hurricane went down yesterday

Rose and I were amongst the crowd of 20,000 or so at the Shoreham Air Show yesterday who witnessed the crash of a Hurricane and the (almost certainly) instant death of the pilot. It was a very sad scene to witness, and our hearts have been very sad for the bereaved family. As far as I can tell, the plane was pasrt of the Historic Aircraft Collection based at Duxford airfield, and may have been known as G-HURI and flying with the letters HA-C.

The picture below is of the crashed plane (on the righ, furthest from camera) that was taken not long before the accident ocurred during the Battle of Britain re-enactment. The remaining British planes immediately stopped flying the re-enactment and moments later came on a flypast in the 'missing man' formation, which was most poignant.



The airshow was stopped for 30 minutes whilst officials needed to take steps to ensure emergency services got to the site, and we were impressed by the way the situation was handled. The crowd around us was visibly shaken. About an hour later, a yellow search and rescue chopper came by and landed near the sight, for what we can only imagine was for the start of the investigation and removal of the pilot. The second day of the show was going to go on today, in mmemory of the fallen pilot, Brian Brown.


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

That photograph causes one to pause and reflect on how the south-east of England must have looked 65 odd years ago, with many of the same model, + assorted others, hitting the deck just as hard and presumably throwing up a plume of similar density.

Our thoughts and condolences are with the family of Brian Brown.