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Amazing that the pilot survived without ejecting. Sad that others have not been so lucky, he's going to have a very hard time getting over that.

Watching a few videos its not clear what went wrong, he seems to have partially stalled at an unexpected time and couldn't see a way out, perhaps he wanted his nose a bit further up before whacking full power on to get out the stall, it takes a lot of bottle to go full power when you are still pointing at the deck at low altitude. The top of the loop didn't quite look right for the type of aircraft, perhaps there was a fault on the plane.

Is that 3 now in a month.so sad. H and S will be looking at this..
Sitting in your car minding your own business then bang a plane drops from sky and wipes you out. Tragic

There was a fault alright the plane was 60 years old and should not have been doing stunts like that. The one at Oulton Park that crashed last month was 53 years old. Does this not suggest to anyone that these planes are too old to be doing stunts like this, asking for trouble and its cost at least 8 innocent lives in total.

It might sound counter-intuitive but aircraft generally get safer as they get older. The maintenance schedule(military) or maintenance checks(civil) will have been carried out numerous times, manufacturing or design defects will have been ironed out. The biggest risks to aircraft are maintenance mistakes which can happen at any age and don't get more likely on older aircraft because the next major will pick them up if they haven't already become apparent, so a 24 year old aircraft is equally as likely to develop a fault through maintenance error as a 48 year old aircraft, the riskiest time being shortly after maintenance (or manufacture).

Military aircraft have about 6 levels of service based on age and flying hours, the major service happens about every 8 years and the aircraft is literally taken apart at huge cost in money and time. After the support contract has finished, it is almost impossible for any significant waivers or changes to the design or maintenance of the aircraft to be made.

Civil aircraft are done slightly more frequently (about 6 years for a D-check which is the civilian equivalent of a major) and have 4 levels. Generally a civil aircraft of any reasonable size will have a service life of up to 24 years but these aircraft aren't as over-engineered as a military aircraft.

Some aircraft have additional maintenance requirements based on levels of stress the airframe has been put under.

Some parts of the aircraft are compulsorily replaced after a specified age and/or flying hours.

The majority of accidents are found to be pilot error including when an aircraft fails - because the pilot didn't react correctly.

This so tragic. I agree with Santos on this, as much as people love to see these classic planes perform their stunts think the time has come to put a stop to the more dangerous ones and maybe stick just to straight flying. Still could happen I know.

Fatalities are still rising, and another air crash has happened in Switzerland ! What on earth is happening ? Not so disastrous, but I think you are right, Cools.


Swiss planes collide at Dittingen airshow

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-34033478

Not sure if this is relevant but it appeared that this aircraft had drop tanks on, I don't know whether this would be standard operating procedure or not, any thoughts from aircraft buffs?

Possibly a damage limitation concept in the case of undercarriage failure.

Several Hunters have successfully landed on their drop tanks when undercarriage has failed to lower properly.