Searching the term Aerobatics on Wikipedia reveals the following: “Aerobatics are most likely to be seen at public airshows in the form of stunt flying” – it is not therefore unreasonable for the public or even those with flying experience to use the word ‘stunt’ when referring to aerobatic displays at air shows.

Condolences to all involved or touched by this terrible accident the cause of which will only be ascertained by the appropriate experts investigating in time.

Aerobatics by their very nature increase the risk of an accident occurring. The enthusiasts from flyers to the general public have a range of desires in respect of historic aircraft – from walking past a static display, to performing and witnessing an aircraft doing a simple fly past through to more advanced manoeuvres including aerobatics.

We live in times where it is unacceptable for members of the public to be put at risk of injury or death from historic fast jet displays where the public are simply going about their daily business. The same might also be said for those who quite rightly attend air displays be that within or outside airfield grounds.

Any aircraft can and will fall out of the sky given a chain of events where all the holes in the cheese line up but certainly the risk of injury or death to pilots and even more importantly the public can be reduced significantly by asking the most basic of questions:

If the pilot becomes incapacitated is there someone else in the cockpit to take control? (and hence do you allow single seater historic fast jet displays)
If there is a mechanical failure due to the engine ingesting something or some other primary failure, is there enough altitude for the aircraft to make it to the nearest airfield?
If the aircraft does start to fall out of the sky how much altitude and hence recovery time is there?
If it cannot make it to an airfield, where are several tonnes of metal, an ignition source and aviation fuel going to end up in the next few seconds?