Unfortunately there was another fatality at the Reno Air races today.  Not much available from what I’ve seen, but it was from the Jet Class.

https://www.kcra.com/amp/article/pilot-killed-crash-reno-national-championship-air-races/41272948

"Ejection seats are removed or disabled during the races". Whose bright idea was that?

Here’s another view from a bystander. 
 

 

@HiFlyer Didn’t know that. Maybe ones that had them removed them to save weight? I don’t know if any or many L-39s in civilian use have ejection seats?

A little more info and better video of what ensued prior to the crash. Looks like the pilot, Aaron Hogue, was having an issue with the jet prior to going down.

https://calcoastnews.com/2022/09/paso-robles-man-killed-in-a-jet-crash-in-reno-video/

6 hours ago, HiFlyer said:

"Ejection seats are removed or disabled during the races". Whose bright idea was that?

It's a ruling by the F.A.A. (Federal Aviation Administration) and it applies to all air races. It's meant to prevent an even worse situation by having a pilotless aircraft in such close proximity to spectators and other aircraft.

11 hours ago, W2DR said:

It's a ruling by the F.A.A. (Federal Aviation Administration) and it applies to all air races. It's meant to prevent an even worse situation by having a pilotless aircraft in such close proximity to spectators and other aircraft.

That’s interesting, I didn’t know that. Unfortunately in this fellows case, since he was out of the show line and on the other side of the course, he could have used it without any risk to the spectators.

 

42 minutes ago, cmpbellsjc said:

That’s interesting, I didn’t know that. Unfortunately in this fellows case, since he was out of the show line and on the other side of the course, he could have used it without any risk to the spectators.

 

Exactly.

I was actually at Reno, so I saw the entire thing happen from the grandstands through binoculars. 

From what I saw, it looked a lot like Hogue was somehow incapacitated, since the sequence of events appeared to begin with the airplane starting a climb off the racing line, towards the center of the course (the airport) which is exactly what the pilots are trained to do if there's any kind of problem. Once it climbed a bit, the airplane rolled to the right and leveled out, and stopped at about a 90 degree right bank, before rolling back to the left and starting to descend, ending in what looked like about a 90 degree bank, and it stayed in that attitude until impact. 

The way the aircraft was maneuvering, it looked to be responding to control inputs, so I'm wondering if Hogue was partially incapacitated or disoriented by G-LOC, since those aircraft are pulling a constant 3-5G's for basically the entire race.

The FAA actually did allow ejection seats for the first year or two of the jet class, and there were ongoing discussions with the FAA about allowing ejection seats again prior to this year, so I assume that conversation just got a lot more interesting. 

For anyone wondering why they don't fly higher, the 50-250'AGL altitude window and 525mph speed limit the racers are restricted to are actually in place because it was calculated that within those limits, anything falling off of an aircraft (and presumably debris from a crash) doesn't have the ability to hit the grandstands by the start/finish pylon, or any of the buildings near other parts of the course.

 

After what happened to that P51 Mustang a few years ago, I wouldn't be going anywhere near an air race.

He certainly suspects G-LOC.

RIP

Edited September 20, 20223 yr by Matt Webb

The Galloping Ghost crash was caused by a series of smaller failures all lining up perfectly to cause a horrific accident, and almost all of those have since been fixed.

The root cause was a nut on the elevator trim tab failing, which caused the trim tab to break off the airplane, resulting in an almost instant 17G pull-up incapacitating the pilot.

That nut should have been replaced years prior (it never was), and this likely would have been caught on the technical inspection Reno required, but the rules at the time were worded as such that the pilot thought the aircraft didn't actually need an inspection, and the event organizers failed to realize that the inspection never happened. Many of the modifications on the accident aircraft were never documented anywhere, and it's unclear if they were ever flight tested or properly analyzed.

Exacerbating this was the fact that the FAA's guidance on how far from spectators the race course could be disagreed with itself, with one document specifying a minimum distance of 500ft (which Reno followed) and another specifying 1000ft, which would have been far enough to keep the debris from hitting spectators. 

After the crash, Reno changed the course and grandstands layout to keep the aircraft further from spectators, and they now require Unlimited class airplanes to provide a detailed engineering analysis of modifications before being allowed to race. Reno now requires pilots to receive training in dealing with high G maneuvers, and the FAA completely rewrote almost all of their guidance for air racing to be simpler to understand and remove any ambiguities. 

Edited September 20, 20223 yr by ndts

RIP to the pilot and condolences to his family.

Would an ejection sear even be safe to use at those low altitudes?  I could be wrong but thought you needed to be higher for a safe ejection with most models.

Plane racing has always boggled my mind a bit, like how aren’t there more crashes, midair collisions etc?

Edited September 24, 20223 yr by regis9

What a tragedy. 😥

On 9/24/2022 at 6:33 AM, regis9 said:

RIP to the pilot and condolences to his family.

Would an ejection sear even be safe to use at those low altitudes?  I could be wrong but thought you needed to be higher for a safe ejection with most models.

Plane racing has always boggled my mind a bit, like how aren’t there more crashes, midair collisions etc?

Since about the 1970's, most ejections seats in the west have been "zero-zero", meaning they can work at zero altitude and zero airspeed. Obviously, these airplanes are significantly older (especially the L-29's), and are former Soviet bloc, so I'd assume that at least some of the seats do require a certain altitude and/or airspeed to work, but I don't know what the specifics are.

As to how they avoid crashes, pilots wanting to compete at Reno are required to attend Pylon Racing School, which happens in June, and is an intensive four day course that requires pilots to demonstrate proficiency in what's been deemed "hotstile formation flying" as well as the proper procedures to follow when passing (you can't pass on the inside at Reno) and in the event of something going wrong on the course.

On top of that, there's a "contest committee" watching all the events for pilots doing anything deemed reckless, and penalties can range from being disqualified from that event, to a ban on any further flying the rest of the weekend if someone does something dumb.