Airlink ultra-low-altitude stadium flyover stunt under official review

Kosmik said:
yep, 90's era. But I remember the jet doing a touch and go and that thing was huge for the runway and crowd.

Sadly before smartphones and digital cameras, only footage I can find was the double cargo flyover , which was pretty low too but nowhere close to the T&G.

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Think it was 2005 (if AI is to be believed).

I do remember it being Nationwide though, a short while before they went bust.
 
Cray said:
Most modern airshows don't allow aircraft to fly directly over spectators, mainly due to a number of rather horrifying airshow accidents that killed spectators in the past.
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I was at an airshow a few years back where some entitled spectators moved onto a spot that the aircraft were maneuvering towards and refused to move. The airshow was put on hold for a while until they were extracted. These rules are taken seriously.

Of potential relevance to the Cape Town flyover are the principles expressed by the South African test pilot Desmond Barker. He was a safety analyst for the European Airshow Council and also a board member of our local one. In his book Zero Error Margin he analyzed hundreds of display accidents and formulated mitigating strategies. One was that when planning a routine one should assume an engine out at the worst possible moment, including during high-alpha passes (as we had at the stadium) and ensure that the aircraft will not impact with the crowd line. Had they taken this into account?
 
MrGray said:
I don't think you have to be an aviation expert to question whether flying passenger jets 14m over a crowded stadium through pyrotechnics with a high density residential area in the flight path behind the stadium is the wisest idea.

Fly them +100m above the stadium at a clearance that I suspect is more usual for this type of display and this wouldn't be a story. This has nothing to do with national pride, our culture of spectacular stadium flyovers or South African's reputation of being tough.

The room for error seemed very minimal and it is only reasonable to question what the worst case scenario could be if something went wrong on approach or over the stadium - would there have been sufficient altitude to bank out to sea, recover from sudden turbulence, etc etc?? I don't pretend to know the answers, but I think it clearly warrants at least asking because the fallout from an actual incident would be beyond horrendous.
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It was pretty interesting to see the aviation community reactions to the recent low-flyover of the blue angels in the US.
General consensus was that it should not have happened and was too risky.
When I saw this stadium flyover I had the same thought (regarding the risk vs. lack of safety margin).

 
garyc said:
I was at an airshow a few years back where some entitled spectators moved onto a spot that the aircraft were maneuvering towards and refused to move. The airshow was put on hold for a while until they were extracted. These rules are taken seriously.

Of potential relevance to the Cape Town flyover are the principles expressed by the South African test pilot Desmond Barker. He was a safety analyst for the European Airshow Council and also a board member of our local one. In his book Zero Error Margin he analyzed hundreds of display accidents and formulated mitigating strategies. One was that when planning a routine one should assume an engine out at the worst possible moment, including during high-alpha passes (as we had at the stadium) and ensure that the aircraft will not impact with the crowd line. Had they taken this into account?
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There was another response on the aviation thread on reddit about air pressure difference over the stadium itself. Was that taken into account? If it was safe then kudos to Airlink on there awesome achievement.
Just saying that if that somehow something went wrong - just somehow, there are 50 000 people in a stadium. There is zero room for mistakes. ZERO. In my mind I cannot believe they were 100% certain nothing would go wrong. They said they pilots with great experience. We maybe there is a reason for that.
 
garyc said:
One was that when planning a routine one should assume an engine out at the worst possible moment, including during high-alpha passes (as we had at the stadium) and ensure that the aircraft will not impact with the crowd line. Had they taken this into account?
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Spot on.
That's exactly what came up constantly with the US Blue Angels fly over debacle.
 
freematrix said:
There was another response on the aviation thread on reddit about air pressure difference over the stadium itself. Was that taken into account? If it was safe then kudos to Airlink on there awesome achievement.
Just saying that if that somehow something went wrong - just somehow, there are 50 000 people in a stadium. There is zero room for mistakes. ZERO. In my mind I cannot believe they were 100% certain nothing would go wrong. They said they pilots with great experience. We maybe there is a reason for that.
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That's what I was wondering. If you have a large amount of less dense hot air rising from within the stadium could that cause a sudden elevation drop? It's not like these low passes is something the average passenger pilot practices often, but anyway, no idea. Just an interesting thought.
 
RaptorSA said:
It looked unnecessarily risky to my novice eyes.
If that f**ing plane had hit some kind of unexpected turbulence, clipped the stadium and took out a few hundred or thousand people in a jet fuel firestorm we'd all be singing a very different tune.
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The plane's altitude was around 65m over the stadium. There's no "unexpected turbulence" besides extreme weather conditions that are going to cause an altitude loss of 12m (the closest it got to the stadium) in a plane like Airlink's E190.

At cruising altitude different story because the air is much thinner.
 
ShaunSA said:
If wishes were horses beggars would ride
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In an ideal world there'd be a f**ing Hadeda that takes off from the stadium roof, gets sucked into an engine, the plane would take a nose-dive and take out an entire pavilion filled with EFF members (they went to the wrong stadium event 'cause the followed the red smoke)... the country would then declare open war against the Hadeda and allow me to take them out with whatever object I can use as a weapon each time I walk outside and soil my panties when one screams at 150 decibels while taking off.
 
Decarin said:
Same internet experts are happy to go to air shows where closer higher speed flybys are super common and crashes actually do happen
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Whats the odds of being hit by a rugby ball or a 150kg tighthead prop at an air show?
 
Newusername said:
A review makes sense, not that all the newly qualified University of YouTube aviation experts worldwide will believe anything but their own expertise.
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A review by the same organisation that granted permission for the flight. That's like marking your own homework. Totally believable... /s
 
RaptorSA said:
That's what I was wondering. If you have a large amount of less dense hot air rising from within the stadium could that cause a sudden elevation drop? It's not like these low passes is something the average passenger pilot practices often, but anyway, no idea. Just an interesting thought.
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Lots of questions, but I can think of two factors involved:
Wind blowing over the circular stadium roof will cause natural vortices, though these have more effect on place-kicks at goal than on aircraft. I have it on good authority that foreign players are caught unaware of this.
A small change in air temperature is more likely to affect the barometric altitude reading, than engine thrust, or lift generated by the wings. Presumably the aircraft will rely on inertial navigation instruments during this phase of the flight.
 
Gordon_R said:
Lots of questions, but I can think of two factors involved:
Wind blowing over the circular stadium roof will cause natural vortices, though these have more effect on place-kicks at goal than on aircraft. I have it on good authority that foreign players are caught unaware of this.
A small change in air temperature is more likely to affect the barometric altitude reading, than engine thrust, or lift generated by the wings. Presumably the aircraft will rely on inertial navigation instruments during this phase of the flight.
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they would have known true clearance all the time, because all commercial aircraft do have radio altimeters, and they are pretty accurate, even though the display would have been smoothed out, that data is going to show exact measurements, though likely not too well, as the roof is synthetic that is more or less transparent. But definitely they did practise during the week, and they were confident that the weather was cooperative, as otherwise that fly over would have been at 500m if there was any sort of turbulence across the stadium, as this is a well thought out contingency for weather. clear still air, you can go down to planned altitude, and even if an engine flamed out from a bird strike, they had both going near full power before the fly over, so no lift compromise really, and even if they did get a bird, it would likely have just been served on the field as bird a la king, with a side of shredded feathers.

Louis Botha does have a history or rather regular bird strikes on take off and landing, and both Toyota and Mondi are still there, the most likely impact points along that runway. they finally figured out the way to keep the seagulls and geese away, as the guns and hawks did not work, was to not mow the swamp, which was a great relief to my friend, as he was one of the drivers of the 2 heavy wreckers who had to go out, with another as ATC relay, and go recover the tractor wherever it had bogged down. So now they do not mow, and it is back to being a wetland, and Toyota's parking lot.
 
Justanotherguybythesea said:
they would have known true clearance all the time, because all commercial aircraft do have radio altimeters, and they are pretty accurate, even though the display would have been smoothed out, that data is going to show exact measurements, though likely not too well, as the roof is synthetic that is more or less transparent. But definitely they did practise during the week, and they were confident that the weather was cooperative, as otherwise that fly over would have been at 500m if there was any sort of turbulence across the stadium, as this is a well thought out contingency for weather. clear still air, you can go down to planned altitude, and even if an engine flamed out from a bird strike, they had both going near full power before the fly over, so no lift compromise really, and even if they did get a bird, it would likely have just been served on the field as bird a la king, with a side of shredded feathers.

Louis Botha does have a history or rather regular bird strikes on take off and landing, and both Toyota and Mondi are still there, the most likely impact points along that runway. they finally figured out the way to keep the seagulls and geese away, as the guns and hawks did not work, was to not mow the swamp, which was a great relief to my friend, as he was one of the drivers of the 2 heavy wreckers who had to go out, with another as ATC relay, and go recover the tractor wherever it had bogged down. So now they do not mow, and it is back to being a wetland, and Toyota's parking lot.
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For the record, modern aircraft also use GPS for navigation, and cross-checking of raw altitude measurements. Fusion of all 3 methods requires complex software smoothing, if altitude is to be used for flight control inputs. In this event control was likely to be manual, with careful monitoring of instruments.

Google summary:
An aircraft uses radar altimeter and GPS data smoothing by combining absolute satellite positioning with direct ground clearance measurements in a filter to provide stable, continuous vertical guidance during critical phases like landing.
How the Integration Works
GPS Altitude: Measures height above an ellipsoid or sea level using satellites, but can suffer from vertical geometric inaccuracies or temporary signal loss.
Radar Altimeter: Measures exact height Above Ground Level (AGL) by bouncing radio waves off the terrain.
Data Fusion (Smoothing): An onboard computer (often using a Kalman filter) blends GPS, barometric altitude, and radar altimeter data.
Terrain Database Cross-Check: The system compares radar AGL readings with a stored digital terrain elevation database to correct long-term GPS drift and smooth out abrupt altitude jumps.
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