Risk to Spectators Is Low at San Diego Air Shows, Experts Say

With its rich aviation history, San Diego County is a hotbed for exhibitions of aerial derring-do, and the annual air show at Miramar Naval Air Station draws the biggest crowds.

Little wonder, then, that the tragic jet crash that killed 46 people and critically burned scores of others at a military air show in West Germany over the weekend struck a chord in many local residents. Could such a disaster happen here?

Aviation experts say probably not. Quite simply, tight federal flight restrictions make the chances slim that spectators could be placed in jeopardy at any of the hundreds of air shows held in the United States each year, they contend.

Although crashes do occur at air shows and the deaths of aviators are not rare, authorities say not a single spectator on the ground has been killed at such an exhibition in the United States.

“I think it is unlikely a tragedy similar to West Germany could happen here,” said John Tompkins, Federal Aviation Administration representative for San Diego.

Lt. Rusty Holmes, spokesman for the Blue Angels, the Navy’s precision flight team that performs at scores of air shows each year, agreed there is little chance that spectators could be felled by such a disaster in the United States.

“I don’t know what they require overseas, but everything we do here is designed to prevent something like that from happening,” Holmes said. “If there is going to be loss or injury, then we don’t want it to be someone in the crowd.”

He said the Navy’s precision flight team does not perform the stunt that caused the tragedy Sunday at the U.S. air base at Ramstein, West Germany. That trick, performed by Italian military jets, involved two packs of planes looping toward each other and crossing as a single plane swooped past from a different direction.

As a result of the tragedy, West Germany suspended military air shows and called on its NATO allies to do the same. Nonetheless, the chances of air shows in the United States being suspended is slim, experts say, noting the popularity of the events and the spotless record regarding spectator fatalities.

“These are meant to be events of entertainment,” said Chief Bobbie Carleton, a spokeswoman at Miramar Naval Air Station, where the Aug. 20 and 21 military air show drew 500,000 spectators. “And we go to great lengths to make sure that is what it stays.”

The FAA’s Tompkins said the eight to 10 air shows in San Diego County, like others held across the country, are tightly regulated affairs, with each maneuver studied for safety aspects before being approved by federal aviation experts.

He said the prime ingredient is to maintain a buffer zone between the crowds and the aircraft as they perform.

“We have a waiver system, so that, long before an air show is put on, the sponsor comes to the FAA with an exact itinerary that shows what altitudes and attitudes the planes will fly at as well as the actual maneuvers,” Tompkins said. “Each maneuver for each aircraft is carefully examined to ensure proper separation from the crowd is maintained.”

Aircraft are never allowed to head in the direction of a crowd while performing crossover maneuvers or other difficult tricks, Tompkins said.

In addition, FAA experts calculate the “scatter distance” for an aircraft should it hit another plane and begin wheeling to the ground, he said. Based on those calculations, planes are allowed to perform their stunts anywhere from 1,000 to 2,000 feet away from spectator areas.

“I think our record would indicate that the guys do a really bang-up job of looking out for problems ahead of time,” Tompkins said.

At each meet, the FAA dispatches one to five flight-standards inspectors, who monitor the air show and have the power to shut down an exhibition if a pilot strays from a planned route, Tompkins said.

Holmes said the Blue Angels do crossover maneuvers in which six planes loop up and swoop past one another simultaneously, but the stunt is planned so that the planes are not aimed toward a spectator area. Should one plane hit another, there is sufficient margin for error so that the aircraft would not tumble into the crowd, he said.

Although the Blue Angels fly over spectators during air shows, those acts do not involve any sort of difficult stunts, Holmes said.

But even the best planning would be for naught if a pilot erred and veered toward a crowd. Both Holmes and Tompkins pointed out, however, that the military pilots involved in performances by groups such as the Blue Angels and the Air Force’s Thunderbirds are highly trained aviators.

“Any time you are involved in flight, some danger exists,” Holmes said. “But all the practice is designed to minimize that danger. It’s designed to eliminate the risk to the audience.”

The Blue Angels, a squad of half a dozen stellar Navy pilots, are required to fly 120 practice air shows in their F/A-18 fighter jets before they can perform before a crowd, Holmes said.

Since the elite team was formed in 1946, it has suffered 22 fatalities. Three of those have occurred in the past decade, and only one of those was at an air show, he said.

Over the years, several accidents have occurred at San Diego County air shows. The most recent involved a World War II-era fighter plane that crashed in May, 1987, on a grassy hillside near Lower Otay Reservoir while participating in an air show at Brown Field, killing the veteran pilot and his passenger.

The National Transportation Safety Board says that, since 1983, it has investigated 25 accidents at civilian air shows in the United States involving 28 planes and 11 fatalities. The figures do not include accidents at military shows.

Such tragedies have not marred the luster of air shows across the country, which draw 18 million spectators a year, more than attend professional football games.