by Pete Fusco
A conversation between Wicker and Schwenker before the performance gives a bit of insight and might help explain the aircraft’s slower-than-usual airspeed. Wicker was overheard telling Schwenker that he had flown too fast in the previous performance for her to position herself on the wing. The NTSB’s report stated that it was “likely that the pilot flew a more gradual maneuver to reduce the forces against the wing walker.” It might explain why Schwenker was below the 110-knot target speed for the roll.
Two years before Jane Wicker was killed, another well-known wing walker was fatally injured in an accident during an airshow. Amanda Franklin, twenty-five years old, died of burns and injuries two months after a crash at Air Fiesta 2011 at Brownsville-South Padre International Airport in Texas.
Amanda was on the wing of a Waco biplane flown by her husband, Kyle Franklin, when the engine lost power. She was able to scramble into the front cockpit before the forced landing but was severely burned in the fire that followed. Amanda was taken to Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio where she was treated for burns and injuries. She died on May 27 from complications.
Kyle was also injured in the crash but made a full recovery. Kyle’s father was Jimmy Franklin, one of the pilots lost in the Masters of Disaster midair collision in 2005 in Canada. Amanda’s father was Bobby Younkin, the other pilot killed in the midair. Kyle, as well as Bobby Younkin’s son, Matt, continue to fly airshows.
As wing walkers, Jane Wicker and Amanda Franklin enjoyed the most freedom from government regulation of any performers in civil aviation. They were part of flying’s last unrestricted frontier, as free as the wind. There’s but a single question on the wing walker job application. If one has to ask what that question is, he or she need not apply.
60
OUTSIDE THE GATE
THOSE killed on the ground in a crash at the Shoreham Airshow in England on August 22, 2015, were not spectators. Instead, they were driving along Highway A27 in West Sussex, a short distance from the airport.
The drivers and passengers in the automobiles no doubt craned their necks to watch Andy Hill perform over the highway in a 1950s vintage Hawker Hunter jet fighter. They saw him enter a giant loop over the highway. Hall never completed the maneuver. At the bottom of the loop, he crashed among dozens of vehicles.
The Hunter broke into four parts and exploded. The scattering debris and fire killed eleven people and injured sixteen others. Hill and his ejection seat were thrown from the aircraft on impact. He survived, was taken to a nearby hospital for treatment of serious injuries, and released after a month.
Hawker Hunter that crashed on highway at Shoreham Airshow in England. Courtesy of John 5199.
There had not been a spectator fatality at a British airshow since 1952, when John Derry’s de Havilland Sea Vixen disintegrated in the air at Farnborough. That day falling debris killed thirty spectators and injured many more. British airshow safety regulations were rewritten as a result. After Farnborough, jets at airshows were required to stay at least 750 feet laterally from crowds if flying straight and level and 1,500 feet when performing aerobatic maneuvers. Minimum altitude was 500 feet. The restrictions offered additional protection for spectators but not for those driving on a highway near the airport.
Hill, fifty-six, a former Royal Air Force pilot, conformed to all the restrictions except the 500-foot minimum altitude rule. He entered his loop at an estimated 200 feet, according to an interim report released by the British Air Accidents Investigations Branch. Hill was authorized to fly below 500 feet only for “flypasts.”
The AAIB report stated: “During the descent (from the top of the loop) the aircraft accelerated and the nose was raised but the aircraft did not achieve level flight before it struck the westbound carriageway of the A27.” The Hunter was pitched up about 45 degrees when it hit. Hill came very close to completing the loop.
After the Shoreham accident, the British government’s reaction was swift and added further restrictions to those imposed after the 1952 Farnborough tragedy. All civilian-registered Hawker Hunters were temporarily grounded. All other civilian vintage jets were limited to “flypasts” and most aerobatic maneuvers were banned.
The AAIB made many recommendations to the British Civil Air Authority, which accepted some and rejected others. Both bodies, however, agreed on a possible future regulation that will certainly draw fire from British airshow pilots, if not airshow pilots worldwide. It would allow the CAA “to immediately suspend the Display Authorization of a pilot whose competence is in doubt, pending investigation of the occurrence…” The AAIB stopped short of identifying exactly who would judge the pilot’s competence.
England’s airshow safety standards are already among the highest in the world. They include a provision, similar but less drastic than the proposed new rule, which allows an authorized person on the ground to issue a “stop call” at any time it appears that regulations are being violated or that the pilot is flying recklessly. When a stop call is issued, the pilot must cut short his or her routine and land.
In fact, a stop call was issued to Hill at an airshow in Southport, England in 2014, a year before his Shoreham crash. The airshow flight director thought Hill, who was flying a Jet Provost T5, was too low and too close to spectators. He ordered Hill to terminate his display and land. After some discussion, Hill offered to alter his routine to fit the rules and was allowed to fly the next day at the show.
The AAIB cited Hill’s stop call at Southport as a missed opportunity to question Hill’s competence, as would be allowed under the new rule it recommended to the CAA.
A countrywide ripple effect followed Shoreham. An airshow scheduled the following weekend at Durham Tees Valley was cancelled. Organizers blamed the new rules that would have “severely impacted” planned jet aircraft displays. The 2016 Llandudno Airshow was cancelled for similar reasons. Other airshows were not cancelled but were altered to conform to the new rules. The RAF’s Red Arrows did not cancel their appearance at the Farnborough International Airshow in 2016 but announced they would perform only a “flypast” instead of an aerobatic routine.
As late as the summer of 2017, Sussex Police were still investigating the crash and considering manslaughter charges against Hill. It was a dual investigation of the Shoreham accident and the 2014 Southport Airshow, in which Hill did not finish his show because of the stop call. The charges under consideration were “manslaughter by gross negligence” and also a charge of “endangerment” under the Air Navigation Order. A conviction for manslaughter in England could result in life imprisonment.
Another case that involved great loss of life of those “outside the gate” occurred on September 24, 1972, when a Korean War-era jet fighter failed to become airborne during an attempted takeoff from the Golden West Sport Aviation Airshow at Sacramento, California’s Executive Airport.
Moving at about 125 mph, the jet went off the end of the runway, through a fence, over a levee berm, and across a highway. The Canadair Sabre Mark 5, the Canadian version of the North American F-86 Sabrejet, killed two occupants in a parked car before smashing into the party room of a Farrell’s Ice Cream Parlor, where it exploded and burned. Twenty-two persons, including twelve children, were killed. Many more were injured.
The pilot, Richard Bingham, thirty-six years old, suffered a broken arm and leg in the accident. He was pulled from the cockpit crying, “I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” Bingham had not performed at the airshow; he flew in only to put his aircraft on static display. He was departing when the accident occurred.
Bingham, according to the National Transportation Safety Board, had raised the nose of the civilian-owned Mark 5 too soon and three times higher than normal, a situation that made taking off aerodynamically impossible. With its nose high in the air, the jet bounced on its main gear along the runway. The pilot seemed to take no corrective action. Bingham had only four hours’ flight time in the vintage jet, a fact listed as a “probable cause” by the NTSB. The Mark 5 jet that Bingham flew w
as not equipped with an afterburner, which would have supplied extra power during the takeoff. It’s never been explained why Bingham did not abort the takeoff attempt when it became apparent the aircraft would not leave the ground.
As deadly as the accident was, it could have been worse. The Mark 5’s two wing tanks, full of fuel, were sheared off on the airport side of the highway and burst into flames. There were an estimated one hundred people in the ice cream parlor. Had the tanks stayed on the aircraft and burned or exploded inside the building, many more might have been killed or injured.
Four years after the accident, a $5 million settlement was awarded to the survivors of those killed and injured in the Farrell’s Ice Cream tragedy.
As the British government had done following the 1952 Farnborough and the 2015 Shoreham crashes, the Federal Aviation Administration stepped in after the Mark 5 accident and tightened the rules for civilian ownership and operation of former military jets in the U.S. The FAA pushed through new rules that prohibited military jets operated by civilians from flying over densely-populated areas. Routes to and from airshows require FAA approval. Stricter rules for pilot checkouts in such aircraft were imposed. Before a pilot could operate the jet anywhere other than at his or her home field, an FAA inspector would have to witness three takeoffs and landings.
Man has always had a tenuous link with the dangerous forces that surround him. Some are natural, while some he creates. Stray aircraft moving at high speed are mercifully rare.
61
LATE FOR WORK
WHEN Eddie Andreini crashed his Stearman biplane on May 4, 2014, at an airshow at Travis Air Force Base in Fairfield, California, the accident became forever and inextricably linked with the subject of emergency vehicle response time, or lack thereof.
The seventy-seven-year-old Andreini was alive when he impacted the ground performing a low-level inverted ribbon pickup at the Thunder Over Solano show. After sliding a short distance on its back, the Stearman began to burn. The aircraft had been fitted with a canopy that opened from the left side of the aircraft and folded up and over, rather than slid back. The weight of the Stearman rested on the upper wing and canopy, which was not equipped with a “quick release” mechanism. Andreini had no way to open or jettison it.
Andreini hung upside down by his seat belt and struggled to exit as he sought help on the radio. A member of his crew rushed to the aircraft and attempted to extinguish the fire with a hand-held fire bottle but it was not sufficient. Air force firefighters, who were located an incomprehensible mile and a half away, took five minutes to reach the scene. By the time they arrived, it was too late to save Andreini.
Andreini, one of the most beloved airshow pilots ever, had been flying in shows for close to fifty years. He was a two-airplane show. Earlier that day Andreini wowed spectators in his North American P-51 Mustang Primo Branco. He had flown both the Stearman and the P-51 at the same airshow the day before.
The National Transportation Safety Board blamed the accident on Andreini’s “failure to maintain clearance from the runway during a low-level aerobatic maneuver … ” The board also ruled that an over-the-counter sedating antihistamine found in the autopsy may have impaired Andreini enough to cause the accident.
A lack of safety precautions contributed to Andreini’s death, according to the NTSB. Safety equipment was limited to a seat belt and shoulder harness. Andreini had never worn a crash helmet or fire retardant clothing and that day was no exception. He broke no rules; helmets and fire retardant clothing were optional for airshow performers in the U.S. in 2014.
The Airport Rescue and Fire Fighting (ARFF) plan in use at Travis Air Force Base that day fell short of recommendations by the International Council of Airshows, which advocates rescue personnel be in a high state of readiness, dressed in protective gear and in emergency vehicles positioned as close as possible to show center, which was where, ironically, the accident occurred. Travis show organizers had agreed to the ICAS recommendations but, for reasons unknown, did not implement them, even after a reminder from the Federal Aviation Administration a week before the show.
The ICAS is an industry trade group that, while it has no authority over airshow safety issues, maintains a constant awareness. It continually searches for ways to improve safety. The ICAS issues only recommendations. If it feels a situation is serious enough, it will petition the FAA to make regulatory changes.
On the day of the crash, firefighters followed the far-less conservative Department of Defense guidelines for an “unannounced emergency,” a phrase that reeks of bureaucratic evasiveness and military doubletalk. Not only did the air force position its fire trucks, including a laughably-named “rapid intervention vehicle,” such a long distance from show center, but when the trucks finally rolled they were restricted to 45 mph.
None of this escaped the attention of the NTSB. The board included the air force’s slow response time as part of its probable cause, finding “… the decision of the airshow’s organizers not to have the airport rescue and firefighting services at their highest level of readiness, which delayed arrival of fire suppression equipment.”
Following the accident, the air force circled its wagons and refused to answer questions. It gave no information to the Andreini family in the days and weeks following the accident. Adding insult to injury, Travis officials went so far as to compliment the rescue team, describing its response as “exemplary.” The air force ignored deadlines imposed by the Freedom of Information Act and the Federal Tort Claims Act. In effect, it acted as if the accident never happened.
Internal air force documents eventually obtained through the FIA revealed that the air force might not have understood regulations from its own manual, which makes it clear that fire trucks be at show center with “immediate access to the show line.” Response time should have been sixty seconds, according to air force guidelines.
Mike Danko, attorney for the Andreini family, filed a $20 million dollar lawsuit on behalf of the family against the federal government in March 2015. Danko believes the air force’s unpreparedness was the result of a “morass of stupid regulations.” In February 2016, the air force filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, which remains unsettled.
There are rules and regulations that hinder and those that help. Andreini’s death ultimately brought about positive changes in response time for airshow mishaps. Airshow promoters now insist that civilian and military fire and crash crews must respond in one minute or less if the accident occurs within the airshow boundaries. They are tested the day before the airshow begins. The new rules are unofficially known as the “Andreini Protocol.”
Flying airshows is a job, albeit an unusual job with unusual associated risks. Performers take comfort knowing that if something goes wrong, certain people on the ground also have a job. But on that confused and tragic day at Travis Air Force Base, the only person who showed up for work was Eddie Andreini.
Andreini showed up because, in the end, the performer is the only person required for the show. He or she alone knows what it takes to please the crowd. Or what it feels like when a foot slips on a wing and a strut or wire is inches out of reach, or when airspeed bleeds off while inverted close to the ground, or when high Gs sap vision rounding a pylon, or when the pilot chute does not pop on a low-level parachute jump, or when the decision comes down to eject or stay. Yet these magnificent men and women in their flying machines continue to perform, week after week, year after year, because not to perform is inconceivable.
INTERNATIONAL COUNCIL OF AIR SHOWS HALL OF FAME INDUCTEES IN THIS BOOK
Bob Hoover, 1995
Art Scholl, 1996
Bevo Howard, 1996
Duane Cole, 1996
Charlie Hillard, 1997
Leo Loudenslager, 1998
French Connection, 2000
Curtis Pitts, 2002
Harold Krier, 2004
Lincoln Beachey, 2004
Wayne Handley, 2005
Paul Mantz, 2006
/> Danny Clisham, 2007
Jimmy Franklin, 2007
Bessie Coleman, 2008
Bobby Younkin, 2009
Jim LeRoy, 2010
Harold Johnson, 2010
Joe Hughes, 2010
Bill Adams, 2012
Eddie Andreini, 2013
John Mohr, 2015
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