Shoreham plane crash: Did Hawker Hunter jet pilot try to eject seconds before deadly crash?

Police confirmed explosive charge used to launch seat had 'partially deployed'

Emergency services and crash investigation officers work at the site where a Hawker Hunter fighter jet crashed onto the A27 (REUTERS/Luke Macgregor )

An immediate ban has been placed on stunt flying at air shows by vintage jets as it emerged that the pilot of the Hawker Hunter involved in the Shoreham crash may have tried to deploy his ejector seat at the last moment.

Police warned that the death toll from Saturday’s disaster was likely to rise towards 20 as the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) responded to concerns about safety standards at flying displays by putting a block on all aerobatics by Cold War-era jets.

The regulator said it had halted all flights by Hawker Hunters, the British-built 1950s fighter which smashed into the A27 trunk road in West Sussex on Saturday afternoon, and was restricting similar aircraft to “flypasts” at all air shows until further notice.

The family of Andy Hill, the pilot of the crashed jet who survived the impact but remains critically ill, said they were “devastated” by the loss of life caused when his former RAF plane ploughed into cars and bystanders after failing to complete a loop the loop-style manoeuvre.

Investigators were trying to establish whether Mr Hill, a veteran display pilot as well as a British Airways captain, had tried to deploy the jet’s ejector seat in the moments before it struck the A27 intersection at about 150mph.

Sussex Police confirmed that the explosive charge used to launch the seat had “partially deployed”, delaying the removal of the debris from the plane by a crane while it was made safe. The Independent understands that Mr Hill, who is in a medically-induced coma, was found with multiple injuries some 10 metres from the remains of the fuselage but experts said it was possible the ejector charge had fired as a result of the impact.

One former aviation investigator said: “These devices are very robustly designed and most likely explanation is that there was an attempt to deploy [the seat]. But it cannot be ruled out that the charge simply fired due to the force of the impact. It is remarkable that the pilot has survived.”

Forensic teams and officials from the Air Accident Investigation Branch (AAIB) continued to comb the crash site as the painstaking task began of removing the remains of those killed when the jet exploded and a sheet of flame engulfed vehicles.

Relatives of some of those feared to have been in the crash zone, which runs along the northern perimeter of Shoreham Airport, continued to make pleas for missing loved ones to get in touch as police acknowledged the death toll would rise beyond 11 and may approach 20.

Efforts were continuing to trace individuals including a group seen standing beside the road as the jet crashed and cyclists who have may have been passing through the junction. Among those named as missing were Mark Trussler, a motorcyclist whose bike is thought to have been found at the scene, and Daniele Polito, a young father travelling home from work with personal trainer, Matt Jones, whose family have said he is known to have perished.

Assistant Chief Constable Steve Barry, of Sussex Police, said: “To give people a sense of scale and also the number of people we are trying to work with in terms of the movements of their loved ones, then I would be surprised if it would be more than 20.”

West Sussex coroner Penny Schofield warned that the nature of the crash meant work to identify the victims was likely to take several weeks. She said: “The fire was so intense and the scale of the damage so vast, it means that we must very carefully remove the remains in a way that will lead to a formal identification.”

The scale of the disaster and the fact that those killed had had no connection to the display raised serious concerns about the rules governing clearance zones around air displays, with the mother of one of those killed questioning why aerobatic flying had been authorised over a busy road.

An explosion at the Shoreham Air Show, in Sussex, Britain, 22 August 2015, after a fighter jet crashed (EPA/PAUL JARRETT)

Despite the insistence of display organisers that the industry operates under some of the most stringent regulations in the world, the CAA responded by placing “immediate restrictions” on shows using vintage jets.

In a statement, the regulator said: “Flying displays over land by vintage jet aircraft will be significantly restricted until further notice. They will be limited to flypasts, which means ‘high energy’ aerobatics will not be permitted.”

The CAA said it would also be conducting additional risk assessments for forthcoming displays and stood ready to take additional measures. Organisers of several displays planned for this weekend, including events at Clacton in Essex and Duxford in Cambridgeshire, had earlier said they expected the events to go ahead.

Stunt flying by vintage jets developed in the Cold War are a regular feature of air shows and the ban is likely to have a significant impact, restricting any aerobatics to propeller-powered aircraft and state-of-the-art military teams such as the RAF’s Red Arrows.

But the air display industry warned against measures which might damage the viability of air shows, the second most popular spectator sport in Britain. In a statement released before the CAA announcement, the British Air Display Association said: “It is certainly not a time for uninformed or mis-informed rule making, especially when the existing rules have worked so well for so long.”