New Zealand airshow operators do everything possible to limit the risk of crashes such as that in Britain at the weekend but say there is no way of guaranteeing they will never happen.
Eleven people died in the UK at the weekend when a vintage Hawker Hunt jet taking part in an airshow smashed into cars on a busy road near the Shoreham airfield.
Eleven people died when a vintage plane smashed into cars on a busy road near the airfield. Photo: AFP / Citizenside / Mark Rutley
New Zealand has about 20 airshows each year. The longest-running is Warbirds Over Wanaka, which started in 1988 and runs every second year, and the other two big ones are the Classic Fighters Airshow at Omaka, near Blenheim, and Wings Over Wairarapa, which run on the alternate year to Wanaka.
A pilot died in a 1994 crash at Warbirds Over Wanaka - the only New Zealand fatality at an airshow.
Classic Fighters Airshow organising committee chairman Graham Orphan said planning for every eventuality and never straying from that plan was the key to everyone staying safe.
"So you always stick to the same manoevre and you make it as close to identical every time you do it," he said.
"As soon as you deviate from that, and you enter an unplanned manoevre, that's when you're going to get into trouble and that was a factor at the airshow in Wanaka in 1994.
"So a huge tragedy, we all learned from it and hopefully those lessons will carry on long after we're long gone from the industry."
Some of the planes on display at last year's Wings Over Wairarapa. Photo: RNZ / Kim Griggs
Tom Williams, who has been the Wings Over Wairarapa airshow director since the first show in 1999, echoed Mr Orphan's sentiments.
"The flying display is very well planned with the display pilots and our display director, and deviation from that is something which we won't condone," he said.
"But despite all the good intentions of emergency and safety plans, accidents do happen from time to time."
Mr Williams said the Civil Aviation Authority issued approvals for airshows, and plans for them included a "seriously large" document covering everything from traffic and safety management to emergency plans.
"Compared to the number of people that go to airshows and the number of aircraft that fly, the number of aircraft movements, the accident rate is extremely low but one accident is clearly one too many.
"You can take every mitigating circumstance, and you can plan around safety but we are dealing with human beings and we're dealing with mechanical appliances, and from time to time these issues arise."
Civil Aviation Authority special flight operations and recreational aviation manager Rex Kenny said New Zealand had an enviable safety record internationally, and that international air show guru retired Major General Des Barker was suitably impressed when he visited from South Africa last year.
New Zealand puts on shows that are equivalent to anything seen worldwide, without fatalities, and organisers are always looking to see what they could learn from incidents such as that in Britain.
He agreed with Mr Orphan and Mr Williams that it was crucial to never stray from the plan.
"Des Barker made that clear on his tour to New Zealand earlier this year, that even with all the experience people might have, it's sometimes the simple things that actually are sitting there waiting for them to do something slightly different or something they even might think provide a bit more excitement to the crowd," he said.
"His point was: you're up there in the aircraft, it's being thrown around by turbulence, it's actually quite a violent ride, and half the crowd aren't even watching you, they're sitting there having an ice cream, so you don't have to go that extra mile to try and do something which is seen as exceptionally risky perhaps, because the outcome of it could be fatal."
Warbirds Over Wanaka general manager Ed Taylor said no one could ever say the industry was totally safe but that all measures were taken to make it as safe as possible.
