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hmm… if my piston plane had been standing by the side of that runway, I would have removed it before that lowpass… not because I would have been afraid they could crash, but because of the wake turbulences….
Amazing.
pj
TAP = Take Another Plane
Talk about lack of concern for crowd safety as well as the safety and health of others.
Enough to give you the shivers if not a nervous breakdown
Yea, yea – very dangerous…
BUT HOW COOL WAS THAT!!!!!
What they did is normal for an airshow.
Nope, people were standing to close to the action. Notice that the camera man shakes due to the turbulence caused by the passage of the plane. I have been to airshows (I have even seen the Thunderbirds), and people don’t stand that close.
Gasparrini: that depends on the show, on the local law governing such events, on the specific clearances that this event has gotten, on the event planning etc. etc.
In Germany, it has been illegal to fly airshow displays towards the crowd for a long time since the Rammstein accident ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramstein_airshow_disaster or http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBy7nVD32Mo, if you like it in colour and motion). This seems to have been softened a bit in the recent years.
Generally, it should be good practice, though, not to overfly the crowd.
pj
Thanks for the unexpected rush. There’s nothing quite like an insane pilot to really, really wake me up in the morning.
When I was a kid I saw the Blue Angels at the Hillsboro Air Show in the Oregon they did a maneuver where they flow low over the grand stands and then went verticle over the parking lot (where we were watching from) the heat from the afterburners was so hot it actually gave most of us a light sun burn. So yes they do go this low. As dangerous I think the take off and bank at low altitude was way dangerous then the fly over he did.
At least there weren’t twin towers in the way.
I’ve flown TAP, seemed alright to me and if you’ve ever had to land in the Azores or that tiny runway in Madeira that ends on a cliff, you’ll thank your lucky stars your pilot is a little bit crazy.
i have taken TAP many times. to go to portugal to get a transfer flight to the acores, but never have i seen them fly that close. i asked my aunt what TAP ment when i was a little kid. and she told me “take another plane” but sometimes you have no choice.
An air-show performer/safety guy in another forum saw a longer video of this and made the comment that “an investigation was underway.”
OK, actually TAP is one of the safest airlines around, with only ONE fatal accident in all of it’s history – in Funchal, Madeira, a whole bunch of years ago (can’t remember precisely, I was a kid then).
TAP stands for Transportes Aereos de Portugal (Portugal Air Transports).
As for portuguese passengers behaving like latin americans, I (as a portuguese) would ask you not to offend the latin americans 🙂
Back in the 70s, we used climb the fence of our airport and lay down on the ground just before the runway starts. Of course, the big Boeing planes were the best.
It was such a rush. (I was an anti-drugs kid and needed other ways to get a thrill)
Sometimes a pilot would report us and we’d get chased by security but we were viewed as dumb kids back then, not terrorists.
#16: are you saying that’s not what NTSC means?
pj
Pretty normal fare for an airshow really, and don’t be misled by the camera angle and relative distance. You see this type of low level flight at almost every airshow, only the aircraft aren’t typically that big, which makes it feel a bit scarier.
I know, it was a bit unsafe… but, Boy!!! Was it COOL? Yeah!
What do you want? to live all your life without feeling the heat of the turbines?
Really, If you had to choose, knowing in advance that the guy would do that at the airshow, would you stayed home and watched it in youtube?
I’m Portuguese and have the utmost confidence in my Flag Air Carrier. Like Miguel said, Only 1 (one) tragic accident in Madeira. (mind you, it was because of that accident that they’ve extended the runway 1,5 Km over the sea on pillars).
Reminds me of the Armed Forces Day displays when I was a military brat. Fighters making a low pass at .9 mach, fully loaded B-52’s making a short runway take off and parachutists dropping into the crowd…..
One airshow I watched was over Moffett Field (closed) north of San Jose, CA. I was on my apartment deck when the Blue Angel went by (yeah, went by, not over). I could see him turning his head in the cockpit.Maybe 100 feet up and 100 yards away. Certainly made an impression, since I still see the mental image 40 years later!
I was once at an open house at Rutan’s Scaled Composites facility at Mojave, CA. They had a Air Force F-100 SuperSabre and a Naval F-86F-40 Sabre that were slated to become target drones. The open house was the day before Edwards AFB’ yearly air show and the aircraft were to be ferried over for display.
Both aircraft took off and everyone expected a fly-by. Well, I was standing there on the grass inches from the taxiway sipping a beer in a plastic cup. And here came the F-100 diving in for a pass.
It was not doing a fly-by over the runway but over the TAXIWAY! It was coming in at near supersonic speed at about twenty feet of the concrete. It passed in front of me so close that I could have hit it with my plastic cup half full of beer! Truly amazing!
Seconds thereafter, the F-86 did the same thing but with a lot less speed. Still, that is the closest I have ever been to a fast moving jet. I will never forget it. Too bad this isn’t more common.
BTW, if anyone tried this today, you can guarantee there would be repercussions.
Some of those people were just too tall.