Thread by @gregbagwell

There is a lot of commentary on this rather alarming video of a fly past that very nearly had a tragic ending. Lots of theories out there - here’s mine! I’ll use snapshots from the second video to explain what I think happened. Spoiler alert: I think it was pilot error.🧵1/7

2/ An EF-18 of the Spanish Air Force was performing at the Gijón Air Festival held on Sunday July 27 over San Lorenzo Bay in Asturias, Spain: it’s not clear if it was meant to be a full display or an “enthusiastic” flypast - I suspect the latter. festivalaereogijon.com/#programa

3/ The aircraft approaches from the North and follows the coastline of the grassy promontory (see below). There are a few birds around but I don’t think they are a factor. As the pilot points at the beach they should just reverse the turn to follow the coastline, but they don’t

4/ They decide to roll under (i.e. continue to roll right through 180+ degrees in order to reverse direction). But with the nose already dropping they would have a canopy full of sea and rapidly realise that this is going to take the aircraft a lot lower than intended.

5/ So they reverse the turn (between 8 and 10 seconds on the video), using plenty of rudder, hence the rather skidding motion as it reverses, and full power, hence the black smoke as it climbs away.

6/ The recovery is flown as well as it could be under the circumstances, but it’s a very near miss. We will never know how much height would have been lost in the roll under, but it would have probably been worse and pointed straight at the beach….

7/ The rather meek departure of the aircraft slowly climbing away wings level tells us that this was one rather shaken pilot. Flypasts at unfamiliar places, with a crowd watching can carry all sorts of risks. Fortunately, this pilot gets to learn the lesson and live another day.

POST NOTE. The alternative theory is they just overbanked too far and then reversed later than they should - either way, I doubt the pilot meant the end result and the departure suggests that to be the case.

For balance, this was apparently the display aircraft/pilot so not a hot shot flypast. And the Spanish Air Force have posted saying they were avoiding birds 👇. It’s a plausible explanation, but avoiding down at low level is never a good way to go. Birds tend to break down too!

Birds are an occupational hazard, especially at low level and near coastlines. So flying close to one will almost certainly encounter birds. I’ll leave the Air Force explanation as the official line, but “fly the aircraft” remains the first rule of any emergency/hazard avoidance.

And the ground has a Pk of 1.