On This day in Aviation History: Ramstein Air Base

Military airshows are vital for representative and open governments and militaries to show citizens how their tax dollars are being used.  They give civilians a glimpse into military life and are recruiting tools.  They encourage youth to pursue STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) education and careers.  They’re exciting and fun.  Until they’re not.

Like many worthwhile endeavors, airshows also provide risk to the sponsors, actors, and spectators.   While we can’t eliminate risk, we can mitigate it by good planning.  Thirty-six years ago today, inadequate planning led to the world’s second most tragic airshow disasters at Ramstein Air Base in Germany.

(Editor’s note:  The Sknyliv Air Show held on July 27, 2002 near Lviv, Ukraine was the worst airshow disaster. According to https://aerocorner.com/blog/worst-air-show-disasters/, “a Sukhoi Su-27 piloted by a member of the Ukrainian Air Force crashed during an aerobatic stunt. 77 people were killed and 543 were injured, making it the deadliest air show accident in history.”  A video of that airshow disaster can be seen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZL697AGVDoM&rco=1)

For this day in aviation history and according to History.com, “An air show at the Ramstein Air Base in Germany turned tragic on August 28, 1988 when three jets collided in mid-air and fell into the crowd. Sixty-nine of the 100,000 spectators died and hundreds more were injured.

The Midair.  By osi.af.mil – https://www.osi.af.mil/News/Photos/igphoto/2003058036/, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=72163356

“Toward the end of the NATO-sponsored show on August 28, Italy’s Frecce Tricolori team, flying Aermacchi MB 339 jets, began their routine. The team was led by Lieutenant Colonel Ivo Nutallari, who attempted a crossover move in which his plane passed very close to the other team jets. Nutallari miscalculated the daring move and his jet collided with the main group. Three of the jets exploded in mid-air, causing wreckage and jet fuel to rain down on the crowd. The three pilots died instantly, as did approximately 30 spectators. Even more people were seriously injured, many with critical burns. Over the course of the next two months, about 30 other victims died in hospitals because of their extensive burns.

“In the aftermath of the disaster, Germany banned public air shows for three years before once again allowing them once stricter safety measures were in place. Now planes must fly a designated distance away from the spectators and maneuvers may not be made in the direction of the crowd.”

According to Wikipedia, “The mid-air collision took place as the two heart-forming groups of aircraft passed each other and the heart-piercing aircraft hit them. One of the pilots finished the maneuver too early. The piercing aircraft crashed onto the runway and consequently both the fuselage and resulting fireball of aviation fuel tumbled into the spectator area, hitting the crowd and coming to rest against a refrigerated trailer being used to dispense ice cream to the various vendor booths in the area.

The flight-paths of the Frecce Tricolori aircraft.  Drawing by Julian Herzog care of Creative Commons.

“At the same time, one of the damaged aircraft from the heart-forming group crashed into the emergency medical evacuation UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter, injuring the helicopter’s pilot, Captain Kim Strader. He died 20 days later, on Saturday, 17 September 1988, at Brooke Army Medical Center in Texas from burns he suffered in the accident.

“The pilot of the aircraft that hit the helicopter ejected, but was killed as he hit the runway before his parachute opened. The third aircraft disintegrated in the collision and parts of it were strewn along the runway.

“After the crash, the remaining aircraft regrouped and landed at Sembach Air Base.

Scope

“Of the 31 people who died on impact, 28 had been hit by debris in the form of airplane parts, concertina wire, and items on the ground.[3] Sixteen of the fatalities occurred in the days and weeks after the disaster due to severe burns; the last was the burned and injured helicopter pilot. About 500 people had to seek hospital treatment following the event.

Criticism

“The disaster revealed serious shortcomings in the handling of large-scale medical emergencies by German civil and American military authorities. US military personnel did not immediately allow German ambulances onto the base, and the rescue work was generally hampered by a lack of efficiency and coordination. The rescue coordination center in Kaiserslautern was unaware of the disaster’s scale as much as an hour after it occurred, even though several German medevac helicopters and ambulances had already arrived on site and left with patients. American helicopters and ambulances provided the quickest and largest means of evacuating burn victims, but lacked sufficient capacities for treating them, or had difficulty finding them. Further confusion was added by the American military’s use of different standards for intravenous catheters from German paramedics. A single standard was codified in 1995, updated with a newer version in 2013 and an amendment to the current standard in 2017.”

Onward and upward!