91AggieLawyer said:
This is going to be unpopular, if not downright insensitive, but it isn't meant that way. I'm not a fan of airshows and I think they shouldn't exist. Ever since the one in Germany in '87 or '88 where 70 or 80 people died, I've said these things are dangerous. If they're going to exist, they need to be one plane at a time.
Yes, these accidents are rare, but they're always fatal and have the added risk of ground casualties.
It's obvious you never pay attention to air shows. At American Air Shows, the spectators are in a line parallel to the runway. All maneuvers take place along the axis of that runway, and at a certain distance from the crowd. Any crash or debris will thus fall along that same axis, limiting the possibility of injuries on the ground.
The crash you refer to was in Europe, where at that time, they allowed maneuvers toward the crowd, at a 90 degree angle to the flight line/crowd. IIRC, it was the Italian AF team, and they were doing a maneuver where two groups of planes crossed through each other at a 45 degree angle, and little vertical separation. Don't know if they do that one anymore.