Shoreham airshow trial: pilot admits very limited experience with plane that crashed

The pilot whose plane crashed during the Shoreham airshow in 2015, killing 11 people, had “very limited” experience of flying that aircraft, he has told a court.

Andrew Hill flew a 1950s Hawker Hunter fighter jet in the display on 22 August that year. The aircraft plunged to the ground and exploded into a fireball on the A27 in West Sussex after he failed to complete a loop manoeuvre.

On Thursday, Hill told a jury at the Old Bailey he had about 35 hours’ experience in the Hunter, primarily at a handful of displays since 2011.

During cross-examination the prosecutor, Tom Kark QC, asked Hill if he accepted his experience was “relatively limited”. Hill responded that in comparison with others it was “very limited”.

The court had heard that Hill, 54, who denies 11 counts of manslaughter by gross negligence, had had a long career in aviation and was an experienced military, commercial and display pilot, who had flown various aircraft. He had also been described as a normally “careful and competent” pilot and he acknowledged that he had had a duty of care to the 20,000 to 30,000 spectators assembled that day at Shoreham.

Hill’s evidence at the Old Bailey trial marks the first time he has spoken publicly about the crash.

The former RAF pilot also told the jury that while he remembered discussing the planned display with organisers beforehand, he had no memory of events between 19 August and when he awoke from an induced coma in hospital the following month.

When he was asked by Karim Khalil QC, defending, if he had any memory of taking off in the plane, or any memory of the display, Hill replied: “None at all.” He said he had spent most of the past three years trying to “resolve what happened”.

Asked if this had been easy for him, Hill replied: “No, because it caused a dreadful tragedy to a lot of people. I was the pilot, I was in charge of the aircraft.”

He claims he had “cognitive impairment” at the time of the incident; he had told medics who rushed to help him after the fireball on the A27 that he “blacked out” in the air, the court previously heard.

Jurors were told Hill had passed medical checks before the crash and showed no sign of any medical condition – including cognitive impairment.

Asked if “someone of clear mind” would have been able to divert the plane’s path during the display he had agreed, and added that they would have had “more than one opportunity”. He said he could not understand the path the aircraft took because it made “no sense”.

Hill demonstrated to jurors his plan for the display by walking around the courtroom with a model airplane. He said: “I don’t know what I did. I know what the aircraft did.”

The trial continues.