Recent Red Arrows accidents - Tony Cunnane's Afterthoughts

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Recent Red Arrows accidents

Written on 9 November 2011

Since I retired in 2001 from my job as the Red Arrows Public Relations Officer, a job I’d held for 11 years, I have declined all requests, and there have been lots of them, for media interviews about the Team partly because I deliberately didn’t keep myself up-to-date, but mainly because I didn’t wish to appear to be treading on the territory of my successors. I finally gave in this morning to a request from BBC Radio Lincolnshire, a station that throughout my 11 years was extremely pro-Red Arrows, and I did a live interview from the BBC Leeds studios.

What I didn’t say in that interview, because it would have been insensitive, was that RAF aircrew tend to become inured to hearing of friends losing their lives in flying accidents – it goes with the job, even in peacetime. However, I was truly shocked to hear of the second fatal Red Arrows accident in the space of three months. The Red Arrows pilots are special. They are amongst the RAF’s finest. They give pleasure to millions all over the world with their fabulous displays. To lose two superb pilots in what appear to be unconnected accidents, must be almost unbearable for the rest of the Reds and the Blues (the ground crew).

I was a student instructor at the RAF Central Flying School in Little Rissington in 1968 when the Red Arrows Synchro Pair collided head-on over the airfield at nearby Kemble during a practice display. Unfortunately each of the Synchro pilots had their replacements in their back seat so 4 pilots were killed instantly. I knew them all well.

Kemble 1968 (C) UK MOD Crown Copyright [1968]

Everyone at Little Rissington at the time, and that includes me, was stunned by the accident but, and it may seem callous to write this, everyone apart from their families of course quickly got over it because one of the pilots probably made an flying error otherwise there would not have been a head-on collision.

The two recent Red Arrows fatalities are different. They appear, and I stress appear because I have no inside knowledge, not to have been caused by any error on the part of the pilots. That is especially poignant and no-one involved with the Red Arrows, past or present, will get over those accidents anytime soon. I send my deepest sympathy to the two families concerned and to all at the Red Arrows.

More Red Arrows stories on my main website starting here