If readers want to learn a bit more about the accident, a quick look at the shape of the race course itself might be valuable. www.airrace.org when the site comes back up. Right now it's down with condolences.
Essentially when I first looked at it, the course appeared somewhat eliptical with one of the tight turns headed southeastward toward the crown before making a tight turn back north. While the course was not OVER the crowd, it was near at just the time something seems to have let go in the tail ... truly unfortunate timing.
That seems to be the point when the airplane banked right and hit the crowd.
My guess is the shape of the course will change to prevent this kind of accident at least from happening again.
Perhaps pushing the entire course back another few hundred feet will be considered. It would have made a difference here.
But air racing die? Never happen ... I hope. As you said Robert, there are regularly accidents at Indy and Daytona and while sad, they don't shut the place down.
Rob
We hear quite a bit about the Santa Monica City Council. But what do the residents think?
Our company handles quite a bit of community engagement work for airports and time and time again, we find that there is a VERY vocal minority that appears to speak for the community.
But they don't.
Trouble is, unless you can energize those people who don't or won't speak up, the airport could be in serious trouble. Getting the non-verbals moving is not easy, but it can be done.
And BTW, I'm not sure towcub is correct that what Mayor Daley did in Chicago was illegal. I live here. The way we heard it, the city of Chicago got around the FAA grant assurance issues was by sending the agency a check to pay back the remaining funds. To the Mayor, that acceptance meant he owned the airport.
His airport, so he decided to close it. Plain and simple ... at least to him.
