Sknyliv (Ukraine) airshow disaster

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On 27 July 2002, 84 people were killed and over 100 injured at an airshow in Sknyliv (Скнилів) airport near Lviv, Ukraine. A Ukrainian Air Force Sukhoi Su-27 aircraft crashed during an aerobatics presentation. It was the world's worst airshow disaster to date.

The aircraft, flown by two experienced pilots, was reported to have lost power before clipping trees, at which point the crew ejected. The plane hit a stationary aircraft and burst into flames, then slid into the crowd of spectators. Both pilots survived with injuries.

...some witnesses at the site suggested that engine trouble could have caused the tragedy. They said the roar of the jet's engines had gone silent as the aircraft descended, according to television news accounts. Some experts have even speculated that a bird may have blocked a jet engine causing a tragic stall. http://www.ukrweekly.com/Archive/2002/310201.shtml

Ukrainian president Leonid Kuchma publicly blamed the military for the disaster and dismissed the head of the air force, Volodymyr Strel'nykov. The defense minister Volodymyr Shkidchenko sent in his resignation, but it was rejected by Kuchma.

Experts supposed the following causes of the crash, and subsequent loss of life:

piloting error
engine failure
violation of the flight plan by crew or ground co-ordinator
improper flight plan: particularly, mistaken correlation between the flight and spectators' zones
fueling the plane with an excess amount of kerosene, causing the Su-27 to become too heavy and not agile enough to complete the manouver

On June 24, 2005, military courts sentenced the two pilots, Volodymyr Toponar and Yuriy Yegorov, to fourteen and eight years in prison, respectively. The court found the two pilots and three other military officials guilty of failing to follow orders, negligence and violating flight rules. Two of the three officials were sentenced to up to six years in prison, and the last official received up to four years. In addition, Toponar was ordered to pay 7.2 million hryvnia ($1.42 million; €1.18 million) in compensation to the families, and Yegorov another 2.5 million hryvna. After the verdict was announced, Toponar said he planned to appeal.

To the credit of the pilots, eyewitnesses reported that they continued to attempt to steer the plane away from the crowd even as the plane was scraping along the ground and impacting other planes. The pilots did not eject until the plane became completely uncontrollable as it began to cartwheel. Staying in the aircraft when it was clearly about to crash was an extreme risk to the pilot's lives, and it is testament to the pilot's concern for public safety over their own.

While the pilots were assigned the majority of the blame, which included accusations of attempting maneuvers that they were not experienced with, one pilot had requested additional training at the airfield where the stunts were to be performed, but his request was denied.

It should be noted that a Russian Sukhoi Su-35 prototype fighter jet (a thrust vectoring derivative of the Su-27) has previously crashed under surprisingly similar conditions during the Paris Airshow. That accident happened due to flight plan error, but fortunately did not result in any fatalities.

Although the pilots have been convicted and imprisoned, since pilot Toponar is still in the process of appealing his conviction, it still remains to be seen conclusively whether the pilots could have avoided the accident given the combined possibilities of engine failure, orders to fly without sufficient training, and a flawed flight plan.