Ramstein airshow disaster
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 The standby MEDEVAC helicopter hit by one of the falling aircraft.
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| Summary | |
|---|---|
| Date | August 28, 1988 |
| Type | Mid-air collision |
| Site | Ramstein Air Base West Germany |
| Total injuries | 346 serious (ground) |
| Total fatalities | 75 (including 72 ground) |
| First aircraft | |
| Type | Aermacchi MB-339PAN |
| Name | Callsign "Pony 10" |
| Operator | Frecce Tricolori Aeronautica Militare |
| Crew | Lt.Col. Ivo Nutarelli (killed) |
| Second aircraft | |
| Type | Aermacchi MB-339PAN |
| Name | Callsign "Pony 1" |
| Operator | Frecce Tricolori Aeronautica Militare |
| Crew | Lt.Col. Mario Naldini (killed) |
| Third aircraft | |
| Type | Aermacchi MB-339PAN |
| Name | Callsign "Pony 2" |
| Operator | Frecce Tricolori Aeronautica Militare |
| Crew | Cap. Giorgio Alessio (killed) |
The Ramstein airshow disaster was one of the world's worst airshow disasters. It took place in front of an audience of 300,000 people on August 28, 1988 in Ramstein, state of Rheinland-Pfalz, Germany, near the city of Kaiserslautern at the U.S. Ramstein Air Base airshow Flugtag '88. Sixty-seven spectators and three pilots died and 346 spectators sustained serious injuries in the resulting explosion and fire.
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[edit] Background
Ten Aermacchi MB-339 PAN jets from the Italian Air Force display team, Frecce Tricolori, were performing their 'pierced heart' (Italian: Cardioide, German: Durchstoßenes Herz) formation. In this formation, two groups of aircraft create a heart shape in front of the audience along the runway. In the completion of the lower tip of the heart, the two groups of planes pass each other parallel to the runway. The heart is then pierced, in the direction towards the audience, by a lone aircraft.
[edit] The Crash
The mid-air collision took place as the two heart-forming groups passed each other and the heart-piercing aircraft hit them. The piercing aircraft crashed onto the runway, it and its resulting fireball of aviation fuel tumbled into the spectator area, hitting the crowd and coming to rest against a refrigerated trailer being used to dispense ice cream to the various vendor booths in the area. At the same time, one of the damaged aircraft from the heart-forming group crashed into the emergency medical evacuation UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter, killing the pilot and co-pilot, and fatally injuring the medical technician, who died weeks later from burns he suffered in the accident. The pilot of the aircraft that hit the helicopter had ejected, but was killed as he hit the runway before his parachute opened. The third aircraft disintegrated in the collision and parts of it were spread along the runway.[1] After the crash, the remaining aircraft regrouped and landed at Sembach Air Base.
[edit] Emergency response
Of the 31 people who died at the scene, 28 had been hit by shrapnel in the form of airplane parts, concertina wire, and debris from items on the ground.[2] Sixteen of the fatalities occurred in the days and weeks after the disaster due to severe burns, the last being the burned and injured medical technician from the helicopter. In total about 500 people had to seek hospital treatment following the event.[3]
The disaster revealed serious shortcomings in the handling of large-scale medical emergencies by German civil and American military authorities and their cooperation. The German ambulances had to wait in front of the military base and couldn't help immediately. The rescue work was criticized for lacking efficiency and coordination. The rescue coordination center in Kaiserslautern was unaware of the disaster's scale as much as an hour after its occurrence, although several German Medevac helicopters and ambulances had already arrived on site and left with patients. American helicopters and ambulances provided the quickest and largest capacities for evacuating burn victims, but could not provide or find sufficient capacities for treating them or had difficulties to even find them. More than two hours after the disaster, German paramedics arrived at the Landstuhl U.S. military hospital and found large numbers of severely burnt but completely unattended patients. A bus transporting unattended patients arrived at a Ludwigshafen hospital with a specialized burn-victim unit, 80 km from the accident site, nearly three hours after the disaster. The bus driver did not speak German and was unfamiliar with the area. German paramedics used intravenous catheters and lines that were not compatible with the standard used by the Americans (a single standard was not codified until 1995), creating more confusion at the time.[4]
[edit] Investigation
Large amounts of video were taken of the accident. Upon completing the cardioid figure, the piercing aircraft (Pony 10) came in too low and too fast at the crossing point with the other two groups (5 aircraft on the left and 4 on the right) completing the heart shaped figure. Lt. Col. Ivo Nutarelli, lead pilot and flying Pony 10, was unable to correct his altitude or slow his speed and collided with the leading airplane (Pony 1) of the left formation, destroying the plane's tail section with the front of his aircraft, as can be seen in various videos of the disaster.[5] Lt. Col. Mario Naldini's plane spiralled out of control, hitting another plane in his formation (Pony 2, piloted by Captain Giorgio Alessio) before crashing onto a taxiway near the runway, destroying a Med-Evac helicopter, killing the two pilots and fatally injuring the med tech. The third plane to be involved in the disaster, Pony 2, was severely damaged and crashed onto and beside the runway, exploding in a fireball.
The plane that started the crash, now completely out of control and with the forward section disintegrated following the impact with Pony 1, continued on a ballistic trajectory across the runway. The landing gear came down; it has been suggested that this could have been lowered intentionally as a last second effort by Nutarelli to try and slow his plane down to avoid the impact, but there is no substantial evidence pointing to this and the undercarriage could have been lowered by a number of factors. Pony 10 impacted the ground ahead of the spectator's stands, exploding in a fireball and destroying a police vehicle that had been parked on the "runway" side of the concertina wire that defined the active runway area. The plane continued, cartwheeling for a distance before picking up the three strand concertina wire fence, crossing an emergency access road, slamming into the crowd, and hitting a parked ice cream van. The crash site was considered the "best seats in the house", being centered on the flightline and as close to the airshow as civilian spectators could get. It was the first area in the airshow viewing area that filled up and was very crowded. The entire incident, from collision of the first two planes to the crash into the spectators, took less than 7 seconds, leaving no time for people in the crowd to take evasive action. The low altitude of the maneuver (45 meters above the crowd) also contributed to short time frame.
[edit] Analysis
Analysis of the publicly available footage from the accident shows several key elements in this accident. The accident could have been avoided if Pony 10 had entered the formation 1 second earlier or more than 10 feet higher or lower. Even with that said, there has been considerable discussion since the accident on the wisdom of the maneuver. CMSgt. Thom Lustik, Sr Enlisted Advisor for the 377th Combat Support Wing, had watched the practice session on the previous day and described the distance by which Pony 10 would miss the control tower if the stunt had been successful as "less than 100 feet". Entering the formation more than 3 seconds later, at the same altitude, would have meant Pony 10 missed the rest of the aircraft in the formation, but would have put Pony10's Aermacchi MB339 directly in the jetwash from up to 9 other fighters of the same type. At 150 feet (approximately 45 meters), there is debate about whether the airplane would continue in controlled flight after that. Entering the formation lower would have put the airplane dangerously close to the crowd and the control tower. The only possible way that Pony 10 could have safely completed the maneuver would have been to enter the formation earlier or higher. Entering the formation at the same altitude, but less than 3 seconds later, would have caused a similar impact with a different aircraft, resulting in a different accident, but with largely the same outcome.
Review of the footage at the moment of the crash clearly shows that Pony 10's landing gear were not deployed in any meaningful way, if their deployment had even been started. There has been speculation that the landing gear (which were conspicuous after the crash and before impact with the ground) were lowered to scrub speed. One of the things that is counter-intuitive about using the landing gear in this way is that flaps or airbrakes would have slowed the aircraft more effectively without increasing its frontal cross section, thereby making it a smaller projectile. A more likely scenario is that the impact of the crash caused either a mechanical or electrical anomaly which caused the landing gear to release after which they opened under hydraulic or inertial pressure.
Considering the number of people at the location where the airplane actually hit, the death toll could have been considerably higher. If the accident had happened 50 feet to the north, Pony 10 would have crashed directly into the crowd and then slide until it hit the War Resource Materiel gravel pile, on which many people were sitting or standing to improve their view. If the accident had happened 50 feet to the west, there would have been nothing to stop the sliding wreckage until it hit the woods north of the access road and south of the tower. If the accident had happened south of the active runway, instead of directly over the runway, would have moved the crash further down the hill below the crowd. The wreckage would have probably continue to slide to its eventual resting place, but the fireball would have been 50 feet south of the crowd, instead of engulfing them. If the accident had occurred 50 feet east of where it did, it would have destroyed the Red Cross First Aid Station (which was largely unscathed by the accident), and slid into a parking lot full of privately owned vehicles.
[edit] Aftermath
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Treatment of post traumatic stress disorder and accompanying suicidal tendencies among both the victims and the rescue workers has been a significant task for the authorities, especially since very little psychological support was given at the time and some of the victims and rescue workers committed suicide. Since then, psychological treatment of disaster victims and rescue workers has become part of the standard operations of German emergency services. The intravenous catheters and lines are now compatible to international standards.
The disaster resulted in a total ban of public airshows in West Germany, which was lifted three years later and replaced with the following safety regulations:
- Increased minimum height and distance from spectators. A picture of the previous airshow in 1987 revealed that there were no safety barriers near the runways; existing rules prescribed a distance of 400 meters according to the aircraft types.
- Banning of maneuvers in the direction of spectators.
- All maneuvers subject to approval by authorities.
Ramstein Air Base itself has not held an airshow since the incident.
[edit] References in popular culture
The German band Rammstein is named after the disaster and their self-titled song is a reference to the event.[6]
The disaster was featured in the February 22, 2008 episode of Shockwave on The History Channel.
[edit] References
- ^ Rocketjones survivor blog
- ^ Ramstein survivor support group
- ^ YouTube Ramstein base commander Col. William D. Eckhert, in video interview
- ^ http://www.webstore.ansi.org/RecordDetail.aspx?sku=ISO+10555-1%3a1995
- ^ YouTube Documentary of the Ramstein disaster
- ^ Herzeleid.com Quote from MTV interview
[edit] External links
- TIME West Germany Hellfire, from The Heavens (TIME article).
- Robert-Stetter.de Crash moment pictures.
- Flugtag88 Memorial Flugtag 1988 Memorial
- Airliners.net Marc Heesters.
- (French) Le crash de Ramstein
