Shoreham Airshow crash pilot says plane manoeuvre 'made no sense'

Hill told the court this morning that he had no recollection of what happened the day in August 2015 when the Hawker Hunter jet he was flying tragically crashed onto the A27, leading to the deaths of 11 people.

The 54-year-old, of Standon Road, Buntingford, denies 11 counts of manslaughter by gross negligence.

At the trial this afternoon, defence barrister Karim Khalil QC took Hill through cockpit footage from the flight that day, ahead of the crash.

The footage was paused soon after the moment the plane reached the apex, as Hill has not seen any video of the incident beyond this point, the court heard.

Mr Khalil said Hill - while having no recollection of the incident - had studied the footage and had used his computer skills to try to make sense of what happened.

Going through the footage frame by frame, Hill identified 21 minutes and 45 seconds past 12am as 'point x' - where things began to go wrong.

"Up until point X, everything looked good. After point X, I just don't understand," he said.

Hill said he did 'not accept' that the aircraft was performing a loop - but was unable to say what the manoeuvre was.

"It does not fit into a classic manoeuvre out of a textbook. I can describe what the aircraft did but I can't put it in a box and say it was this," he said.

After completing a long turn, the speed of the plane reduced as it entered the manoeuvre, the court heard.

Hill said this made 'the absolute opposite of sense' and said: "It's the last thing you would do."

Asked by Mr Khalil if he had tried to understand what had happened, Hill said: "In pilot terms it's not even worth analysing.

"There isn't an analysis of it - it's completely the wrong thing to do for more than one reason."

At the apex of the manoeuvre, Hill said there were 'a number of escape manoeuvres' he could have been starting.

'The dominant thought of my life'

According to a witness statement read out by Mr Khalil, a paramedic who attended to Hill after the crash recalled that Hill said he had had 'some pain in his chest' and had 'blacked out in the air'.

Asked by Mr Khalil whether he would have set off for the airshow display or continued flying the plane if he had been feeling unwell, Hill said 'no'.

Mr Khalil read out a statement given by Hill to police in November 2017.

In the statement, Hill said he had to face the fact that eleven people had died in the incident 'every day I wake up'.