An Aberdeenshire man has described how the packed airfield at Shoreham fell into a “stunned silence” after the crash.
Bruce Sutherland, chairman of the Inverurie branch of the Royal Air Force Association, travelled to the air show with four friends to watch the stunning displays.
But the 71-year-old, of Newmachar, said that as he watched the doomed jet come in towards the crowd for the loop, he knew it was in trouble.
“We were standing on the crowd line and saw it coming in from the south, following the run way line, and then it went up and did the loop and came back down.
“One of my friends was filming, so he didn’t see how low it was coming in. I said to him ‘this thing is not going to get out of this loop’.
“He switched off his camera to watch what was going on, and by that time the plane had gone behind the trees.
“The next thing we saw was the fire, it must have been 400 yards long.”
Mr Sutherland does not remember hearing a bang after the crash, but knows others have reported hearing the explosion.
“There was just a stunned silence,” he said. “You could have heard a pin drop.
“A wee lady turned to me and said ‘was that supposed to happen?’ and I said no.
“It seemed to take forever for the fire authority to get there, it’s quite a remote place, with a very narrow road down to Shoreham airfield.
“A lot of people didn’t know what was going on, but for those of us who did, we knew it was pretty fatal.”
The group did not realise the plane had hit the motorway that they had been queuing on for an hour-and-a-half to get into the show until later in the afternoon.
“Luckily we were there before the programme started, but there must have been traffic and people still waiting to get in,” he added.
“It’s just a desperately sad tragedy.”
Referring to the Civil Aviation Authority’s decision to ban high-energy acrobatics during air shows until “further notice”, Mr Sutherland said he hoped it would not be permanent.
He added: “It’s sad as this show is held year after year, and the amount that it will have taken in for the Royal Air Force Association or benevolent fund is in the millions. It’s undoubtedly the biggest earner of any branch in the UK.
“I understand these restrictions need to be put in place during the investigation, but if the jets are restricted to fly pasts, that will be end of these shows. That would be very, very regretful.”