Insurers Draw Distinctions Between Air Races and Airshows

With an 11th fatality declared as a result of the crash at the National Championship Air Races in Reno, Nev. on Sept. 16, one of the world’s airshow insurance experts is anxious to draw a distinction between airshows and air races.

Executives at Shannon and Luchs Insurance Agency Inc. acknowledged premiums as well as safety rules could change as a result of the Reno crash and an airshow crash a day later in West Virginia that killed a pilot, but say they expect little other impact to the airshow industry.

In addition to taking 11 lives, the Reno crash injured about 70 spectators.

“Like anything else, insurance premiums could go up, but we don’t see any kind of drastic change happening,” Dorian Fernandez, president of Shannon and Luchs, told Insurance Journal Wednesday in a phone interview with her and executive vice president Jim Hamerski.

Hamerski added: “I think you could see more regulation. I think they’ll probably increase the distance between the spectators and the performers.”

Aviation insurers and insurers of large events were reluctant to talk about the Reno incident, or the incident in at an airshow in West Virginia the following day, because of the anticipated public scrutiny of airshows and air races following the tragedies.

“Sorry,” went one email reply to a request for an interview from an executive at a large aviation insurer sent via BlackBerry, “but too touchy of a subject this soon after the accident. I’m sure you understand.”

The Shannon and Luchs executives have a great deal of interest in the airshow business and in the general welfare of the industry.

Of the estimated 350 to 400 organized airshows each year in the U.S. and Canada, “we probably insure most of those,” Fernandez said.

“There are not as many air races, as there are airshows,” Fernandez continued. “Air races more about speed, the airshows are about agility. Airshows have skilled performers, renowned for their abilities. These airplanes that they have are specially equipped for the types of performances that they do. There is a difference between an air race and an airshow. From an airshow perspective, there haven’t been any spectator fatalities in an airshow for over 60 years.”

As for the airshow crash at an airshow in Martinsburg, W. Va., when a post-World War II plane, a T-28, crashed and burst into flames, killing the pilot? “The pilot was more than 1,000 feet from the crowd,” Fernandez said. “Not one person in the crowd was in any danger of getting hurt.”

Gaithersburg, Md.-based Shannon and Luchs says it was approached several years ago by air race organizers about insurance, and the company told the organizers it was not interested.

“Some events we don’t want in the pool,” Fernandez said. “It does affect us, if something does happen like this, and that may affect our pool of customers.”

Hamerski also noted that speeds reached by aircraft at airshows are much lower than those seen at air races. “Our performers aren’t flying at that kind of speed,” he said.

In Reno, aircraft reach speeds of around 500 mph. Airshow speeds by comparison are about a fourth, fifth, or even less, than speeds achieved at air races, Hamerski said.

Jake Sunderland, a spokesman for the Nevada Division of Insurance, speculated that Reno Airport likely has basic insurance and that they require the air race organizers to have surplus lines.

“Because they’re probably custom policies, they don’t have to go through our office, so we don’t have any authority to be a part of this conversation,” he said, adding, “I suspect if we get pulled into it, it will be if people feel like they’re not being taken care of by the insurance companies.”

Despite the large number of dead and injured, witnesses and people familiar with the race say the toll could have been much worse had the plane gone down in the larger crowd area of the stands. The plane crashed in a section of box seats that was located in front of the grandstand area where most people sat.

“This one could have been much worse if the plane had hit a few rows higher up,” said Don Berliner, president of the Society of Air Racing Historians and a former Reno Air Races official. “We could be talking hundreds of deaths.”

The crash marked the first time spectators had been killed since the races began 47 years ago in Reno. Twenty pilots including Leeward have died in that time.

It is the only air race of its kind in the U.S.. Planes at the yearly event fly wingtip-to-wingtip as low as 50 feet off the ground at speeds sometimes surpassing 500 mph. Pilots follow an oval path around pylons, with distances and speeds depending on the class of aircraft.

The disaster prompted renewed calls for race organizers to consider ending the event because of the dangers. Officials said they would look at everything as they work to understand what happened.

The Mustang that disintegrated into the crowd had minor crashes almost exactly 40 years ago after its engine failed. According to two websites that track P-51s that are still flying, it made a belly landing away from the Reno airport. The NTSB report on the Sept. 18, 1970, incident says the engine failed during an air race and it crash landed short of the runway.

P-51 historian Dick Phillips of Burnsville, Minn., said the plane had had several new engines since then as well as a new canopy and other modifications.

The National Championship Air Races draw thousands of people to Reno every September to watch various military and civilian planes race. Local schools often hold field trips there, and a local sports book took wagers on the outcomes.

The FAA and air race organizers spend months preparing for air races as they develop a plan involving pilot qualification, training and testing along with a layout for the course. The FAA inspects pilots’ practice runs and briefs pilots on the route maneuvers and emergency procedures.