Death of Sean Cunningham

According to Martin-Baker's solicitors (Clyde &Co) they were advised to plead guilty to 'avoid upsetting MoD'. As part of the guilty plea, Martin-Baker agreed to pay court costs amounting to over £550,000 but refuted the prosecution's allegation that what happened was "not an isolated incident". In February 2018, and despite the Judge, Mrs Justice Carr, listing eight reasons why the company were not guilty, the company was fined £1.1 million.

A pre-inquest hearing was held in August 2013, where the coroner heard that Flight Lieutenant Kirsty Stewart, a fellow pilot on the Red Arrows, had a related incident at RAF Valley where her seat straps had passed through the ejection handle and dislodged the SFH, putting her at risk. The inquest was heard at Lincoln Cathedral Centre in January 2014. This had been delayed due to Lincolnshire Police conducting their own criminal investigation in the incident and passing the case file to the Crown Prosecution service (CPS) who decided that no-one would be prosecuted as there was insufficient evidence to suggest anyone had breached their duty of care.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) announced in May 2013 that no-one would be prosecuted over the incident, but that the Health and Safety Executive might pursue a prosecution. In September 2016, The Health and Safety Executive announced that they would be pressing ahead with a prosecution of Martin-Baker under Section 3(1) Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974. A pre-trial hearing was conducted in February 2017, where the company pleaded not guilty. A trial was scheduled to commence in January 2018, at which Martin-Baker pleaded guilty to a breach of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974.

The inquest also heard how a squadron leader who had returned to the Red Arrows after being away for four years was surprised by the lack of engineers for the squadron, the operational tempo (especially given the age of the aircraft) and the relative inexperience of the engineers, some of whom were on their first tour. There had also been pressure on the pilots to perform at a greater number of events. For the 2012 season, the number of hours flown had been dropped from 3,000 to 2,500.

Flight Lieutenant Sean Cunningham (1976 – 8 November 2011) was a Royal Air Force pilot on the Red Arrows aerobatics display team, who died when his ejection seat initiated whilst the aircraft he was in was stationary on the ground and he was conducting pre-flight checks. The incident occurred at the Red Arrows' home base, RAF Scampton in Lincolnshire, England. The initiation of the ejection seat was assumed to be by accident. The parachute on the seat did not deploy and Cunningham fell, still strapped to the seat, 220 feet (67 m) to his death 217 feet (66 m) away from the motionless aircraft. In January 2018, in the prosecution brought by the Health and Safety Executive, Martin-Baker, the manufacturers of the seat, pleaded guilty to a breach of health and safety law regarding Cunningham's death. On 23 February 2018, Martin-Baker were fined £1.1 million.

On 8 November 2011, Cunningham (who was to fly as RED 5), was crewing-in to his aircraft, a Hawk T1, registration XX177, to undertake a training flight and a transit to RAF Valley in North Wales. As the team were out of the display season (which normally ends in September), they flew up to three times a day, five days a week for continual professional training. During Cunningham's aircraft's pre-flight checks the ejection seat initiated at 11:06 am, which resulted in the canopy being shattered and the seat with Cunningham strapped into it being jettisoned into the air. After reaching a height of 220 feet (67 m) the drogue parachutes deployed (one was 22 inches, 560 mm across and the other 5 feet, 1.5 m) which were designed to allow the seat to stabilize itself in mid-air. As the seat fell back to earth the main parachute failed to deploy to slow the descent to a safe speed, and he fell to his death in the malfunctioning ejection seat. Cunningham was airlifted to Lincoln County Hospital by air ambulance, but was declared dead there at 12:14 pm. Cunningham died after what the coroner called "non-survivable injuries" to his brain and cardiovascular system.

The incident led to a grounding of many aircraft that the Royal Air Force were operating at that time, including all variants of the Hawk aircraft. The Martin-Baker ejection seat used (Mk.10B1) was also fitted to other aircraft besides the Hawk, though many were cleared as being fit to fly in the days after the event. The Red Arrows were given their airworthiness back by early December 2011. (While other aircraft have the Mk.10-series seat, only the Hawk retains the Scissor/Drogue Shackle parachute release mechanism, the RAF having refused to upgrade the seats in 1984. Therefore, the Hawk seats are not at the recommended manufacturer's build standard).

The Service Inquiry into the accident found that the seat firing handle (SFH) safety pin, had been displaced on an earlier flight (4 November 2011) and re-inserted incorrectly so as to appear that it was in the safe position, especially if viewed vertically from above, which is the normal stance when looking at the ejection seat for both aircrew and groundcrew, but actually it was in an unsafe position. As the aircraft was not used between 4 November and 8 November 2011, the cockpit was unsafe for four days. It was believed that straps from a previous sortie had pulled the SFH loose.

There is a memorial at RAF Scampton to Cunningham and fellow Red Arrows pilot, Flight Lieutenant Jon Egging. A brass plaque, on a wooden plinth in front of a gate guardian Hawk aircraft, reads "...they have slipped the surly bonds of Earth / Put out their hands and touched the face of God... / In memory of / Flt Lt Jon Egging – 20th August 2011 / Flt Lt Sean Cunningham – 8th November 2011". The wording paraphrases part of the poem "High Flight" by John Gillespie Magee Jr.

The coroner was critical of Martin-Baker, who knew about how the bolt that retained the drogue parachute was not to be over-tightened as far back as January 1990. Martin-Baker had informed some operators of the Mk10B1 seat (including many military air forces worldwide) not to over-tighten the bolt, but had not informed either the Ministry of Defence or the Royal Air Force. An assessment carried out by the Ministry after the incident stated that the event would occur only every 115 years. It was revealed prior to sentencing that Martin-Baker had passed this information to MoD before 1990, so had no obligation to do so again in 1990. In court, it was claimed MoD never had this information, from 1952 on. An RAF training film, MoD Air Publications and aircrew & engineer witnesses, proved otherwise; but the Health and Safety Executive advised the judge that this was irrelevant.

Cunningham was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, in 1976. His family moved to the United Kingdom in 1986 when he was nine years old and settled in the Ernesford Grange area of Coventry. Cunningham attended Ernesford Grange School and learnt to fly, gaining his pilot's licence at the age of 17. Despite a promising career in football, after university Cunningham joined the Royal Air Force in 2000; it had been his boyhood dream to fly with the Red Arrows, the RAF's aerobatic display team. He had flown with No. 617 Squadron and No. 100 Squadron of the Royal Air Force before being selected to join the Red Arrows as 'RED 5' in May 2011.