Parents came home from son’s grave to find daughter dead

The parents of a Shoreham Airshow disaster victim returned home from visiting their son’s grave to find their daughter dead, an inquest has heard.

Caroline and Bob Schilt left their daughter Louise when they went to visit their son Jacob’s grave in Clayton, West Sussex, but when they returned home they found her lifeless body.

Bob, 70, performed CPR on his daughter in a desperate bid to save her life – and now he and wife Caroline, 64, have shared their family’s tragedy as an inquest into Louise’s death opens today.

Their son Jacob, 23, was one of the 11 people killed at the Shoreham Airshow in 2015 when pilot Andy Hill’s Hawker Hunter crashed into the nearby A27 while attempting a loop manoeuvre.

The plane exploded into a fireball and Jacob, a University of Portsmouth graduate who was on his way to play football, was killed in the crash.

Eight years on, in April 2023, his 34-year-old sister Louise died at home, with mum Caroline describing their loss as ‘cruel beyond’.

In a public tribute to her daughter, Caroline said: ‘Our lovely daughter Louise has died suddenly at home yesterday, cruel enough to lose Jacob in the Shoreham aircrash but now to be robbed of our our other child seems cruel beyond – the sweetest kindest girl we will always love you.’

Louise, a keen horse rider, was fit and active until she started to suffer with a mystery illness in December 2021. It was originally thought she could have cancer, but she was later diagnosed with an enlarged heart.

She died just two hours after being discharged from hospital, where she’d had fluid drained from her chest for a third time, MailOnline reports.

Louise was discharged half an hour after the procedure despite Caroline saying she ‘plainly wasn’t alright’, adding her daughter was struggling to get out of the car.

Bob and Caroline say their daughter’s health got worse after having her second coronavirus jab, but they never found out what caused Louise’s death, with Bob saying: ‘They never did the investigation to find out.’

The inquest at West Sussex coroner’s court in Horsham is scheduled to last one day. 

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