FAMILIES of some of the 11 victims of the Shoreham air crash will be marking its third anniversary by laying flowers at 1.22pm today.

Members of at least four of the families will gather on the Shoreham Toll Bridge for an “informal memorial” to remember their loved ones who died when a Hawker Hunter jet crashed on to the A27 while it performed a display at Shoreham Airshow in August 2015.

“It doesn’t seem like another year has gone by,” said Caroline Schilt, whose 23-year-old son Jacob died in the tragedy.

“We can’t believe it’s three years – it’s almost like it happened yesterday.”

She will be at the gathering with her husband Bob and daughter Louise, 30, to remember Jacob, a midfielder with Worthing United Football Club and a “kind and generous man with a wonderful sense of humour”.

Prayers will also be said for the victims at St Mary de Haura Church in Shoreham.

Jacob died alongside team-mate Matthew Grimstone, 23, the club’s goalkeeper. His parents, Phil and Sue, said: “We remain devastated and cannot believe that three years have passed.”

Also killed were personal trainer Matt Jones, 24, from Littlehampton, and his friend Daniele Polito, 23, a young father from Goring; window cleaner Mark Trussler, 49, a father of six from Worthing; wedding chauffeur Maurice Abrahams, 76, from Brighton; Mark Reeves, 53, a computer-aided design technician from Seaford; cyclist Richard Smith, 26, from Hove; father-of-two Dylan Archer, 42, from Brighton; aircraft enthusiast Tony Brightwell, 52, a health care manager for Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust and Brighton and Hove City Council; and retired engineer Graham Mallinson, 72, from Newick, a life member and active volunteer of the Bluebell Railway.

It was at 1.22pm on August 22, 2015, that the six-tonne vintage Hawker Hunter jet, piloted by Andrew Hill, crashed on to the A27 on the first day of the two-day airshow.

The aircraft was in the afternoon session of displays at the show, an annual extravaganza held in aid of the Royal Air Forces Association (RAFA).

Eleven people died in the crash and another 16 were injured. Eight vehicles were destroyed.

Pilot Andrew Hill survived after being thrown clear of the crashed plane and was taken to the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton, where he was placed in a medically induced coma.

He was later released from hospital.

At the time, the Shoreham air crash represented the largest civilian loss of life in the UK since the 7/7 terrorist bombings in London, which killed 52 people and injured more than 700, and the first fatalities on the ground at any UK airshow since 1952.

The Shoreham Airshow has not taken place since.

Tim Loughton, the MP for East Worthing and Shoreham, in whose constituency the crash happened, told the House of Commons that “many stories of the personal tragedies that accompanied that loss touched a chord across the nation”.

The clear-up operation began the following day, on what should have been the second day of the show, and identification of the victims began.

In the immediate aftermath of the incident, investigations were launched by the AAIB (Air Accident Investigation Branch), the CAA (Civil Aviation Authority) and Sussex Police, which would take statements from more than 350 witnesses, 4,000 documents and pieces of evidence, and receive video evidence from more than 200 people.

On August 24, the CAA grounded all Hawker Hunters and the following January said it would tighten safety rules for such events.

It later published a series of measures for show organisers, while the AAIB made a series of safety recommendations.

An inquest into the 11 deaths was opened and adjourned in April 2016, and in July, it was revealed Sussex Police were investigating Mr Hill for manslaughter.

A pre-inquest review was “reluctantly” delayed by the West Sussex coroner in February last year so that a report by the AAIB could be taken into account.

In March this year, Mr Hill was charged with 11 counts of manslaughter by gross negligence and endangering an aircraft.

His trial at the Old Bailey in London is set to start on Monday, January 14, next year and has been slated to last for five to seven weeks.

Mr Hill has pleaded not guilty.

Due to the nature of the charges, the coroner, Penelope Schofield, announced that the full inquest must now await the conclusion of the criminal case.

She does not anticipate that it will take place until mid to late 2019.

Mr Loughton has previously criticised the length of time it has taken for the inquest to take place.

He also condemned what he called the “extraordinary” decision last November by the Legal Aid Agency not to extend funding from the exceptional cases fund to the families of the victims at the inquest.

At the time, Claire Miles, who lost nephew Daniele Polito, in the tragedy, set up a petition declaring that it was “beyond all humanity” that the families were being denied legal aid.

It attracted 4,095 signatures but the Government has since agreed to the funding.

As all the families remember their loved ones today, they will also be anticipating next January’s trial and the inquest next autumn.

By then, the fourth anniversary of the tragedy that took 11 lives will have come and gone.