VulcanXA897 Crash LAP

[Padhist]

Vulcan XA.897 London Airport crash. 1st October, 1956
I am well aware that a lot of water has passed beneath the bridge since the above accident and perhaps for some it is not worth raking over the ashes. However, for me I have never really been able to free my mind of it. Just to remind you, this was the accident when, at London Airport, XA 897 was returning from good will mission to the far east, in addition to the Squadron Leader Captain was, Air Marshal Sir Harry Broadhurst. A VIP reception was awaiting them.The weather conditions necessitated a GCA Approach.

I obtained a copy of the Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation Report by Dr.A.G.Touch. But, as I expected it was a complete travesty and an indication of how we are hoodwinked by these investigatons. The terms of reference were such that the only aspects that could be investigated were those applicable to the GCA controls. Evidence obtained from the RAF Court of Enquiry was explicitly avoided. The latter was secret.

Now, it must be remembered, that four back seat members perished in this accident and if one looks at the record of this approach, at no time was the aircraft on a stable instrument approach path, to penetrate cloud down to 300ft to a successful landing. I would find it difficult to lay the blame with the controllers since, as I understand it, normal instrument landings were taking place all the time. I would think the problem lay in the relationship between the Captain and Sir Harry Broadhurst and the desire to arrive at the VIP reception at all costs. They probably had not flown in low cloud conditions for some time and should at least have gone round again or diverted.

I had hoped that now we have the FREEDOM of INFORMATION ACT I could have obtained a copy of the RAF Court of Enquiry and having applied for this I find it costs £10 to make a search and then £132 for the copy. At that price for me it must remain a secret. Perhaps that is better for all.

[FJJP]

Good. You could have saved server disk space and bandwidth by not bothering with this inane post in the first place.

[H Peacock]

Padhist.

Funny 'ole thing! Ever since I read about the Vulcan crash at Heathrow I found it hard to comprehend that a perfectly serviceable aircraft should crash killing 4 on board. Was it really all the fault of the GCA controller? I see no problem whatsoever with your post, so what an odd reply from FJJP.

HPcock.

[The Gorilla]

I agree!!!

What's up FJJP? Hormone imbalance day is it? I for one was not aware of this accident and am intrigued by it.

:ok:

[Pontius Navigator]

Not commenting on the crash but FOI. It is policy that enquiries shall be provided free of charge if the cost is less than £600. If the work required is voluminous then they do not have to provided it.

Less than £150 clearly should be provided FOC.

[Yellow Sun]

If the work required is voluminous then they do not have to provided it.

I was talking about this aspect of FOI with a writer/researcher. His view was that properly framed requests for specific information should get round the problem of the authorities refusing disclosure on these grounds. Once you had the initial information then the pointers for supplementary requests would become apparent. I am sure that many aspects of FOI will be thoroughly tested and explored over the coming months.

I can foresee a niche opportunity for FOI consultants specialising in drawing up disclosure requests.

YS

[Pontius Navigator]

Yellow Sun there is a catch with that plan. Subsequent requests in a 60 day period become additve. Once the £600 limiit is reach bingo.

If your writer went in with his first request - Day 1 - and got his reply on day 15 (average) and filed request 2 on Day 20 he might get his satisfactory answer by day 40. If not and he filed a third then he may well hit the £600.

The 60 day clock is probably reset at each query ie Day 60, Day 80 etc.

Humphrey wins.

[Yellow Sun]

Pontius,

I agree that it is not straightforward which is why I made the other points:

I am sure that many aspects of FOI will be thoroughly tested and explored over the coming months.

and

I can foresee a niche opportunity for FOI consultants specialising in drawing up disclosure requests

Sir Humphrey will already be making contingency plans and I am also sure that these will thwart the UFO Conspiracy Theorists et al. But I am also sure that the professional researcher will be much more persistent. Interesting times ahead.

YS

[hobie]

Pad, check your PM's ......

:ok:

[FJJP]

Padhist - I would like to apologise for my reply to your post. Put it down to tired, emotional, foul mood, old age - I glanced through it and didn't twig that it was comment on the FOI [thanks Pontius].

Those were the days when the public were told what they needed to know and few questioned 'the authorities'. It was also early days in aviation investigation terms, and there had not been many occasions where an accident had implications for both civilian and military sides of the equation. Add to that the 'prestige value' of the VIP and the 'shiny new V-Force', and you can start getting a sniff of major embarrassment for both sides; hence the desire to minimise the publicity fallout. For those of you who don't have knowledge of this accident, the link below contains details of it, written by certain very knowledgeable individuals [the events at this disastrous dining-in-night were a direct result of the crash].

http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=48124&perpage=40&highlight=heathrow%20vulcan&pagenumber=1

I am afraid I do not know enough about the mechanism of requesting FOI info to comment [or to advise]; there will be others I hope who will come forward and provide the guidance and advice as to just how the ordinary man in the street can obtain the materiel he requires. I am sure, however, that there must be a way without putting it out of reach financially.

Once again, Padhist, sorry for that…

FJJP

[Pontius Navigator]

YS,

Yes, UFO conspiratory theorists are well up on the crowd. The best though was the woman who had just discovered that she had had a bug inserted in her recum in 1986 and wanted to know what had been recorded in 1988.

[FJJP]

Pontius, how intriguing... Do tell, what are the details of THAT case?

[Padhist]

FJJP

I was surprised by your first comment, but this was amply corrected later, thank you. I was not aware of the Waddo dining in night but I cannot forget my own disgust at the decision to accept an aircraft such as the Vulcan having no rear bang seats. Apart from 230 OCU all my Vulcan flying was with BLEU at RAE Bedford. It should not be forgotten that this very successful forerunner of todays automatic landing systems was a direct operational requirement, to have an all weather landing capability for the VForce. What a pity that particular aircraft was not fitted with the system. I recall a visit to a Greenham Common airshow, when a Vulcan captain of 50 Sqdn showed me around a cockpit. When I remarked that he had Autoland fitted, he replied "We dont know what all those bits and pieces are for..." The system had never been used???

[FJJP]

Padhist, yes we had all the autoland kit fitted, but I believe non-use was down to money in the end - the cost of the ground installation.

In the late 60s, I used autothrottles, but nothing else [and they subsequently removed those fuses]. The autopilot was capable [except autoland prime was rendered inoperative] but the rest of the system was not serviced [why it was left in situ is beyond me!]. An auto-ILS was interesting sometimes if you used the autothrottle - you could end up with an interesting spread of power settings as some engines powered up and others down!

I've seen modern autoland in operation on the flight deck [Paphos to Gatwick] and impressive it is, too. Sometimes wish we had had it working on the Vulcan.

FJJP

[Padhist]

FJJP
I wish you could have experienced the full autoland system. I always thought the auto throttle was equal in value to the auto pilot. Our system worked perfectly with great precision. In fact during the latter part of the trials we carried out some auto approaches at 90 Knots I am sure you will agree, that, in a Vulcan
is a bit twitch making and I am certain could not have been achieved without auto's

[FJJP]

The autothrottle was agreed very accurate. Interestingly enough, though, many of us got used to using the total fuel flow meter to gauge power settings for the approach. I can't remember the figures with the passage of time, but it went something like, at glide slope intercept, reduce total fuel flow by 100 lbs/min...

It made flying circuits very much easier with just a glance at the meter as opposed to fiddling about with rpm settings [of course, for accuracy, you tweeked the individual engines to line up rpms around the right total fuel flow figure].

And yes, a 90KIAS approach would induce an almighty high pucker factor!!!!!

[hobie]

Pad, for a lot more on XA897 try this Google link ......

http://www.google.ie/search?hl=en&q=Vulcan+XA897&meta=

(114 links found)

:ok:

[Pontius Navigator]

Unfortunately the bug up the bum refered to Benson and this is JHC so the question was passed off to Land like sh*t off the proverbial.

I was at the Waddington Dining-In night and still green and wet behind the ears. Err the night was out I was wet elsewhere too. Good night with the complete opposite meted out to Gus Walker, the reknowned Rugby International referee who had lost an arm trying to save the crew of a crashed Lancaster. It is sad that he lost his arm in vane as they had alreadt escaped before the ac blew up.

We thought it a jolly good diner. Higher up they thought it was a mutiny. In perspective it was only 9 years after the crash at Heathrow.

Also in perspective, it was Broadhurst that moved Bomber Command from the somewhat staid and ponderous organisation to the quick reaction and fast generation organisation that could operate with virtually no support from dispersed locations throughout the UK and whose crew could turn the aircraft around without assistance.

[Yellow Sun]

FJJP wrote:
And yes, a 90KIAS approach would induce an almighty high pucker factor!!!!!

I am afraid that a single channel autoland in anything less than Cat 1 would produce a similar reaction in me! I do not recall that the 10b autopilot had any dual mode associated with "alnd prime" which would have made the failure case interesting to say the least. As a general rule, nowadays, single channel sytems are limited to Cat 2 manual landing (DH 100' RVR 300m). Anything below that requires dual autopilot. All low vis ops (RVR >550m) require in addition, supplementary lighting, which of course we did not have in the 60/70s. An added difficulty would have been the limited visual cutoff from the Vulcan. This would have made the visual segment of a Cat 2 very difficult and a lower approach speed would certainly have exacerbated the problem.

Things have come a long way though. I had a slightly bizarre event a couple of months ago. My destination, a Cat 1 airfield, was below limits with an RVR of 450M so I landed instead at the alternate where the RVR was 125M. We now have the technology.

YS