Hastings wing failure (?)
Geriaviator-
Re your #12544, I did actually witness occurrence of a Hastings main spar failure, though whether it should be classified as a flying accident is perhaps arguable. One day in the late fifties I was sitting in my Hastings at the holding point for Abingdon's RW 08, watching another on late finals. It seemed a bit on the high side and the attitude did not look quite right, indeed at around the 1 ½ mile point it assumed a most pronounced nose up posture then almost immediately made a partial recovery but with a fairly high rate of descent. Approaching the threshold, no attempt to check this rate was made so it landed heavily in a three point attitude just short of the runway before bouncing once onto the hard stuff.
At the moment of impact I noticed quite clearly that while the left side oleos went to full travel, not only did those on the right do the same but the whole wheel arch casting moved visibly upwards. “Something's busted” I thought to myself, and sure enough as the Hastings decelerated up the runway it gradually tipped over as the starboard wing twisted upwards until the tip dragged along the ground, thus arresting further progress.
As I recall, the actual point of fracture was at the junction of main spar with the centre section. The aircraft was of course a write-off, while the reason for this quite unnecessary accident is lost to my memory thought no doubt is recorded somewhere. The flight was for training purposes, though why the instructor/examiner did not take corrective action I don't know; suprisingly, he continued in post afterwards.