I arrived at Linton on Ouse in 1977, to begin BFTS very shortly after the station display pilot had crashed his Jet Provost on the airfield. He survived, but only just and he never flew again. A QFI crashed his JP3 into Gouthwaite Reservoir a few months later, losing his life. Sobering stuff to a young chap about to embark on a flying career.
Two years later I joined my first squadron at Odiham. Six weeks later we lost an aircraft, killing the three crew.
The following year I arrived at the main gate at Gutersloh to begin my Germany tour only to see an ominous pall of black smoke rising from the airfield. One of the QFIs I flew with at Linton had just ejected from his crashing Harrier. Tragically, he didn’t survive.
Before I left Gutersloh a Harrier Squadron Boss lost his life in a deployed site takeoff accident. About an hour later I was tasked to fly the station photographer over the crash site for the Board of Inquiry. Not nice, the wreckage was still smouldering.
My best friend was killed in a Northern Ireland aircraft accident some years later.
Sad times.