Hi Luce.
I am sorry to hear of your family's loss. This is from Page 26, 'Winged Warriors - The Cold War from the Cockpit':
"In 1973 the Officers' Mess was crammed and my course lived in tiny rooms in a wooden hut about two hundred yards from the Mess. My Flight Commander was my former flight commander, Dickie Lees. During groundschool the reality of our chosen careers struck home. A lecture from one of the staff navigators was interupted and he was told that he was required to fly that night replacing a navigator who had reported sick. That evening the news spread that a Canberra had crashed and the crew had ejected. Our lecturer had been taken to hospital but his pilot, John Dennis, had been killed. During a night simulated asymetric overshoot, control had been lost and although the crew ejected, by the time the pilot's ejection seat operated, the aircrfat was already rolling fast and was almost inverted; there was insufficient height for John's parachute to deploy. The navigator thankfully only suffered compression fractures of the spine which were typical injuries caused by the older type of ejection seat fitted to the Canberra."
I was on the course immediately after John. I had seen him around, but we hadn't met. As I recall, he was a former Vulcan co-pilot converting onto the Canberra (perhaps after a ground tour as an Ops Officer?). He was crewed, I think, with a first-tour navigator who had reported sick on the day in question, hence the need for a replacement navigator. Max Murray was the only one available. He understood the situation but was midly irritated as he had planned to go out that evening with his wife. Later that evening, as I went into the Mess, I heard about the accident. It was very sobering. I was a first-tourist pilot and had yet to fly my first sortie in a Canberra. Night practice asymetric by students was removed from the syllabus after John's accident.
My first asymetric for real came six months later - and it was at night.
It's nearly fifty years since John's tragic loss. Since then, I've driven up and down the A1 hundreds of times. Whenever I pass The Fox, I remember that night. I always will.
Best wishes,
Paul