Originally Posted by Bof
Can anybody help. I am struggling with the old grey matter. However, a very good friend of mine was employed by Bristols as a photographer. Around 54'ish he was killed in a Britannia crash near Bristol(?) supposedly he was on board to photograph wooltufts on part of the airframe on an airtest.
Clearly my mind is a bit muddled after 52 years. Was there another Brit crash in the area during the test period which incurred fatalities?
Yes, sadly, Bristol 175 Britannia G-ANCA was lost on the 6th November 1957 with 15 men on board. The aircraft had just completed a test flight of 1 hour and 40 minutes. Tests included a strain-gauge measurements on the non-standard propeller of the no. 2 engine, and high speed upset manoeuvre recovery tests in connection with the US certification. Returning to Filton, the aircraft entered a circuit and partial gear extensions occurred for unknown reasons. Attempts may have been made to complete undercarriage free fall tests as these had failed the previous day; such test were not on the programme however. At 1500 feet a left turn to base leg was initiated. The right wing suddenly dropped and the aircraft went into a very steeply banked right hand turn. The Britannia briefly recovered but banked steeply again and struck the ground in a wood near Downend Village.
The names of the 15 men who lost their lives that day were :
John Kenneth Barker
John Edward Burton
Donald Charles Cameron
Albert Edward Ebling
Philip Norman Edward Hewitt
Donald Matthew Hunter
Kenneth Graham Lucas
Dudley Neville Stephen Moynihan
Frederick William Mycroft
John Harold Parry-Jones
Ernest Hugh Statham
Nigel Morris Thorne
William James Todd
Bernard Francis Waite
Frederick Charles Walsh