Don't know about Crash Gordon but I was at Topcliffe in the early 90s when it almost killed two of our beefers. Went into a spin and then couldn't get out because the pedals were jammed. Flying pilot kept kicking them even though he thought he had broken his ankle and passed the min height to bale out...
Story has a happy ending, he did recover and it was found a bolt had been installed in the pedals the wrong way round. RAF/RN put it down to teething troubles and everybody carried on.
The same week a throttle cable snapped on a stude during a PFL. Quite a Happy Hour that week as I recall.
Lords of the Fly, no more Bull!!