report of accident
On 20 September 1958, a Rolls Royce test pilot was authorized to fly VX770 on an engine performance sortie with a fly past at RAF Syerston Battle of Britain "At Home" display. The briefing was for the pilot to fly over the airfield twice at 200–300 ft (60–90 m), flying at a speed of 250–300 knots (460–560 km/h). The Vulcan flew along the main 25/07 runway then started a roll to starboard and climbed slightly. Very shortly a kink appeared in the starboard mainplane leading edge followed by a stripping of the leading edge of the wing. The starboard wingtip then broke followed by a collapse of the main spar and wing structure. Subsequently, the Vulcan went into a dive and began rolling with the starboard wing on fire and struck the ground at the taxiway of the end of runway 07. Three occupants of a controllers' caravan were killed by debris, a fourth being injured. All four of the Vulcan crew were killed. The cause of the crash was pilot error; the captain flew the aircraft over the airfield at 410–420 knots (760–780 km/h) instead of the briefed 250–300 knots he had also descended to a height of 65–70 ft (approximately 20 m). Rolling the Vulcan to starboard while flying at this speed, the aircraft was rolled at a rate of 15–20 degrees/second while pulling up into a 3,000 ft (910 m) per minute climb imposing a strain of between 2–3 g where it should have remained below 1.25 g. The VX770 was a prototype and was not as strong as later production models, indeed buckling of the leading edge in this plane was a known problem and was the primary reason for low flight performance limits being imposed.