My Dad had a happy RAF career from what I remember but I'd never really spoke about this before, when this came up in conversation the other night it seemed that he was angry/frustrated/sad felt the loss of the crew quite badly at the time, and never forgot it.
As I said, I'm going to read up on it. Found this more detail this evening;
on 24th March 1975. 57 Sqn Victor K2 XH618 had a rendezvous point over the North Sea, about 100 miles north east of Newcastle. The recipients were Honington-based Buccaneer S2s. The first aircraft made contact with the port side drogue and in two minutes withdrew, having been replenished,
For the pilot of the second aircraft, it was his first in-flight refuelling so he was instructed to make two 'dry' contacts. He made his first contact successfully and withdrew to allow the Victor to execute a 180 degree turn. Following the tanker round, the Buccaneer pilot approached for his second dry contact but, on appreciating that his speed was too fast, drew back just as he was level with the drogue which, on striking his probe,caused the hose to snake round and the drogue to hit the Victor. The drogue richocheted off the tanker's fuselage, struck the Buccaneer's canopy and wrapped itself around the fuselage.
The pilot made a quick nose-down manouevre but his starboard wing hit the Victor's port elevator causing the Victor pilot to lose control; this placed too great a load on the tail and it broke off. The captain ordered his crew to bail out but just as he made his ejection the Victor exploded. He was found in his dinghy by the German freighter
Hoheburg and recovered to fly again. The rest of the tanker crew perished, the Buccaneer survived to make landfall
