7 November 1963. We hear on the news that the previous evening an airliner has run off the end of the runway at Heathrow in very foggy conditions and has ended up in a cabbage field. Turns out to be TCA DC8 CF-TJM. After school my friends & I cycle over to the accident site armed with cameras. The area is guarded by a lone policeman, who does not seem to object to us wandering round taking photos.
Investigators find that the cause of the incident (in which no-one was seriously injured) was the decision of the captain to reject the take-off at a speed well in excess of V1 because he thought (incorrectly) that the elevator control was defective. Needless to say, there were plenty of extenuating circumstances: there were start-up delays due to the weather, the crew had already done an RTO on 28L due to inadequate visibility before attempting a take-off on 28R and taxying was difficult in the fog, requiring radar assistance from ATC. These and other factors would have depleted the captain's mental capacity.
Incredibly, given the extensive damage incurred, this aircraft was rebuilt. On another thread a poster has referred to 'unlucky' aircraft. Logic suggests that such sentiment is unscientific nonsense. And yet . . . CF-TJM crashed four years later during a training exercise. The three crew on board were killed.