The Investigation by Dr Touch of the Ministry of Supply exonerated the GCA (PAR) Controller even though he" failed to warn the aircraft of his closeness to the ground". The actual cause of the crash was the PIC altimeter was reading 150 ft high when he was actually at ground level. Subsequant checks revealed Vulcan altimeters could be as much as 280 ft out in their readings. Weather at LHR was 8/8ths cloud at 700ft,heavy rain,2/8ths cloud at 300ft, visibilty 1,100yds.
The pilot had a Master Green instrument rating and the Heathrow breakoff height was 150ft. The No2 pilot was looking forward for the high intensity lighting and this was not visible at 300ft, on reaching his breakoff height the PIC applied full power to overshoot while the GCA Controller was talking him down in a"calm unhurried manner", a definate jolt was felt by the crew but but neither pilot was unduly disturbed thinking it equivalent to a normal landing and at worst the pilots thought a tyre had burst. Both main legs had been ripped off as they struck a ditch which in turn damaged the flying control surfaces rolling the aircraft to the right which could not be corrected. It impacted at the intersection of runways 1 & 4. The two pilots ejected but the four crew were unable to vacate the aircraft as no ejection seats were fitted for the rear crew and at 150ft, were unable to bale out and survive.
A little knowledge is dangerous and this has caused the GCA Controller to be thought partially responsible for the crash, very unfair as the whole incident was was a classic case of a series of small links of error and omission leading to a chain of disaster. It was the pilots first full GCA approach in a Vulcan, and probably the first ever by this type of aircraft in bad weather. Secondly, the GCA Controller was perfectly competant, he was not very experienced and had been talking aircraft down at LHR for three months. Thirdly, he was confronted by an aircraft that had an approach speed 15-20kts highr than contemporary civilian airliners and he tended to concentrate on directional information at the expense of elevation. I've already mentioned the altimeters error.
This from the accident report and Andrew Brookes excellent book "V-Force".