DrSyn,
Although not a personal memory (I arrived at Watton in May 62), the 663 fire was still a hot (?) topic of conversation when I got there.
Apparently, the story goes, that the duty key orderly forgot to turn off the main hangar power. 663 was undergoing (unspecified) major modification in 4 hangar and a lead lamp was left live in the a/c. During the early evening, it ignited some part of the fuselage near the rear entrance door. The fire smouldered all night, gradually getting more severe, but still only smouldering. Apparently, the lack of available air in the sealed hangar, contributed to the smouldering, rather than a full fire. By the morning, the aircraft was virtually totally destroyed internally. Regular fire picket patrols, (because of lack of appreciable flames) failed to notice anything amiss. In their defence, they only patrolled the hangars externally and therefore the interior of the actual hangar floor space was out of vision. I actually knew one of the pickets on duty that night.
When the hangar was opened in the morning, the influx of air caused the whole fuselage to burst into flames, the nose undercarriage collapsed and the tail assembly punched a hole in the roof. The tail assembly then snapped off. As you said, the aircraft was destroyed.
An edited afterthought - I think I'm right in saying, that 663 was officially assigned to 51 and may have flown a few sorties on the squadron. The fire occured when it was being modified to 51 requirements.
Are you sure that you have the date of the fire correct? I know its in the dim and distant past, but I thought that the fire happened only a year or so, before I joined the squadron. Certainly I was not aware, when the story was (repeatedly) recalled, that it was all of 5 years before.
Last edited by Lukeafb1; 25th Jul 2003 at 16:56.