Valiant crash, Wittering, August 1960

[Carol Johnson]

To Lynda and Peter Davidson

Dear Lynda it is so good to make contact with you I will PM you. Peter I am so gald you made contact. Although it is heart breaking to read your account of that day it helps a lot. I would be happy to talk with you.
All the best and thank you,
Carol Johnson

[Carol Johnson]

Lynda did you get my private message?

[Carol Johnson]

Memorial Service

A memorial service will be held for the crew of XD864. The service will be in the village of Harringworth on Sunday August 15th at 3pm. Some of the children and grandchildren of the crew members will be attending as will others who would like to pay their respects. I am posting this in hope that others who may have known the crew or had connections with them in one way or another see it or hear about it and therefore have the chance of attending the service. The Reverend Jane Baxter will be conducting ther service. Harringworth is the village near Spanhoe where the plane went down. I understand there are still witnesses in Harringworth thus it is most approriate the service be held there.
I look forward to meeting any of you who are able to come.
Carol Johnson

[Gingie]

Valiant XD864

I'm so pleased i've found this forum, and more to the point this thread.

I have been looking for information regarding Spanhoe as I have an interest in old airfields, then I stumbled across the accident involving XD864.

I would like to attend the memorial service despite not having any involvement with the crew or aircraft, however I understand if the service is friends and family only.

Also are there any plans for a visit to Spanhoe airfield on August 12th, if so I would be pleased if I could attend.

Also with refence to the Armed Forces Memorial, this may be of interest:

AFM Start Page

Please do let me know.

Many thanks in advance.

Jerry

[A2QFI]

Harringworth - 15th August 2010

A general update. Carol Johnson, daughter of one of the crew, is visiting UK from Australia and will be at the Service. Jerry, who posts here as "Gingie", and I are hoping to take her to the airfield in the late morning of 15th and will obviously take anyone else who wants to come. The village pub, the White Swan, only does full roast lunches on Sunday but I have rung the owner and he says he could probably run up something more lightweight, baguettes etc. Let us hope for a fine day and a memorable service.

[Carol Johnson]

Hi Jerry

Hi Jerry,
Just a note to ask what you and Marin thought of the service. It was very moving for me. Did you take any photos of the service, seems that maybe nobody did, which I can understand. Just that my children were unable to attend and I want to show them as much as possible of the day. Thanks to you and Martin for your support on the day and for escorting us to the site. You know my private email - [email protected]
Best wishes,
Carol Johnson

[LookingNorth]

Originally Posted by RIHoward

I think the pilot had the engines on full power because he was trying to avoid hitting a witness who was sitting on his tractor and when contacted in 2008 that witness said. "I had the distinct impresssion the pilot had seen me and tried to avoid hitting me" another witness was reported as saying that "the A/c almost made a perfect belly flop landing" which is supported by an article in the Times the following day which states "It is thought the pilot was attempting a landing" and the reconstruction of the flight which shows that the A/c was flying straight and descending at first rapidly and then in a "shallow" approach after it had turned 120¯by Red Hill Farm", it was flying slowly and in line with a runway. But as P Beech has said we'll never really know all we want to show is that the BoI couldn't condemn the Captain on the evidence they select because so many other bits of evidence suggest that they were trying to land the plane, and according to current Queens regulations A dead crew can only be blamed as neglegent when there is to quote: "absolutely no doubt whatsoever."
For more doubts see.....

XD864

I've had a good read of this, as it's all rather local to me, and interesting reading it makes but I have to point out a few big holes in your interpretation.

I can't see why you think the turn was through 120 degrees rather than 180 as per the BOI PDF. An initial impact direction of 44 degrees veering to 110 degrees certainly seems to indicate the turn was nearer 180 from the initial take-off direction of 260 than the 120 you go with. Similarly, your flight path seems off, as it's drawn east of Harringworth but witness 2 says it flew over Seaton - NW of Harringworth. Mind you, witness 5 conflicts with this stating the turn was before the viaduct, east of Seaton. The witness reports are all so vague in positions and distances it is hard to make much of them really. Witness 1 in particular is no use as his location could be in any one of 11 'runway intersection' spots in the vicinity of the crash site, all of which vary the aircraft's path dramatically compared to others.

With wind reported at 350 (and this is backed up by the spread of scorching from the fire on the aerial photo of the crash site), runway 14 at Spanhoe was about the worst possible choice - shortest, tailwind, no fire cover, and poor surface quality. Recipe for disaster - particularly with a flapless approach!

With the impact point almost in the middle of the triangle of grass between the 3 runways and an initial impact heading of 44 degrees, you'd be better off making a case for them trying for a forced landing on the longest of the runways at Spanhoe (07?), which would have had much less in the way of a tailwind, though a hefty crosswind.

However... if a landing at Spanhoe was being attempted, why were the engines at high power? Why was the gear still up? If a belly landing was the intention, why was the cockpit hatch not jettisoned? Why were no radio calls made after the initial call that they were remaining in the local area to sort out the nose gear fault?

You postulate a possible fatigue fracture of a spar to explain it all - these failures did not show up on any production Valiant until August 1964, four years and a lot of flying hours later. Second prototype WB215's spar fracture in 1957 was in a different place and thought to be due to the beating the aircraft had had during its trials life - including heavy landings, wing flutter incidents, and repeated RATOG firings.

The only part of your page that I agree with is the criticism of the narrative style of the report (with its attempt to paint a picture of what might have been going on in the cockpit in those 3 brief minutes) - but it's a style used in most reports of that era.

Incidentally I see no inconsistency between "1800ft QNH" and "1000-1500 ft above airfield level (300ft)" - that's 1300-1800 ft QNH, and with multiple witnesses stating 'lower than usual' that's a pretty sensible hedging of bets. If I were being unkind I'd think you were trying a bit too hard to find "errors".

On balance, the conclusion of the report seems entirely reasonable and likely to me, and your theory so far away from likely that you need a passport, a visa and a damn long flight to get there. Interesting effort though.

[Hipper]

I don't think the BoI report says how large the turn was and it was probably my error that makes you think they said 180 degrees.

I wanted to write a summary of the report for my family and despite many re-readings of the BoI papers I couldn't find the exact amount of turn so I tried to work it out on a map. That's where I came up with 180 degrees. I was wrong and either I eventually worked it out or more likely Richard did and I now agree with him that the turn was approximately 120 degrees. The aircraft came out of the intended turn of 180 degrees early when the initial first stall appeared to occur. I have no real idea of the geography of the area but Richard does.

My family article is on John Dillon's Vulcan site with this 180 degree turn and I did ask him to correct it.

Apart from that, unlike Richard, I accept the conclusions of the crash report. Their job was to try and find a reason for the crash and that had to involve a certain amount of speculation as some facts weren't available.

[RIHoward]

@LookingNorth

I've had a good read of this, as it's all rather local to me, and interesting reading it makes but I have to point out a few big holes in your interpretation.

Oh really?
I think you should pay more attention to the sources and not start with the pre-conceived idea that the BoI were right. The Tench report should alert you to the possibility of a cover up. A Quote from Tench

" A disturbing feature is the influence which senior officers seek to exert on the investigation process, particularly in the RAF. Presidents of boards are conscious of a hovering presence in the background. The pervasive nature of the involvement some station commanders and even commanders in chief, is an unwelcome intrusion upon what should be the complete independence of the board of inquiry

The opportunities for staff to influence the boards interpretation of evidence or even their findings, must throw some doubt on the complete freedom of the board to draw its own conclusions.
"

As Hipper rightly says the BoI never mention a 180 degree turn, They say the A/c would stall by the time 90 degrees of turn was achieved. This number was arrived at in the Simulator flights run on day 3 of the Inquiry and before the Board had reconstructed the flight on a map on day 4.

I can't see why you think the turn was through 120 degrees rather than 180 as per the BOI PDF. An initial impact direction of 44 degrees veering to 110 degrees certainly seems to indicate the turn was nearer 180 from the initial take-off direction of 260 than the 120 you go with.

So if as the BoI state the A/c would have stalled by 90 degrees of turn, how could it possibly have made it to 180 degrees? (or 120 degrees for that matter) Considering that Pilot's notes for the Valiant states the A/c will invariably roll out of a stall in the turn without the intervention of the Pilot it would appear that 90 degrees is the maximum turn achievable according to the flight simulator tests. Further more a port turn (backing not veering) is consistent with a 140 to 110 change in direction and consistent with the photographic evidence and Witness 1's statement hitting with the left wing first.

Pilot's Notes also says stalling a Valiant is 'very unlikely'.

Why then do the BoI pursue this 'very unlikely' occurrence as a cause of the crash after 2 days of their investigation when they'd found a fractured centre line spar at the scene, the main structural component in an A/c designed with the 'safe-life' strategy, a strategy that could not guarantee safety in a catastrophic failure, built from a material that was known to and had previously failed catastrophically i.e. DTD683. Surely this is the more likely cause than the 'very unlikely' stall hypothesis. And yet it was not investigated at all, in-fact it was studiously ignored by all concerned.. How do you explain that?

Also 'veering' means a clockwise turn, so a turn to starboard, no witnesses mention any turn to starboard only port turns and dips are mentioned. The 120 degree turn was arrived at by taking all the witness statements as a whole, not just each one singly there is a consistency in their statements, it's why the BoI chose them over the many others who'd witnessed the crash and made statements, taken together it's relatively straight forward to reconstruct the path, it's what you should try to do if you think I've got it wrong, use a map and try to plot it for yourself rather than this 'hand waving' approach you seem to favour, at least give me the credit of actually sitting down for a few hours and studying it and then drawing it out. There were many other witnesses that were not included in the report and I've spoken to a couple of them and I've spoken to and met Witness 1.

Witness 1 was delivering manure to the field you can see the piles he was in the process of making on the field you can also see the tractor tracks in the image. He was methodical, moving from left to right in the image he was in the process of making the third row of piles, and was either half done with the last pile in row 3 or about to start a fresh pile to the right.

Similarly, your flight path seems off, as it's drawn east of Harringworth but witness 2 says it flew over Seaton - NW of Harringworth.

Witness 2 states it flew over Shotley not Seaton I do wish that you get your facts straight before posting to this thread because this error on your part makes the rest of your post meaningless.

I'd thank you sir not to patronise me as I spent a lot of time working out the flight path something you clearly haven't bothered to do.

...... The witness reports are all so vague in positions and distances it is hard to make much of them really.

This is patently not true the BoI were careful to choose witnesses that agreed with each other and that corroborated each others statements.

Witness 1 in particular is no use as his location could be in any one of 11 'runway intersection' spots in the vicinity of the crash site, all of which vary the aircraft's path dramatically compared to others.

Again simply not true and shows just how much time you've spent looking at the material (very little) you can quite clearly see on the photographs where he was working and as I say I've spoken to Witness 1 as is clearly stated on the web page. If you're not prepared to at least do me the courtesy of reading AND understanding the web page then please do shut up!

With wind reported at 350 (and this is backed up by the spread of scorching from the fire on the aerial photo of the crash site), runway 14 at Spanhoe was about the worst possible choice - shortest, tailwind, no fire cover, and poor surface quality. Recipe for disaster - particularly with a flapless approach!

OK this statement is so full of holes it's incredible. Have you actually read the page because it looks like you've just scanned it given the level of comprehension exhibited in that last statement.

First what you call 'the spread of scorching from the fire' also contains the debris field including the engines, where they ended up is consistent with 140 degrees at impact.

RWY14 was as short as RWY 20. Trying to put down on 20 would mean a turn of 60 degrees, less time to loose height, flying on gave an extra 30 seconds of flight time and about the same distance for a glide approach. So no, I think 14 gave them more time and more opportunity to lose height and speed than 20 did. Spanhoe was a DISUSED airbase so no 'fire-cover' at all. The Valiant sir was the 'Recipe for Disaster' and it should have been scrapped or rebuilt in 1956 as other 'safe-life' designs were.

With the impact point almost in the middle of the triangle of grass between the 3 runways and an initial impact heading of 44 degrees,

This is clearly an error by the AIB man he's obviously just left off a 1 at the start it should be 144 degrees, as in witness 1's statement flying along the line of the runway, RWY 14 that is.

you'd be better off making a case for them trying for a forced landing on the longest of the runways at Spanhoe (07?), which would have had much less in the way of a tailwind, though a hefty crosswind.

Well if you're trying to fly a seriously structurally compromised A/c I don't suppose you'd have the luxury of choosing which runway. See the quote below from the ex chief test pilot who was flying Valiants in 1960.

However... if a landing at Spanhoe was being attempted, why were the engines at high power?

There might be two reasons the first is to avoid hitting a man on a tractor and the second might be that too much height was lost in the turn, that is they had flown down into the Welland Valley and were trying to re-gain height, I favour the former, though Witness 1 does think that they had flown up out of the valley to some extent.

Why was the gear still up?

If you suspect a fractured spar you leave everything alone where it is. See the quote below from the ex chief test pilot who was flying Valiants in 1960.

If a belly landing was the intention, why was the cockpit hatch not jettisoned?

He thought he could make it remember he was allegedly 'Over-confident'

Why were no radio calls made after the initial call that they were remaining in the local area to sort out the nose gear fault?

OK there are a few things wrong with the assumption, that 'the problem' was the nose wheel, there was nothing to do in a nose wheel failure other than to abort, so there was nothing to 'sort out' with the nose wheel failure. Secondly what he was 'staying local' to sort out was 'the problem' and not 'the nose wheel', you're filling in the blanks with your own pre conceived notion of what 'the problem' was, 'the problem' may have been the structural failure of the fractured spar.
'The problem' may be indicated in the telegram sent out from Wittering at 1pm.

G(2) above is why the AIB were involved at all (See Tench) and the 'UNUSUAL OR OBSCURE FEATURES' clearly does not indicate the nose wheel, which was neither 'UNUSUAL' or 'OBSCURE'.

We'll never know of course because Wickham and his crew are dead, and the BoI did not ascertain when the fractured spar actually failed. The AIB man states there was 'no evidence' of a pre impact structural failure, and as he clearly, studiously ignored and failed to investigate the spar failure he can say without lying that he had found 'no evidence' because he simply hadn't looked at the spar. This is similar to the Mull Chinook incident, one of the AIB investigators was asked if finding 'no evidence' of a technical fault meant there hadn't been a technical fault he replied, 'No'.

All of your questions were clearly not answered in the BoI it was the BoI's duty to answer these questions. It is telling that the BoI did not ask these questions and you should not expect me to answer them. If they thought they were about to blame the Pilot the BoI should have allowed the Pilot representation (See The Tench Report) at the BoI (even if he was dead) with the right to call and re-examine witnesses, Wickham was not given this right. Just another indication of the shoddy way he and his crew were treated by the RAF/MOD. Disgraceful I'd call it and it dishonours them.

You postulate a possible fatigue fracture of a spar to explain it all - these failures did not show up on any production Valiant until August 1964,

It's not a postulation it's a FACT of evidence a fractured spar was found and it was not investigated. A fractured spar if found would be the most probable cause given that this fractured spar was the backbone of a 'safe-life' design made from a material that was known to be prone to catastrophic failure.

four years and a lot of flying hours later. Second prototype WB215's spar fracture in 1957 was in a different place and thought to be due to the beating the aircraft had had during its trials life - including heavy landings, wing flutter incidents, and repeated RATOG firings.

You're just regurgitating the 'official' yarn if you read Andrew Brookes' 1980's book you'll see for example that when 138 Sqdn was being disbanded in 1962 one Valiant was 'so badly cracked' that it couldn't be flown out of Wittering and had to be broken up on site.

DTD683 was known (in 1956) to undergo a structural change when over stressed, which would lead to a rapid 'auto catalytic' and catastrophic failure. Humphrey Wynn mentions another fatigue failure in a Valiant in Africa a few months before the August incident he calls it a pre cursor. All this was known in '56 the Valiant should have been scrapped or rebuilt in 1956 a year after it had entered service

The only part of your page that I agree with is the criticism of the narrative style of the report (with its attempt to paint a picture of what might have been going on in the cockpit in those 3 brief minutes) - but it's a style used in most reports of that era.

It's a blatant, clumsy and deliberate cover up which dishonours the crew of XD864.

Incidentally I see no inconsistency between "1800ft QNH" and "1000-1500 ft above airfield level (300ft)" - that's 1300-1800 ft QNH, and with multiple witnesses stating 'lower than usual' that's a pretty sensible hedging of bets. If I were being unkind I'd think you were trying a bit too hard to find "errors"

If I were being unkind I'd say you are an idiot. The errors the BoI made show what a bunch of amateurs they were the errors show how sloppy their approach was how careless they were.

On balance, the conclusion of the report seems entirely reasonable and likely to me, and your theory so far away from likely that you need a passport, a visa and a damn long flight to get there. Interesting effort though.

Ha Ha Ha poor authoritarians, always think the authorities never lie. Ha! 'entirely reasonable'? barely, only with a massive stretch of your tiny imagination is it plausible. The fractured spar is a more probable cause than the 'very unlikely' stall hypothesis. The spar was ignored in the investigation.

This report is not the basis on which to convict posthumously a Captain of 'blameworthy neglegence'. It is preciseley this kind of report that prompted the RAF to add

“ONLY IN CASES IN WHICH THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO DOUBT WHATSOEVER SHOULD DECEASED AIRCREW BE FOUND NEGLIGENT”

To the regulations governing BoIs

Here's what an ex Avro chief test pilot who was flying Valiants in 1960 says....

The BoI findings appear to me to be 'a rush to judgement'. To me the telling evidence is that of witness statements that lead one to conclude that the Captain was attempting an emergency landing, and that the aircraft was under control as it flew along the disused runway. This is totally inconsistant with a recovery from a stall but fits in with the supposition that they had suffered a spar failure. In this case the captain would have tried to minimise the stress on the wing by limiting any changes in configuration, ie; u/c and flaps, and keeping the speed and angle of bank low. The only surprising thing to me is that there is not any evidence of a radio message.

Kindly read and understand the material before coming here to wave your hands about in this feeble way. Read it with a genuinely open mind rather than the obviously closed one you have. You owe it to the dead crew.

[LookingNorth]

Originally Posted by RIHoward

Oh really?
I think you should pay more attention to the sources and not start with the pre-conceived idea that the BoI were right.

I did not start with any pre-conceived ideas; indeed on first reading of your page I thought you had a fairly decent case. I spent several hours reading it and the BoI, drawing up a map as you yourself have done and plotting witness points etc. It would be nice if you were a little less hysterical and insulting in your response.

Originally Posted by RIHoward

As Hipper rightly says the BoI never mention a 180 degree turn

OK, but why then does your own page state:

If you don't have time to read the BoI, Michael Bullen and John Dillon have written a web page that follows the narrative put forward in the BoI. This page also contains some of the errors found in the BoI e.g. "after a standard 30° banked turn of 180°, the aircraft hit the ground". This is not what happened ( a 30° bank is the lateral tilt of the A/c in a turn. The 180° refers to the amount turned through) . XD864 actually turned 120º.

Further more a port turn (backing not veering) is consistent with a 140 to 110 change in direction and consistent with the photographic evidence and Witness 1's statement hitting with the left wing first.

Where do you get 140 from? This is not the heading mentioned - in at least two different places - in the BoI.

Why then do the BoI pursue this 'very unlikely' occurrence as a cause of the crash after 2 days of their investigation when they'd found a fractured centre line spar at the scene

Just about every major component of the aircraft was fractured - it rolled into a ball and exploded. I would be amazed if the spar didn't fracture. It clearly states that "no evidence" was found of any pre-crash structural failure. Why do you ignore this?

...built from a material that was known to and had previously failed catastrophically i.e. DTD683.

Can you name a single proven instance of production Valiant spar failure before 1964?

Also 'veering' means a clockwise turn, so a turn to starboard, no witnesses mention any turn to starboard only port turns and dips are mentioned.

Impact on a heading of 44 degrees; debris distributed at 110 degrees from there. There is no 'turn to starboard' here. There is a massive fireball with bits going in all directions amidst an extremely violent arrival on terra firma. No witness is going to report that as a "starboard turn", are they?

if you think I've got it wrong, use a map and try to plot it for yourself rather than this 'hand waving' approach you seem to favour, at least give me the credit of actually sitting down for a few hours and studying it and then drawing it out.

I did.

There were many other witnesses that were not included in the report and I've spoken to a couple of them and I've spoken to and met Witness 1.

I'm afraid I can only go on the evidence presented in the BoI and frankly I wouldn't trust most witnesses 5 minutes after a crash let alone 50 years after.

Witness 2 states it flew over Shotley not Seaton

Yes, I do apologise. Late at night, tired old eyes and a poor quality PDF are all a combination for error. That at least makes the turn definitely east of Harringworth and removes the major inconsistency.

Again simply not true and shows just how much time you've spent looking at the material (very little) you can quite clearly see on the photographs where he was working and as I say I've spoken to Witness 1 as is clearly stated on the web page. If you're not prepared to at least do me the courtesy of reading AND understanding the web page then please do shut up!

I'd thank you to remain civil.

Witness 1 states: "I was working on a field in SPANHOE airfield near the intersection of two runways.". He does not elaborate as to which two runways. There is nothing on your page that elaborates as to his exact position either. Therefore he could be within the grass triangle within the 3 runways at one of those 3 corners; or outside that triangle in any of 9 spots 'near the intersection of two runways'. 12 possible locations that one could infer from the BoI.

First what you call 'the spread of scorching from the fire' also contains the debris field including the engines, where they ended up is consistent with 140 degrees at impact.

The debris field photos are illegible in your PDF of the BoI. The BoI clearly states the wreckage travelled 'nearly sideways' along 110 degrees magnetic. The scorched area both covers that direction - initially - and then further south (SE of impact point), consistent with wind from 350. I did go to the trouble of overlaying the only clear photo on a Google Earth view of the site to make sure of all this.

RWY14 was as short as RWY 20. Trying to put down on 20

Where did I say 20? I said the "longest runway" and "(07?)". I'm guessing 07/25 was its heading at the time.

This is clearly an error by the AIB man he's obviously just left off a 1 at the start it should be 144 degrees, as in witness 1's statement flying along the line of the runway, RWY 14 that is.

Again witness 1 does not state which runway. 44 degrees appears more than once in the BoI. Corrections have been made to much less important items on the AIB bit - yet a crucial initial impact heading is 100 degrees out? You don't think that you're reaching just a tiny bit to claim this?

If you suspect a fractured spar you leave everything alone where it is.

Yet the Valiant pilots who really had such a failure happen to them extended the gear and landed normally. 4 years later. Unaware that a loud crack and malfunctioning flaps even meant they even had a fractured spar.

So you're now saying this crew, 4 years before any other spar failure, both suffered one, and recognised it for what it was, and were attempting to belly land an aircraft heavy with fuel and loaded with large underwing tanks that would be hitting the ground as soon as either wing dipped so much as a degree on the ground roll (well I say roll but obviously I mean crash)? On a disused airfield with a significant tailwind and a high approach speed?

Sorry, but that's a very, very poor theory indeed.

OK there are a few things wrong with the assumption, that 'the problem' was the nose wheel, there was nothing to do in a nose wheel failure other than to abort, so there was nothing to 'sort out' with the nose wheel failure. Secondly what he was 'staying local' to sort out was 'the problem' and not 'the nose wheel', you're filling in the blanks with your own pre conceived notion of what 'the problem' was, 'the problem' may have been the structural failure of the fractured spar.

"Shortly afterwards the pilot of XD864 called on Approach frequency and stated that he thought his nose wheel was still down. The local Controller Flt. Lt. S. BLURTON confirmed that the nose wheel was down. The pilot of XD864 reported that he was staying in the local area to "sort it out"."

Right, so now you're saying that, having had the spar crack, recognise that it had cracked, the pilot made a radio call worrying about sticky nose gear instead, while then saying he was staying in the local area to sort out an entirely different problem which was of so much concern to him that he didn't bother mentioning it on the radio.

Very well, crack on.

'The problem' may be indicated in the telegram sent out from Wittering at 1pm.

This is clearly a pre-defined structure of message; without knowledge of the structure - i.e. which questions it is answering, it is pointless to pick out a single phrase from a single line and assign any meaning to it. You could as well highlight one of the random YES or NO entries and claim this was a reponse to "Was this an in-flight failure of the spar?"

We'll never know of course because Wickham and his crew are dead, and the BoI did not ascertain when the fractured spar actually failed. The AIB man states there was 'no evidence' of a pre impact structural failure, and as he clearly, studiously ignored and failed to investigate the spar failure he can say without lying that he had found 'no evidence' because he simply hadn't looked at the spar

This is a remarkable statement and were I the man in question I would be less than pleased. There is precisely nothing in the BoI to back your claim up that he "studiously ignored and failed to investigate the spar failure"; indeed the statement that was no evidence of a pre-crash failure points to precisely the opposite.

You're just regurgitating the 'official' yarn if you read Andrew Brookes' 1980's book you'll see for example that when 138 Sqdn was being disbanded in 1962 one Valiant was 'so badly cracked' that it couldn't be flown out of Wittering and had to be broken up on site.

I'm afraid I don't have that book; however I do have Eric Morgan's masterwork on the type. Only one Valiant with 138 Sqn was withdrawn in 1962 - XD875 - the last one made. No details supplied unfortunately. However, don't you think if the youngest airframe had been found to be 'so badly cracked' that it had to be scrapped that some sort of fleet-wide inspection would have begun, as happened when an actual spar failure finally occurred in 1964? Particularly if, as you claim, such a crack had caused a crash in 1960 but the RAF had hushed it up?

If I were being unkind I'd say you are an idiot.

And I'd say you were being a conspiracy theory loving nutjob. Thankfully both of us are above that sort of childish nonsense though, eh.

I had some respect for your position before you posted; now I realise exactly where you are coming from and realise I shouldn't have wasted my time. A shame.

[RIHoward]

@LookingNorth

I find the way you argue similar to the BoI, You ignore any inconvenient evidence that contradicts what you say. Your approach seems to be to challenge me for my opinion of the BoI rather than present any evidence to support what you say, you indulge in further hand waving.

You admit your Seaton error and insist that you did draw the flight path on a map, shouldn't you then in light of your error redraw your map?

Here is what the web site says.

....the purpose is not to prove that XD864's centre plane spar fractured and caused the crash, the purpose is to show that the creation of such a narrative is possible, plausible, believable and evidence based, therefore the BoI should have contemplated the possibility that there was a structural failure prior to impact and investigated the fractured spar. Instead the BoI form their conclusions of pilot error and a stalled turn 3 days into the investigation and chose to ignore the fractured spar.

It's obvious from your response that you don't understand this.

Where in the BoI do they say they investigated the spar?

A fatigue failure and and impact break are both 'brittle fractures' they look the same to a cursory inspection, a full lab inspection would be required to ascertain when the fracture occurred, no such inspection took place.

Page 100 BoI pdf 23. distribution of wreckage
Describes where some major parts ended up

'starboard U/c 150 yds down the line of flight ... front fuselage ... 100 yds from point of first impact on the same magnetic heading.'

The A/c clearly impacted at 144º and not 44º the AIB man was probably working from notes writing his report and made the same error twice in his report i.e. he left off the one and got 44º magnetic not 144º, its a simple error, but shows a lack of appreciation of spacial awareness.

Here's a picture you won't have seen it's from the BoI. I've added the flight paths in question it's clear where the large bits of the A/c ended up and the paths they followed from the point of first impact.

I've manipulated the above image in a 3D package so we can see it from above and super imposed it on the image of Spanhoe from Wikipedia. The location of Witness 1 is based on what he told the BoI and what he told me he was doing. He was having a fag break from making piles of manure sitting on his tractor.

There are no bits of wreckage on the 44ºM flight path from the point of impact.

And also Corporal Spence's drawing in the BoI page 72

Quite frankly I don't really care what your opinion is. All you offer in lieu of evidence is hand waving and name calling you are a waste of time and I find your attitude disrespectful and an insult to the crew of XD864.

[Al R]

Whatever the rights and wrongs, looking at the violent aftermath in those photographs and clearly being able to see what he was trying to do, he must have fought like a dervish all the way down. They're a salutory reminder of how disposable and less valuable life was (WW2 was only 15 years previously) and they're a chilling epitaph to a man's last moments.

The man though, spreading the manure. Given he had a stricken nuclear bomber howling down on him rather sharpish, were those piles of dung self administered?

RIP that crew.

[Juan Tugoh]

As Al R said RIP that crew.

As to the "debate" on the cause, the personal and toxic nature of the debate reflects poorly on those involved. Argue your case, it's merits or otherwise will speak for themselves, there is absolutely no need to resort to personal insults. Personal involvement does not excuse bad manners.

[LookingNorth]

Originally Posted by RIHoward

I find the way you argue similar to the BoI, You ignore any inconvenient evidence that contradicts what you say.

This is precisely what you are doing. You have failed to answer every single question I have put to you. In the light of that there is clearly absolutely no point in getting dragged into a typical conspiracy theorist's argument as you will pick and choose 'evidence' to back yourself up (even if it it means changing the content of the report) while producing hearsay evidence as 'proof'. It is a shockingly poor way to advance your argument and loses you all credibility; and it means you do a disservice to the very crew you claim to be defending. Over and out.

[jindabyne]

All a bit distasteful, this.

[RIHoward]

More on Tench

What we are seeing in the response of LookingNorth is a typical Authoritarian Follower's response.

In this case the Authority of the BoI and the AIB are challenged, and the Authoritarian Follower as described by (Dr Bob Altemeyer) will defend those authorities aggressively (even to the point of violence) and irrationally even when presented with factual, evidence based reasoned arguments that challenge their authority. In military services the Authoritarian followers response is exploited by a hierarchy of power that must be obeyed no matter what, military training is designed so that the Authoritarian Follower's response becomes a conditioned reflex, you couldn't run a military service without it.

So in this case the AIB man makes two tiny errors in his report, probably working from notes he misses out a 1 and gets the wrong baring at impact. But to the Authoritarian Follower the AIB are infallible even though a close inspection of the Crash site photo on the web page and in the post above shows a baring of 250º that and the drawing by Corporal Spence and in section Page 100 BoI pdf 23. Distribution of Wreckage show the baring had to be closer to 144º than 44º and so there is enough evidence to suggest a typo by the AIB man, but not to the Athoritarian follower the AIB man must be right and Corporal Spence and the 'Conspiracy theorist nut job' whose dad died in the crash can't be right, despite the available evidence to the contrary that the AIB man made an error in his report.

Anyway Authoritarian Followers bless em all!

I've mentioned the Tench Report in some of the posts above and as it's not that available I've put a pdf on the web so that anyone interested can read it. According to LookingNorth's view point Mr. W. H. Tench (AIB) CBE Ceng FRAeS is also a 'conspiracy theorist nut job'.

From Tench we learn that "Board of Inquiry (Air Force) Rules, 1956" were in operation in '60 and up to the time of his report in 1987 (made public in 2000)

The AIB needed to be asked to take part in a BoI for one of the reasons laid out in Tench. Here they are...

4.2.3 RAF. The AIB acts in the capacity of consultant to RAF Boards of Inquiry concerned
with accidents which appear to have been due to any of the following causes:-
a. structural failure in the air,
b. fire or explosion in the air,
c. serious technical defect,
d. unusual or obscure features of a technical nature,
e. defects which have become epidemic.

The phrase as in d. above 'unusual or obscure features of a technical nature' is exactly to the letter the phrase in G(2) on the telegram sent from Wittering at 1pm

which would make it likely that the questions for the answers given in G(1) and G(2) on that telegram would be something along the lines of:- 1 Are the AIB involved? to which the answer on the telegram was:- G(1) YES and 2 Give the Reason (choose one from 5 from the list above) to which the answer was G(2) UNUSUAL OR OBSCURE FEATURES OF A TECHNICAL NATURE. There is no mention in the AIB Report or in the BoI of UNUSUAL OR OBSCURE FEATURES OF A TECHNICAL NATURE the reason why the AIB were invited along in the first place.

Here Tench gives the reason why the Captain of XD864 should have been represented once the BoI figured they could pin the blame on him.

5.3 ROYAL AIR FORCE
If it appears to a Board that the inquiry will affect the character or professional reputation of
any person, that person must be given notice of his rights under QR 1259. This entitles him
to have all the relevant evidence up to that stage read to him, and to elect to be present, and
represented at the remaining sittings of the board, (or at such times as the convening authority
or president may specify). He may also cross-examine former and subsequent witnesses.

That's All Folks!
Over and Out.

[Shell Management]

Does labelling someome not veer towards just the behaviour you seek to avoid?

If not go read this Conspiracy theory - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[LookingNorth]

It's classic conspiracy theorist behaviour. Refuses to answer questions that would demolish his case; refers to all sorts of minutiae and even unrelated material to back his case up, etc. etc. I won't bother responding further; only stokes the fires. Crack on "RIHoward" and remember that you began the insults. Shameful.

[RIHoward]

Oh dear Oh Dear it's getting really ugly

LookingNorth still chuntering on, petty minded, sore loser, compartmentalised mind, and ignorant of the facts. Now he's starting to look and sound like a Troll must have the last word in his bigoted and blinkered world view, sad sad man, well it's not going to happen while I'm still drawing breath. He's even resorting to lies and misrepresentation of facts to cover his sorry Authoritarian arse.

I hope that's shamelessly insulting enough to discourage any more of your inane nonsense LN.

So as LN is petty minded, let's accommodate him.
Let's count the errors he made in his first post to this thread, his so called questions that would 'demolish' the case his 'big holes'. (the only big holes around here are the ones between your ears LN, and the disconnection of your emotional intelligence from what little you have elsewhere)
What a hand waver!

180º as per BoI ERROR
Initial impact direction of 44º ERROR
veering to 110º ERROR
turn was nearer 180º from the initial T/o position ERROR
witness 2 says it flew over SEATON ERROR (the only one he admitted to)
witness reports are so vague ERROR
RWY 14 was the Shortest ERROR
RWY 14 had no fire cover ERROR SPANHOE was disused so had no fire cover at all

So at least 8 errors in the first post an insult to intelligence or what? a few big holes eh? LN? deserving of the epithet IDIOT?

See this post, this post, this post and this web site for all the answers to LN's dumb questions.

[flipster]

Gentlemen, gentlemen

I think perhaps a little time-out is required?

Distasteful?.... Toxic? Perhaps. But let us also remember there are many strong emotions running around these pages, which may explain the heatedness of the exchanges but can, nonetheless, be forgiven - I would hope.

Mr Howard and Mr North, you are both obviously well-educated and informed people who just happen to have differing opinions. You both make many valid points but may I humbly suggest that we will never ever truly know what actually happened at Witerring/Spanhoe, so a majority of questions will forever remain unanswered. I can appreciate that this is no comfort to those who have lost loved ones and who may feel that blame was apportioned without rigorous investigation or for others may feel a theory of duplicity/conspiracy is also unpalatable. Please may I suggest we all cogitate on the following:

Did the ac have a nose gear problem? - Most probably.
Did it necessitate immediate landing? - No.
Did something else happen? - We don't know?
What was said and happened on the flight deck? - No idea (no ADR/CVR).
Were they trying to land at Spanhoe or turn d/w then stalled? - Not sure.
Was the investigation of scene of the accident thourough? - Probably but not sure.
Was spar failure investigated? - Yes, but to unknown depth of detail.
Was the spar failure before impact considered? Probably but not fully.
Were Valiant spars likely to suffer failure in 1960? - Possibly not but not definite.
Were all RAF BoI procedures in 1960 rushed and seriously flawed? - Yes, they were changed in 1980s, 1990s and more recently, after Haddon-Cave.
Did the 1960 Inquiry have a shadowy presence of an AOC lurking in the background? - Not sure but it was known to have happened.

Ultimately, however,

Would a modern inquiry have come to the same conclusion? - ABSOLUTELY NOT - given the available evidence, they may not have found out the cause but neither would they have blamed the crew.

In sum, I don't think anyone can be sure of what happened that sad day, other than that a crew of professional aircrew perished whilst doing their best with a bad lot. It is a very sad tale and may I offer my condolences to those who lost loved ones - who may (or may not) be comforted by the last of my observations?

Kind regards,

flipster

RIP crew of XD864