HERC - XV198 – Crash COLERNE 1973
 

Has any one got any insight into the crash of this aircraft? I have had a quick look on Google and unsurprisingly there is scant information (aviation-safety.net - Crashed after engine failure during 3-engine touch-and-go.)

Is there a report or other document I can get hold of?

Haven given the majority of my life to this type of aircraft I have be come interested in the ones I didn’t get to work on – and being engines this on intrigues me.

Honest regards

S

There's some stuff here... Not much I'll grant. I seem to remember being told about it by members of II Sqn. RAF Regiment who were stationed there at the time. I recall no details but then again the old memory plays some tricks nowadays, I might have heard about it from elsewhere.

Link

Wiki;

September 10, 1973 : An RAF C-130K, XV198, c/n 4219, from 48 Sqn crashed at RAF Colerne in Wiltshire. It was carrying out co-pilot training when it was overshooting from runway 07 with a simulated engine failure when the other engine on that side failed. At that height (400ft) and speed involved, the asymmetric forces proved too much for the crew to control and the aircraft dived into the ground. The Captain was Sqn/Ldr Tony Barrett, and all 5 crew died.[14]

I was a witness to this accident. I've got the Airclues issue relating to it, which I can scan and e-mail.

I can remember this incident quite well. I had only been in about 9 months and recall the smoke hung in the sky for what seemed like hours afterwards. I went back to the scene a few years ago, just across the road from the station church. All the trees now grown back, but it remained bare for many years. Nigegilb has the details

Delving into the dim and distant reaches of my memory and without wishing to be picky, but I seem to recall, having been told the story on my OCU, it was a 'Practice' EFATO as opposed to 'Simulated'. Followed immediately by an actual FCU failure on the adjacent engine, totally unrecoverable at those speeds. I believe this led to the cessation of Practice EFATOs, especially as they were initiated by the instructor reaching forward and T handling the donk in question.

Standing by to sent to the the naughty step if my recollections are incorrect.

PT2 bellows in the Fuel Control Unit fractured, I believe, causing effectively an engine run-down. One engine on the failure side had been T handled, feathering the prop.

Second failure occurred before the aircraft reached VMCA2. After this crash, the perceived wisdom was to throttle back the powered wing's outboard engine and full power on the inboard and look for somewhere to put it down.

On the Herc OCU we used to demonstrate a 'single engined' circuit with 3 engines at flight idle and power at 18,000"/lb max on an inboard.

I only used to do this with one particular QFI, but Uncle John S. put many new pilots' minds at rest by showing them this.

We were of course empty down the back and at training weights.

I have tried to locate the crash site on Google earth but with no joy. That said, seeing that group of FMQs (Thickwood?) off the departure end of 07 and presumeing the ac went into the trees to the NW of Lucknam Park and that patch, thankfully this accident was not much worse.

Does anybody have a location of the site ? I tried to find the station church but with no joy. Also if there is an AIR CLUES scan of the report about I would like to get a copy - you can never read too much on flight safety.

Thanks in advance,

C130JB

The site is next to Doncombe lane - between the end of the runway and Redwood Way. From what I can recall the station church was not overly large and may of been of `temporary` construction

As you drive towards the camp main entrance from the South, the site is in the trees by the roadside. It is on the right-hand side, just before you first MQ you reach on the left.
The trees thin slightly and they are a little lower than those around. I had a walk around the site a few months ago, but there is nothing to see there. The change in tree height is better seen from a distance.
Hope that helps a little.

I've tried a Google Earth lat/long. 51°26'48.20"N 2°16'1.71"W

There is a path from Thickwood quarters to the camp (I used to walk it with then fiancee).

On the right (in the trees) rather than on the left which was an arable field, there was a big space, I think it was about halfway down the lane.

If I have time, I'll look.

Thanks for the lat / long and discription of the area - they agree ( I think ) when you look on Google Earth. Cannot make out the lower trees, I tried the slant thing on GE and just got funny looking trees:confused:.

That said, it was a mriacle the did not go straight into the MQs.


Was there ever a memorial or cairn put up after the event to remember the crew ?

I know what you mean, but it wasn't miraculous so much as that was the magnitude of the forces the crew were dealing with.

A lot of procedures were changed after this accident. It was publicised that you also needed to apply 5 degrees of bank towards the live engines for the published VMCA2 to work too and the penalty was something like 5 knots per degree of bank penalty if you didn't apply the bank.

This was not really known at the time. Practice asymmetric training was effectively stopped after this in favour of simulated, which meant the throttle was placed at or about flight idle with the crew keeping the torque positive.

I don't remember, but logic would support that the captain slotted No 1 just after rotate then No 2 wound down at low IAS. The aircraft then rolled to the left and I believe it impacted upside down, poor souls.

There are no winners in these situations, but many many people learned life-saving lessons, so perhaps in this tragedy were the seeds for safe flying later.

Having been an instructor in the Canberra force too, it was a fact that practising asymmetric flying killed more crews than in the real event.

Thank God, someone listened and did something about it.

I'll send the scanned pages to those interested as soon as I find the magazine, hopefully this weekend.
Re witnessing the accident, I remember seeing the aircraft accelerating out of the roller with No1 prop not rotating, which was pointed out to me by the sergeant I was travelling with (we were at 90 degrees to the runway, close to the camp cinema). As it climbed out, the left wing started going down and a few seconds later I saw a complete top view of the aircraft as it wheeled over and went almost vertical. It struck the ground nose and left wing simultaneously.
As said before, the impact site was frighteningly close to MQs.

I also witnessed the crash and was a member of the crash team that mobilised within minutes of the accident. The site was just up the road from the two quarters that faced onto the road and which, miraculously, received no damage. The mature trees seemed to keep all the energy of the explosion in straight lines leading to what looked like an atomic bomb explosion, hence preventing what could have been a major disaster. Some debris was found in the Officers Quarters childrens playground but, as it was lunch time, the playground was not being used.

The thing I will remember most is that despite the incredible mess and acrid smoke at the scene the tail section was upright proclaiming its identity. Some of the liferafts had been thrown into the field behind and inflated and, although only minutes had passed, some people from the village were in the field taking photos. A couple of burly Rocks were despatched to obtain the cameras.

Later various witnesses told of seeing the complete upper camouflaged surface while sitting at the traffic lights and had left their vehicles and run towards the village. All in all, it was terrible waste of life but, it could have been much worse.

Like all crashes it is something you hope you will never see again but, will remain etched in memory for ever. RIP

as yet... nothing there ' on site ' to remember the crew...

as i would have been very young at the time.
can you tell me which direction the plane was heading
was it toward or away from from the airfield.

It was heading away, villager.

While I was in the mob, circa '67 to '74 (almost exclusively at Lyneham) there were a total of 4 crashes. The first was in 1969 XV180 at Fairford, which occured in similar circumstances to 198, resulting in the tragic loss of the 5 crew. The A/C was on MCT and doing simulated engine failures. (Can't 100% remember what the cause was though). The second was the loss of XV216 in the Med' out of Pisa in 1971. I was out there (in Pisa) on excercise then and it was awful as the pieces of the wreckage was pulled from the sea and assembled in order (I think by the AAIB guys). This I think is still the largest peacetime loss of life the RAF has ever had in a single crash. I seem to remember that there were 46 Italian Paratroopers on board as well as 6 RAF guys. The next that I can remeber was in, I think XV193 (I could be wrong about the reg') in Tromso. If I remember rightly the A/C ran into a ditch beside the runway on landing, and progressively broke apart as it ran along the ditch. Thanfully, thank God, there were no fatalities and the most serious casualty was a lacerated finger. I saw some the wreckage at Marshalls in Cambridge, the Freight Bay just behind the F/D was almost flattened. Then of course there was XV198, on my last day at Lyneham. I know a couple more have been lost since, but in my humble opinion the Herc is still an amazing A/C with a superb safety record, given the way that the A/C has to be operated.

The Fairford crash was (I believe) proved to have been the throttle slotted instead of the Condition Lever.

This, instead of feathering the prop and closing the HP fuel valve, would have withdrawn the low pitch stop and allowed the prop into the ground range in flight (perhaps even reverse pitch).

Obviously, on MCT, the aircraft is at circuit speeds and heights. Putting an engine into the ground range (and SOP dictated, an outboard was used) in flight would generate such asymmetric forces on the aircraft that it would render it uncontrollable.

As I said earlier, provided we learned lessons, these tragedies probably saved more lives than were lost in each accident. We ignore such lessons at our peril.

Circuits and Bumps
 

I recall that in 1965 I spent 100 minutes with 30+ other air cadets pounding the Thorney Island circuit in an Argosy (854?) with assorted engines being turned on and off.

It seemed quite a normal thing to do by the standards of those days.