大象传媒

Ex Maintenance Squadron
No.70 Operational Training Unit
Nakuru
Kenya, East Africa.
July 1942

Standing in the shade of 鈥楤鈥� Flight hanger we were looking anxiously through the heat haze at 'our' superb new MKIV Bristol Blenheim light bomber, V5966, as it approached the northern airfield perimeter for a second landing attempt. Clearly it was, once again, coming in too fast and too high. Expecting the trainee pilot, flying his first solo, to abort and 'go round again' for yet another attempt we relaxed for a moment but to our astonishment he held his course, for the landing despite the red warning flare fired from the control tower.

Seconds later the Blenheim touched down halfway along the landing strip with a terrific thump and bounced high into the air again. Suddenly, at the peak of the 'bounce' the engines burst into life with an agonised scream. Then, just as suddenly, there came an awesome silence as the engines choked on the 鈥榬ich-cut鈥� of petrol and air from the carburettors. Without power the stricken Blenheim reared up, stalled and crashed heavily onto the landing strip. The undercarriage collapsed, the engines were ripped from their bearers and from the ruptured fuel tanks 100 octane petrol gushed over the hot engines to explode in a cloud of black smoke and bright orange flame which completely engulfed the nose section and cockpit.

The crash crew, who had driven flat-out across the airfield, arrived a few seconds too late to attempt to rescue the young pilot on his first solo flight and whose ambition it was to become a 鈥楤omber Pilot鈥�.

During the course of the next few days there was much speculation as to the cause of the disaster. One theory was that having made a mess of two landing attempts the pilot tried to remain airborne at the peak of the bounce by slamming the throttles wide open. In his confusion he must have completely forgotten the repeated warnings that Mercury XV engines would not tolerate abrupt throttle movements, especially from slow running to maximum R.P.M., and any attempt to do so would result in instant engine failure. Clearly six weeks training had not been enough for him.

The brief entry in the 鈥楿nit Operations Record Book鈥� ended with the words 鈥溾�he accident and death of the pilot was due to pilot error鈥�.

鈥�8,305 aircrew of Bomber Command
lost their lives in training accidents
during the course of world War Two鈥�
鈥楾he Right of The Line鈥�
by John Terraine

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