Date & Time:
Jul 21, 1939
Type of aircraft:
Vickers 290 Wellington I
Operator:
Registration:
L4290
Flight Phase:
Flight
Flight Type:
Training
Survivors:
No
Site:
Plain, Valley
Schedule:
Stradishall - Stradishall
MSN:
35500
YOM:
1939
Country:
United Kingdom
Region:
Europe
Crew on board:
3
Crew fatalities:
3
Pax on board:
0
Pax fatalities:
0
Other fatalities:
0
Total fatalities:
3
Circumstances:
The crew was performing a training mission out from RAF Stradishall on behalf of the 148th Squadron. En route, while cruising in clouds, the pilot-in-command initiated a turn when he lost control of the airplane that nosed down and crashed in a field located in Milborne Port. All three crew members were killed.
Crew:
F/O York Plant Wilson,
P/O Ivor Russell Barton,
AC1 James Alexander Lowery.
Crew:
F/O York Plant Wilson,
P/O Ivor Russell Barton,
AC1 James Alexander Lowery.
Probable cause:
The initial conclusion of the court of enquiry was that the inexperienced Barton was at the controls at the time of the crash and that he had lost control when trying to turn out of a cloud. Significantly the court also recorded that the Wellington had a tendency to become nose-heavy in a turn, that would develop quickly into a dive from which it could take considerable height to recover. These were early days for the Wellington and later it was discovered that it suffered from ‘rudder overbalance’ that caused the rudder to lock to one side and the aircraft to enter an unrecoverable spiral dive.
