The History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered
Published 24 Sep 2018In the United Kingdom in 1966, an RAF ground crewman conducting an electrical test suddenly finds himself airborne. Taffy Holden, the accidental Lightning pilot, deserves to be remembered.
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The History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered is the place to find short snippets of forgotten history from five to fifteen minutes long. If you like history too, this is the channel for you.
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The English Electric Ligthning F1 had another, rather more dramatic appearance on the front page of the Daily Mirror in October 1962:
English Electric F1 Lightning interceptor XG332 about to crash on 13 September 1962.
Photo by Jim Mead via Reddit.com.
Whilst carrying out a demonstration flight, there was a fire in the aircraft’s reheat zone. Un-burnt fuel in the rear fuselage had been ignited by a small crack in the jet pipe and had weakened the tailplane actuator anchorage. This weakened the tailplane control system which failed with the aircraft at 100 feet on final approach. The aircraft pitched up violently just as Aird was coming up to land. Aird lost control of the aircraft and ejected.
Luckily, because the nose pitched up he had just enough time to eject.
The tractor in the photograph was a Fordson Super Major. If you look closely at the grill, you’ll see it reads D H Goblin, as in the de Havilland Goblin jet engine.
The tractor driver was 15-year-old Mick Sutterby, who spent that summer working on the airfield. He wasn’t posing for the camera. In fact, he was telling the photographer, Jim Mead, to move on, because he shouldn’t be there.
Mead saw the plane coming in and the nose pitch up. Then Aird ejected and Mead says he had just enough time to line up the shot as the Lightning came down nose first.
Meanwhile, George Aird landed on a greenhouse and fell through the roof, breaking both legs as he landed unconscious on the ground. The water from the sprinkler system for the tomatoes woke him. He’s reported to have said that his first thought was that he must be in heaven.
The photographs taken that day first went to the Ministry of Aviation. Once they were released, Mead sold them to the Daily Mirror.
