Date:	Tuesday 2 November 1937
Time:	day
Type:	Hawker Fury Mk I
Owner/operator:	1 Sqn RAF
Registration:	K2039
MSN:
Fatalities:	Fatalities: 0 / Occupants: 1
Aircraft damage:	Destroyed
Location:	RAF Tangmere, Chichester, West Sussex, England -   United Kingdom
Phase:	Landing
Nature:	Military
Departure airport:	RAF Tangmere, West Sussex
Destination airport:	RAF Tangmere, West Sussex
Confidence Rating:	Information is only available from news, social media or unofficial sources

Narrative:
Hawker Fury Mk.1 K2039, 1 Squadron, RAF: Written off (Damaged Beyond Repair) 2/11/37 after undercarriage struck ground recovering from dive during camera gun practice and collapsed on landing at RAF Tangmere, Chichester, West Sussex. Pilot was Pilot-Sergeant Cyril Gordon Terry Tucker #580216. Tucker flew around for 3 hours before landing in order to use up his petrol to avoid a possible fire.

According to a contemporary local newspaper report ("Daily Mirror - Wednesday 3 November 1937

CRIPPLED 'PLANE'S PILOT FACES DEATH FOR FOUR HOURS
"Keep Going! That's good stuff."
"You can land that ship all right."
"It's been done before."
Ace Squadron-Leader Swain broadcast these messages to nineteen-year-old Pilot-Sergeant C. G. T. Tucker as he circled helplessly over Tangmere (Sussex) R.A.F. station, yesterday, with a wrecked undercarriage swinging loose below his 'plane. For four hours Tucker flirted with death in his crippled machine, waiting for his petrol tank to run dry before he risked a landing crash. Then he side-slipped to the ground, tipped on one wing, and crept out from his overturned machine unhurt.

"My first impulse was to use my parachute," he told the Daily Mirror last night, "but they told me to hang on and exhaust my petrol. I had to do all I could to pilot my 'plane to the ground. A falling machine meant danger to the public. It was a terrible experience to be in the air with a crippled 'plane feeling that a crash was inevitable. But as it turned out, I was far safer landing as I did than using my parachute. There was a lot of bricks and mortar about, and if I had hit that I would have been badly injured. My abandoned machine might have caused serious damage, too, by crashing into a building. Thank God it is all over."

A squadron of three 'planes had been practicing at the station and Sergeant Tucker was diving at 260 miles an hour when he flattened out to land and touched the ground near the target. He rose immediately, and the ground staff saw that 6 ft of his undercarriage, including wheels and spring struts, was hanging loose. As Squadron-Leader Swain, once holder of the altitude record, radioed advice from the ground, ambulances and fire tenders dashed up ready for the inevitable crash. Then at last the ground staff heard the splutter of his engine 1,000 ft above their heads and Sergeant Tucker wirelessed that he was going to land.

Slowly he began to circle down to the field. He glided in, side-slipped, striking the ground with one wing, and the machine rolled over.

Mr. Robert Cutler, proprietor of the Service Garage at Tangmere, told the Daily Mirror:

"He did his best to land the 'plane safely without overturning. He had a parachute with him, but it seemed that his chief wish was to save the 'plane as much as he could. He crawled out of the overturned 'plane suffering from shock, cuts and bruises. As soon as it was seen that Tucker was safe he was sent up again to recover his nerve."

The same pilot was also involved in the crash of Hawker Fury K2900 at Tangmere on 16 November 1937 (see separate entry)

1. The K File The RAF of the 1930s (James J Halley, Air Britain)
2. Yorkshire Evening Post Tuesday 2 November 1937
3. Daily Mirror - Wednesday 3 November 1937
4. 1 Squadron RAF ORB (Air Ministry Form 540) 01/11/1926-30/9/39: File AIR 27/1/1 at National Archives (PRO Kew) http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/D8406055
5. https://sussexhistoryforum.co.uk/index.php?topic=19532.0
6. https://air-britain.com/pdfs/military/Crashes_in_the_South_East.pdf
7. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAF_Tangmere

Date/time	Contributor	Updates
10-Oct-2009 06:35	JINX	Added
14-Apr-2018 17:45	Dr. John Smith	Updated [Time, Location, Departure airport, Destination airport, Source, Narrative]
07-Oct-2018 10:58	paulmcmillan	Updated [Source, Narrative]
03-Nov-2018 20:02	Nepa	Updated [Operator, Departure airport, Destination airport, Operator]
16-Jul-2022 20:56	Dr. John Smith	Updated [Source, Narrative, Category]
03-May-2023 10:33	Nepa	Updated [[Source, Narrative, Category]]