ASN Wikibase Occurrence # 89767
This information is added by users of ASN. Neither ASN nor the Flight Safety Foundation are responsible for the completeness or correctness of this information.
If you feel this information is incomplete or incorrect, you can submit corrected information.
| Date: | Wednesday 24 January 1951 |
| Time: | 12:45 |
| Type: |  Republic F-84E-1-RE Thunderjet |
| Owner/operator: | 308th FSqn /31st FGp USAF |
| Registration: | 49-2105 |
| MSN: | |
| Fatalities: | Fatalities: 1 / Occupants: 1 |
| Aircraft damage: | Destroyed |
| Location: | Rear gardens of 10 & 11 Nash Lane, Margate, Kent, England -
 United Kingdom
|
| Phase: | Manoeuvring (airshow, firefighting, ag.ops.) |
| Nature: | Military |
| Departure airport: | RAF Manston, Ramsgate, Kent (MSE/EGMH) |
| RAF Manston, Kent (MSE/EGMH) | |
| Confidence Rating: |  Information is only available from news, social media or unofficial sources |
Republic F-84E-1-RE Thunderjet 49-2105, 308th FS, 31st FG, USAF: Written off (destroyed) 24 January 1951 when crashed into the rear gardens of 10 & 11 Nash Lane, Margate, Kent.
Routine gunnery camera mission at 15,000 feet. Another flight observed aircraft pull up abruptly, roll over and start a series of three "Split-S" manoeuvres until ground impact. No radio contact with pilot, Lieutenant Commander William David Biggers, DFC, USN (Call sign "Norman White 2") who made no attempt to abandon the aircraft. According to an eyewitness report:
"I lived at 11 Nash Lane and just got indoors before the crash, having heeded my Mother's call to come down from the pear tree, from where I had been watching the aircraft and to go indoors for lunch. I argued because I could hear this plane and wanted to see it. I just got indoors when it crashed and my pear tree went 11 gardens away. Largest debris about a foot square"
A contemporary local newspaper reported the following details ("East Kent Times - Saturday 27 January 1951):
"PLANE CRASH IN GARDEN
American Pilot Killed
JUST MISSED MARGATE HOUSES
Irregular pieces of gleaming aluminium were strewn among cabbages in a dozen kitchen gardens, when a U.S.A.F. Thunderjet crashed between two rows of houses at Margate, at lunch-time on Wednesday.
Housewives preparing and serving dinner left open ovens when they ran out and threw earth on the blazing fighter wreckage. The pilot was killed immediately, but although garden fences were ripped by the explosion and debris was scattered over a wide area, there were no civilian casualties.
The aircraft was flying low over the town on a routine operation, apparently returning to its base at Manston less than three miles away, when the accident occurred.
Missing twelve houses in Nash-lane by a few feet, the machine suddenly tipped, crashed in a garden between Nash-lane and Farley-road, and was buried in a crater 25 ft long and 12 ft deep. The explosion could be heard all over the town.
Margate firemen were joined by a U.S.A.F. crash unit in the work of extinguishing the flames. Later, an armed guard was stationed nearby preventing sightseers from approaching the wreckage, and salvage crews dug to recover part of the wrecked machine.
The crater was only 20 yards from the kitchen of Mrs. Joseph Stead, who was out on her first shopping expedition after being confined to bed with influenza.
Elderly Mrs. Lizzie Griffin, a neighbour of Mrs. Stead, who was giving her husband his dinner when the crash occurred, said it shook the house. "We had a remarkable escape," said Mrs. Griffin. "Most people in the neighbourhood were at home to dinner."
During the afternoon, Mrs. Griffin made coffee for the American salvage crews.
Mrs. L. Vanner, of Farley-road, waiting at the main Margate - Ramsgate-road bus stop, 50 yards from the scene of the crash, saw the aeroplane overhead. "It suddenly tipped its wing and crashed down," she said.
Mrs. Henry Stone, of 9, Nash-lane, was painting her kitchen whilst the dinner was cooking, when she heard the explosion. "I glanced through the kitchen window and saw a mass of flames and smoke," she stated. "I ran out into the garden, but it was impossible to get near the burning 'plane. It was all over in a flash."
"I saw something come down and crash into the garden opposite," said Mrs. Stead's niece, Mrs. G. Beerling, who saw the explosion from the back sitting-room of her Farley-road home. "It was flaming in Auntie's garden. Knowing she had been in bed with 'flu, I ran across, but she had gone out for the first time."
Another Nash-lane householder, Mrs. S. Crook, took her six-year-old son Christopher into another room when part of the ceiling fell after the crash. She and her sister ran out and threw earth on the blaze with a trowel. "It was a mass of flames," she said".
The pilot who was killed was actually a US Navy pilot, on loan to the USAF. The crash impact created a crater that was 12 feet deep and 20 feet long. The subsequent investigation attributed the cause of the crash to hypoxia (Oxygen Starvation) to the pilot, due to contamination of the pilot's oxygen supply, which caused the pilot to pass out and never regain consciousness. The pilots body was repatriated and buried at Arlington National Cemetery, Arlington, Virginia, USA.
Sources:
1. A Detailed History of RAF Manston 1945-1999 By Joe Bamford
2. East Kent Times - Saturday 27 January 1951
3. http://www.joebaugher.com/usaf_serials/1949.html
4. https://www.aviationarchaeology.com/rptAF55.asp?RecID=15596
5. http://forgottenjets.warbirdsresourcegroup.org/F-84.html
6. https://sussexhistoryforum.co.uk/index.php?topic=20363.0
7. http://www.accident-report.com/Yearly/1951/5101.html
8. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/49122415/william-david-biggers
9. https://valor.militarytimes.com/hero/307112
10. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/hypoxia
11. https://www.doogal.co.uk/ShowMap?postcode=CT9+4EX
Revision history:
| Date/time | Contributor | Updates |
|---|---|---|
| 01-Feb-2011 05:56 | Chris | Added |
| 26-Aug-2011 05:52 | Uli Elch | Updated [Aircraft type, Location, Departure airport, Destination airport, Source] |
| 11-Mar-2020 16:07 | DG333 | Updated [Operator, Departure airport, Operator] |
| 09-Jan-2021 20:06 | Dr. John Smith | Updated [Operator, Departure airport, Destination airport, Source, Narrative] |
| 09-Jan-2021 22:01 | Dr. John Smith | Updated [Narrative] |
| 08-Feb-2021 15:43 | Pink | Updated [Operator, Location, Destination airport, Operator] |
| 12-Jun-2023 08:30 | Nepa | Updated [[Operator, Location, Destination airport, Operator]] |
Corrections or additions? ... Edit this accident description
The Aviation Safety Network is an exclusive service provided by:
Quick Links:
| ASN Home | Send Correction / Feedback |
| FSF Home | Disclaimer | Copyright |
| Contact Us | Privacy Policy |
| Press / Media |
CONNECT WITH US:
©2024 Flight Safety Foundation