The Crash of Victor XL159. Terror in the Skies over Stubton as Victor B2 Bomber Crashes
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 3 ก.ค. 2024
- A Handley Page Victor B2 Bomber was on a routine Test Flight in March of 1962 when disaster struck.
In the late 1950s, Britain had brought into service the Handley Page Victor to serve as part of the V-Force, Britain's Nuclear Deterrence. The Victor B1 entered service with the Royal Air Force in 1958 but was soon being updated to improve performance.
The Victor B2 was undergoing evaluation tests when this accident occurred.
The Victor B2 aircraft was performing low speed handling tests to certify a new wing design of the nuclear bomber aircraft. In an instant the routine test for the Handley Page Victor bomber aircraft went horribly wrong.
The air crash investigation determined the when the aircraft was lowering it's speed, it inadvertently entered a deep stall and a flat spin. Despite using stall recovery procedures there was nothing the pilot or co-pilot could do to get the Victor Bomber out of the still.
Below them was the village of Stubton, Northamptonshire and Home Farm. Their quiet day was shattered as a result of the Victor crash.
00:00 Intro
00:36 Background
04:10 The Test Flight & Crash
10:14 Aftermath
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Comments are always welcome and I try to respond to as many as possible.
Please keep the comments polite and respectful.
I reserve the right to remove any comments that breach these guidelines.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Music Credits
Epidemic Sound.com
Get a 30 Day FREE Trial of awesome music using this link.
www.epidemicsound.com/referra...
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Northern Historian on Social Media
Facebook
/ thenorthernhistorian
Instagram
/ northern_historian
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Credits & Attributions
creativecommons.org/licenses/...
aviation-safety.net/wikibase/...
www.thunder-and-lightnings.co...
The Handley Page Victor. The History and Development of a Classic Jet
amzn.to/3oXULCN
(This is an affiliate link) - บันเทิง
I was in Primary school living in Stubton when this happened. My next door neighbours were the ones killed. I still remember the horror of that day. My father was teaching in the boarding school (StubtonHall) and he saw and heard the plane approaching and thought it would land on the school. The flight crew almost succeeded in getting clear of the village to land in a field but the tail plane caught on the garage of the farmhouse and tipped down. For years I was terrified whenever I heard a jet flying overhead.. Every Thursday the RAF performed test flights .. The planes were so low when they passed over our house that I could see markings on the fuselage from my bedroom window. Thank you for making this video. I have been trying to find details of this story for years in order to come to terms with my childhood memories.
I'm so sorry :,(
@@derrickstorm6976 no
@@harryturnbull9436 What do you mean "no"?
Fantastic Story - thanks.
I hear you pal 👍 My grandad and his brothers lived on Laughton Crescent in Hucknall , on the approach to the Aerodrome ( The one that got away - P51's fitted with Merlins etc). My Uncle Len was in the bath, when a aircraft crashed on the house next door and blew him out of the bath. I think it was a Fairy Battle or something similar with one of the many Polish air crew aboard. Thet'd run out of fuel on their approach, and crashed into the house next door to my Grandads. The mother, father and four children were screaming, trapped in the wreckage, all perished. It's only in the last few years that the family have had a proper headstone.
Same place different story, my maternal great grandfather worked in the Rolls Royce canteen at Hucknall during WW2. My mam said that he came home one day exclaiming " We've caught one"! Reffering to ' Frans Von Werra' alias Hardy Kruger 😂
I don't half go on aye 🙄 anyroad, thanks for your recollection and God bless thee and thine 😉👍
Very interesting and well presented. These young heroes were pioneers at the sharp end of high technology aviation. Like their combatant brethren , they should not be forgotten. Large numbers of these heroes lost their lives in training accidents during the wars.
The Handley Page Halifax had rudder stall problems with its twin tail. It took many lives until the problem was identified and then more lives while testing the variants leading up to the ultimate D tail design. (A Halifax survived at the north end of Radlett aerodrome until near its closure. The nose survives in the IWM in London).
The Victor was one of the most malevolent looking aircraft ever built. Perfect considering the role it was designed for.
Saxton🤪
Great plan, but is the speed make it's Great, look is awfull
Spaceships from Flash Gordon, but with wings!
The look of the Victor, especially from the front, says to me "I am death. I have come for you." In a 1950's way.
@@eyerollthereforeiam1709 The Robert Oppenheimer of planes.
Nice explanation of a deeply developed stall and elevator blanking.
So, does the elevator induce the yawing moment to induce the spin?
The Victor looked beautiful in a menacing way. Great post as usual, thanks for posting.
I worked at HP 1966 to 1969 and for a brief time in flight test. 'Spud' Murphy was still there and John Tank had trained as a pilot and flew the HP Dakota to Pau in Southern France where the HP137 Jetstream was being flight tested.
Everett 🤪
Such a striking design.looks otherworldly..
Lacey🤪
Flash Gordon realm.
A very sad event. Thanks for the excellent presentation.
Tragic events, superbly narrated.
Thank you.
I spent a large chunk of my childhood watching Victors at RAF Marham. I've had a soft spot for them ever since.
When I was at Leuchars in early 90s, it would often pop in. Great aircraft to see.
The prototype in black and silver with a silver streak would fly very low over our garden in North Watford during the mid 1950s.
A really excellent video, very clear explanation of the accident and terrific archive film and diagrams. Thank you.
You're welcome. I'm glad you enjoyed it.
Persad😎
Outstanding explanation of the deep stall phenomenon on t-tail aircraft.
The Javelin too though maybe that was flutter.
This provides information that most people have not been made aware of - over many years. In doing so you have you have given credit to those who lost their lives and struggled to save theirs and others - knowingly or unknowingly - to their credit. Thank you for that. Learning can be expensive in more ways than one.
Thank you
A tragic story well told! (Takes me back to the '70's trying to pick up a Victor 'chute from the end of Finningley's runway - VERY hot and VERY heavy!)
The Victor is the most beautiful aircraft ever produced..!
🤣🤣🤣🤣no........if anything the Spitfire is the most beautiful aircraft the British ever produced.
@@Fighterjetsteveof1 I never said the British.,.. I said the world..!
@@stewartread4235 the British inherently design the ugliest aircraft in the universe.......forget about the world.🤣🤣🤣
@@stewartread4235I agree with you!
1:00 so 10 years after designing the Halifax they flew the victor 😳 that’s unreal
It is astonishing. Same can be said for Lancaster to Vulcan
Essery 🤪
Another fantastic and informative video. My Great uncle was an RAF Engineer during the 1950s. He worked on all three V bombers. He said his favourite out of the trio was the Valiant. Because it was basic, easy to repair and always worked. Whilst his least favourite was the Victor. It looked good, When Americans saw it for the first time, they would usually exclaim "WOW! Even on the ground, that thing looks like it's going a thousand miles an hour!" But aesthetics aside. The Victor was a pain in the arse to work on. Overly complex, always going wrong, and with the engines buried in the wing, as a pose to nacelles. Even basic maintenance, would make even the most patient mechanic, want to tear his own eyes out.
Thanks Jack. I can imagine it was a pig to work on. I'm an ex Tornado engineer and that could be bad enough at times.
I worked on some of the first Jaguar that entered service. They were no picnic, no two the same. Because they were a joint venture you could find both metric and imperial nuts and bolts all over the place.
Lol....why do you think weve kept the B 52 for almost 70 years?😂😂😂
The Valiant and Vulcan also had their engines buried in the wing roots. If the Victor was more difficult to work on, it wasn't because of that, but perhaps how access to the engines was designed in.
Some 35 years ago, as a young first officer on L1011 Tristars, I flew with Captain John Tank. I remember him as a very pleasant man to fly with. I remember him telling me the story of this incident. One amusing part was that when he landed he gathered up his parachute in his arms and walked along a country lane to a bus stop where he politely joined the queue. Those in the queue paid little or no attention to a man with a parachute. Quite normal.
My mother and grandma witnessed this. I have also seen a photo in private ownership of the tail of the Victor in an upright position behind a wall where the bus shelter is situated with investigators clambering around the wreckage. And just a footnote ,this took place in Lincolnshire.
Stubton is just inside Lincs, south east of Newark which is in Notts. As you go up the A1 towards Newark, Claypole is signposted on your right and Stubton is just beyond that. The county border wiggles across the A1.
That was another great and informative video of an incident i have never heard or read.
Thanks for your efforts!
You're welcome. Glad you enjoyed it.
Striking how deep-stall tests can be condoned at 16,000 ft over populated areas. Even back then, they knew better.
Deep stalls were not a widely understood phenomenon at that time. They caused the loss of the prototype BAC 1-11 as well as the Staines air disaster (in1972, when deep stalls were understood, but they nevertheless got into one due to premature retraction of the Trident's leading edge slats). On this occasion they were not conducting a deliberate deep stall test - failure to monitor the airspeed on a standard stall test led to a flat spin and accidental deep stall. It was extremely unlucky that it hit a village among thousands of acres of wide flat fields.
It wasn't a deep stall test. The pilots went below the intended airspeed for the test and got into a deep stall.
rural lincolnshire in the 1960s wasn’t exactly populated, hard to find a more open area over land in the uk
One of my favourite channels, thanks
Very interesting thank you. I remember this incident very well, I grew up in the next village, Brandon and my dad worked for the farmer, he was actually in the farm yard when the Victor crashed, he was more fortunate than some of the people, he dived under a trailer as it came down. As others have said, Stubton is in Lincolnshire, and given how rural its location is and the relatively small size of the village it was absolutely “Sod’s Law” that it came down plumb in the middle of the village.
Which raises an obvious question - why where they doing flight tests over populated areas?! Last I checked, The UK is a tiny island, there are all sorts of nice empty oceans over which you can to any test, and still be in sight of land in an emergency. This is hardly the only case where various flight tests went wrong - and they often do - and they ended up crashing into something on the ground. The US does it over land, but over land that is generally completely empty, not a densely-packed country where even "the countryside" is more densely populated than many of our suburbs. It just makes no sense.
I lived near 2 of the former great British plane makers, de Havilland and Handley Page. I well recall seeing Victors parked on Radlett Aerodrome as I passed by on the train. They looked very futuristic at the time.
Sadly Britain barely makes any large aircraft any more and both airfields attached to those companies have long gone. We in Britain don't seem to care for making things any more.
I think if you do some in-depth research on how much is still produced, you might be surprised. You could start with Rolls Royce.
My father and I would cycle out to watch the trains on the Midland line and at the then Napsbury station. There was a brick footpath from where we could view the Halifax used for radio testing with a false single tail. Nobody could take it when it fell out of use (except for the nose that I later saw on the factory yard inside the main gates).
The UK makes the wings for the A-380. How much bigger do you want?
@@GRAHAMAUS We only made the wings, not entire aircraft and no more A380s are being made anyway, so why did you even mention it ?
@@GRAHAMAUSOther than the A380 being manufacturing history. It's a good point.
On a T-tail aircraft the CG must be about 5% forward of center of balance to avoid a deep stall failure of recovery. The FAA requires all commercial airlines to pass a deep stall recovery before certification.
Excellent video, thank you. So sorry about the two young lads losing their lives. Alas, the deep stall phenomena was not well known at that time.
I think that the Javelin had the same problem.l
All your stories are brilliant, im wading through the lot.
Such a tragic event with two young airmen lost in a simple test flight and not forgetting the poor people in the farmhouse going about their daily chores
No test flight is simple, they are highly dangerous as they seek weaknesses in the aircraft. (in my humble opinion)
Why didn’t they carry out such tests out over the sea ?
That was an incredibly good account with some great video as well
Thank you very much.
My all time favourite aircraft.
I didn't know about this and was hoping for a good ending, I now need something to cheer me up. As always a well told story.
The air ministry would not agree the extra £180 per aircraft to fit ejector seats for the entire crew, suggesting instead handholds in the floor and swivel seats. The flying coffin springs to mind.
I remember well the crash of XM716 in 1966 as my friends father was the Captain. It was a big shock as I was 12 at the time. The cause of this crash was a structural failure looked like the pilot exceeded structural limits during a demonstration turning too tightly during a turn.
Was about the same age in the early 70 when at assembly we were told of the death of a girls brother in a Victor over the North Sea
Thanks!
Thank you very much Sean. Greatly appreciated.
Ruddy🤪
Very sad occasion ,It is worth mentioning here that the beautiful Victors went on towards the end of their flying years as Takers flying from RAF Marham
Great vid on a Tragedy that happened months before I was Born .
Aircraft being tested should be conducted over the sea, not over land.
Testing = We don't know what to expect.
Testing is to validate predictions.....
Great job!
Thank you! Cheers!
Great work.
Thank you! Cheers!
Hello 👋
@@johnsonbecca3960 Evening.
@@geordiedog1749 how're ya doing today?🤪🤪
I had given up my flying in this 'job' for H.P. shortly before this sad incident occurred. I later met John Tank, who I had known well. Too sad for the others.
HS Trident Papa India at Staines shortly after take off was a deep stall crash after the captain ordered the leading edge slats to be retracted without enough airspeed. 1963 Development BAC 1-11 Hotel Golf at Chicklade in Witshire was the same, while investigating low speed handling in various configurations.
The CAA mandated stick shakers on the control column and a stick pusher to force the nose down well before a stall could develop.
The Trident was equipped with shakers and pushers before the Papa India tragedy. Sadly the crews were adept at disableding the system ad they had become accustomed to false warnings.
The guy who died went to my secondary school sad
Another great if somewhat sad story! Thank you for the excellent content :-)
You're welcome, thanks.
Love the video, thanks. I feel like I'm having a red pill moment though as I've literally just read a book about exactly this and an hour later your video comes up top of this list. I didn't get the book on line and don't search or look for this stuff on line, it was just happenchance. Sorry it's just weird.
Very sad story.
As a kid of 10, I remember these flying over Kingston Jamaica below me up on the hill, like big white birds. This was for our independence celebrations in 1962, with princess Margaret doing the honours
Great video, thanks very much. Is any of the footage actual footage from the flight? Or do you know if there is any or photos? Thanks very much.
Stubton is in Lincolnshire, a small detail I know.
I was 12 at the time and purely by accident we drove past the site on a family day out. I vividly remember black fields (scorched), twisted metal and a huge undercarriage with the tyres intact. A haze hung over the area and we drove through it. Being the Cold War and possible nuclear weapons it was years before any details emerged.
They were all really young
Why was testing of this sort which must have had known risks, even if not the ones which happened, carried out over land and not over the sea? I know a pilot whe tested the guns on a new jet, I think it was the Hunter, and found when they were fired they casued the engine to cut. Must have been scary but he was over the North Sea and recovered without too much difficulty.
very clear & concise description of thos trajic accident. we got to see the vulcan perform at air shows in the states, but never the victor or valiant. your accent is exotic to west texas ears, are you scottish?
Thank you, glad you enjoyed the video. I'm from Newcastle in North East England which isn't too far from the Scottish border. I have actually tried to soften my accent for the sake of making these videos as I may not be understood too well if I spoke naturally.
@@TheNorthernHistorian Nae problem laddie ! i enjoy hearing "furry" (foreign) accents from elsewhere in the states, from "acrost the pond", & where ever else. talking to such people is interesting, getting different viewpoints etc. it makes the world a less boring place.
your accent resembles, to my ears, that of Mr Eric 'winkle' Brown, a rather illustrious countryman of yours i believe.
in fact, you might wanna let the brogue rip on 1 A your videos just to see the reaction if any... it's always entertaining to confound narrow minded people, & the politically correct & the woke.
600 feet pm is nothing. Are you sure you didn’t mean 6000 feet?
The crew should have deployed the aircraft’s parachute. A BAC 1-11 was lost due to a deep stall. Future test aircraft were fitted with a parachute
Wonder what generated the yaw element for the spin to initiate. Were the leading edge slats automatic? Could they deploy independently?
Tragic outcome but it could have been much worse if it landed in the middle of a town.
I agree. But it was incredibly unlucky when you consider the amount of open fields in that area.
A system using thrust vectoring to push the tail up therefore nose down using bleed air from the engines could be used to recover from a deep stall on T tail planes, but i suppose it would be quite complex and not make economical sense. Just a bit of outside the box thinking.
Thanks. Well researched and impeccably prsented content. It's good to see there are still some great YT'ers out there bravely paddling about in a sea of mediocrity and rubbish AI voiceovers. I look forward to more.
I wonder why such a trial would not be conducted over the sea?
This channel is gold, so much interesting and well preserved stories! I like especially those from ww2. I hope you continue with rather less popular raids, operations and air battles! I have plenty in my head, but I guess you know them already all! So I spare to name them. How long does it take to create one video on average? New subscriber here. Shame you have so less subscribes!
"OK, I've stalled it three different ways so it won't fly. All yours, friend!"
Did turbulence from the wing affect the tail control surfaces in the deep stall?
Quite likely
Did the deep stall problem also affect the early trials of the Gloster Javelin, apart from tail flutter?
I'm not sure, I haven't done much research on the Javelin. It is a high T-Tail but differs in that it had a large delta wing which may behave differently. I may look into that.
@@TheNorthernHistorian A video on the Javellin could be interesting, one story I have heard many times is of it spinning round & even going tail first for a short while (a flat spin while just simply flying forwards) ... Ture / False ... I have no idea
Jephcote🤪
It may not sound right but I firmly believe the pilot was very responsible for the death of his 2 crew
Doesn’t sound right, it sounds totally incorrect.
Two class system on British aircraft strikes again.
Enjoyed the vid, I'd just comment - Stubton is in Lincolnshire and a 600ft/min descent rate in a flat spin by a Victor is unlikely. I was there in the aftermath, being a local schoolboy at the time.
I expect the stall descent rate was more likely 6,000 ‘/min. The standard approach rate of decent is about 700’/min (130-150kts on 3deg slope). Aircraft with T-tails that risk losing elevator authority in the stall are required to have a stick pusher to prevent entering the stall. Usually a stick push would occur when AoA exceeds 13deg (approx). The Trident Stains crash had its stick pusher deactivated during a low level deep stall event. (Lots-of human factors in that one). Capt A350
@@rsambrookthanks for your informed input.
23 Year old test pilot? 🤨
That is why the United States tests their aircraft over barren desert
Do we have a barren desert?
Those pilots were fairly low time to be test pilots Why were the extra crew members aboard during a dangerous test
Annie Gibson's son, Sidney (known as Sonny) was killed 8/7/1941 after a 2" mortar shell his father Sidney Snr had acquired from George Patman exploded at his house. George had found the training round at Beckingham Range and given it to Sidney Snr, who had taken the inert body off the tail and left it in the house. Sidney Jnr then attempted to reconnect the 2 pieces with a nail. Unfortunately the propellent charge was still live, which exploded, forcing the tail through Sidney's chest killing him. Gwendoline Ellis aged 5, a neighbour who was with Sidney was badly injured, but survived after a tail fin passed through her throat. Cecilia Gibson was Annie's niece.
Three of the most elegant airplane designs ever. 60 years later and nothing approaches them.
Excellent but why show a B2 carrying the Blue Steel missile when this aircraft wasn't
There is not a lot of decent quality images to be found of the B2 in Flash White. I can only use what is available. Glad you enjoyed the video.
For that matter, why so many pictures of the B1. Not complaining but...
@@TheNorthernHistorianI notice all the discrepancies, but happily discount them and commend your presentation of the facts.
I went to an evening with Philip Murphy, aka spud Murphy he told us he was not in the left hand. seat contrary to what was said
Like, - like! 👍🏻
Thank you! Cheers!
All crew should be provided egress mechanisms (Ejects). I assume the Pilots had Martin-Bakers (I'm part of that club and have the back to prove it) but why other crew are only provided bail outs is a crime.
Totally agree
Doesn't the same omission apply to the Vulcan ?
Yes
So like the B-52 crew
@@davidsaunders1125 None of the V-bombers had a full suite of ejection seats. It's as if the flight crew outside of pilot and copilot were deemed expendable items.
A nurse maid but no child in the house?
There was no mention of anybody else in the house.
Barry🤪
@@johnsonbecca3960😅
Along with the Vulcan, the GIBs (Guys In Back) always get the shaft.
The cockpit looks like Bell's X-1
John🤪
Seeing as the British miles m52 was copied i should imagine it does.
6 years from first flight to service. Not very impressive.
Ha waa the lads
'A deep stall is especially dangerous for aircraft that have a high T-tail design'
It only occurs in aircraft with a high T-tail design.
Its sounds like Ant 'n' Dec doing tbe naration.
Rerst Easy xXx
Don’t wish to be picky, but it’s ‘sitting’, not ‘Sat’.
Dumb
Wow, didn't realise Dec was doing aeronautical videos now, makes a sober change to his clowning about with Ant😂
The volume for this video is extremely low. My phone volume is as high as it will go.
Goodbye
Sorry to hear that. It must be a problem with your hardware. I always mix and process my audio in Cubase to an output of 0db and it is also processed through a compressor to keep it stable. I always watch the end rendered video myself for a quality check before uploading and out of well over 20 thousand views, you are the only one to experience low volume.
Rural Lincolnshire ! Nottinghamshire is about 2 1/2 miles to the West. Bloody TH-cam creators, honestly. 🙈
Rural = countryside
And Lincolnshire is definitely countryside
And the boarder runs across from Claypole towards Barnby on the Willow..
So about 1/2 a mile away
I'm from Newark and we class it as the boarder of Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire 😊