Talk:1952 Farnborough Airshow crash

YouTube video of crash

There's a video of the DH.110 flown by Derry at the airshow, including an interview with a spectator who saw the crash on YouTube here: [1] - it also has pictures of Derry earlier making a sonic boom over the airfield, something that wouldn't be allowed today. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.40.251.153 (talk) 20:33, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Clarification

'The planned demonstration of the DH.110 on that day was nearly cancelled when the aircraft at Farnborough, an all-black night fighter prototype, became unserviceable.' Could this be explained a bit more clearly? Valetude (talk) 15:33, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

I'm sure all the clarification can be found in the source, feel free to explain it more clearly here. The Rambling Man (talk) 15:46, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

The aircraft that was planned to be flown in the demonstration was the black-painted nightfighter DH.110. For some reason it wasn't fit to fly, so instead they brought the other DH.110 over to Farnborough and used that. GraemeLeggett (talk) 16:46, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

The problem is that until I just fixed it right now, the text didn't make clear that the "all-black night fighter prototype" and WG 236 were two separate aircraft. I ask you three people - when were you going to fix this? Were you biding your time? Waiting until there was a slot in your diary? This is a problem that affects a tonne of aviation articles on Wikipedia. The editors are aviation nerds who (a) can't write (b) don't understand that the general audience aren't aviation nerds. -Ashley Pomeroy (talk) 17:16, 16 June 2016 (UTC)

Fixed. Added serial of second aircraft - WG 240

Witness

It seems slightly absurd to me, as well as in poor taste, to quote a witness, Richard Gardner, who was 5 years old at the time talking about "silver confetti" floating down (the plane was painted black). There is film of the incident clearly showing what happened, and plenty of other witness testimony from adults who were there, so why include a small child's statement as the only witness for this article?Gillartsny (talk) 00:07, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

Feel free to improve the article yourself, this is Wikipedia after all! The Rambling Man (talk) 06:51, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

WG263 was in a silver or light finish, not black. I don't see it as poor tastes. I believe the statement is illustrative of what happened, and the effect on those present. Nothing wrong with retaining it, though could be moved to a quotebox.GraemeLeggett (talk)

11:37, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

I'm about to add another witness statement, that of author Moira Bremner. She was clearly traumatised by an horrific incident and will remember it vividly for the rest of her life. Re silver confetti, it sounds like chaff but I wouldn't expect chaff which contains explosive to be loaded in a non-combat situation. JRPG (talk) 11:29, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

@Gamebuster19901: Although fully aware of copyright rules, I was somewhat surprised that you completely removed Bremner's story as it really didn't seem excessively long. The recording itself is very emotional as she relives a truly terrifying moment which the Today program's 7 million listeners may well want to hear it again. Anyway, its about half the original length now. If you want to alter it further, could you please give reasons in accordance with WP:BRD. Regards JRPG (talk) 20:49, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

I believe the referenced text giving the mechanism of the disaster should be included in the text, my father who was an engineer working on the tail plane was very clear that the failure induced stall contributed greatly to the catastrophie — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.31.202.145 (talk) 09:45, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

I, Christopher Aitken, must have been very close to Moira Bremner in 1952. This is what I remember. I was 6.5 years old with excellent hearing and eyesight. The DH110 broke the sound barrier then turned and approached from our left side. As it got virtually opposite us and Observation Hill it went into a steep climb. As it climbed great cracks started to appear all over the fuselage. The cracks become bigger. All the fuselage was cracking up, not the wings or tailpiece. The DH110 then blew apart as it continued to rise. One of the engines hurtled passed just above us and then crashed into Observation Hill. It was so close that you could feel the heat from it as it went past. Other parts dropped near us some injuring spectators who were not on the hill. Then there was this eerie silence followed by a showering of silver parts. The next thing I recall was a tannoy announcement for any doctors and medical staff amongst the spectators to please go to an assembly point. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dancing Brave (talk • contribs) 16:57, 9 July 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for your contribution, to add something to the article it really needs to have been published and a new citation added to the article as it is not mentioned in the BBC article. MilborneOne (talk) 07:57, 10 July 2016 (UTC)

Lead clean-up

@The Rambling Man: the reason why I removed 'a lot of stuff' is in my edit summary, and it becomes clear by comparing the old version with the new one, which I doubt you took the time to do in detail. The sentence "safety procedures were subsequently enacted for UK air shows and there were no further spectator fatalities until the 2015 Shoreham Airshow crash" is not just unsourced; it is seemingly contradicted by one of the two referenced sources, i.e. an AAIB report on an airshow crash at Biggin Hill in 1977 in which four members of the public died, although in different circumstances. The other source is a BBC article about the Shoreham crash that doesn't even mention Farnborough: totally irrelevant to the Farnborough article and already included in the Shoreham one. --Deeday-UK (talk) 22:39, 7 February 2018 (UTC)

Okay, maybe it could be changed to say no further spectator casualties until the Biggin Hill crash. The Rambling Man (talk) 07:03, 8 February 2018 (UTC)

The only safe thing to include is the safety measures themselves that were adopted in the aftermath, per BBC source. Any statement along the line 'There were no more spectator fatalities until airshow X' is essentially original research, since it's not unambiguously supported by the sources. --Deeday-UK (talk) 18:54, 10 February 2018 (UTC)

But it's often cited, so we should work on finding sources rather than remove the information entirely. The Rambling Man (talk) 19:31, 10 February 2018 (UTC)

The Rambling Man, will you please make an effort like everybody else and revert only the parts you are objecting to? Your last one-click contribution erased a whole bunch of edits that are completely unrelated to the point being discussed here. Thank you. --Deeday-UK (talk) 21:11, 10 February 2018 (UTC)

I thought we were still discussing edits yet you restored your preferred version. Over to you, I'm not interested in getting involved in this kind of issue. I enjoyed creating and curating the article, but this ends it for me. Unwatching. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:13, 10 February 2018 (UTC)

Sources

• "Air disaster jury absolves pilot from blame". The Guardian. 9 September 1952. p. 8. Retrieved 27 August 2021 – via Newspapers.com.</ref>