The 1965 Little Baldon Air Crash

At 16.00 on 6^th July, 1965, a Hastings aircraft took off from RAF Abingdon having picked up some parachutists on a training course.  The plan was to drop them over Weston-on-the-Green, near Middleton Stoney, before going on to RAF Benson.  Over Berinsfield, the pilot, Flt. Lt. Akin, radioed that he was having control problems and requesting an emergency landing.  As there was an aircraft parked on the runway at Benson, he was instructed to make a wide circuit.  An eyewitness in Berinsfield said ‘the wings wiggled’ and ‘the tail wobbled’.  Evelyn Ware, of Little Baldon Cottages, reported the plane ‘started to dive then suddenly swooped up’.  It then rolled over and nose-dived into Hundred Acres Field near Little Baldon with all engines still going.  George Powell, the farm foreman, said ‘there was a terrible explosion and flames leapt up.  We rushed into the field but there was nothing we could do.’

 

Searching through the wreckage. Photo from “News Letter” (NI), 7^th July 1965

Aboard were forty-one men: eleven army passengers, twenty-four RAF passengers and six crew.  Eight of the RAF men were parachute jump instructors, two of whom were members of the Red Falcons Display Team.  All were killed instantly.  It was the third worst air crash in Britain at the time.  The Queen sent a message of condolence.

An enquiry established that metal fatigue had caused two bolts in the elevator system to fail.  All Hastings aircraft were grounded and eventually replaced with Hercules.

On 9^th April, 1967, a wall-mounted marble monument to the victims was dedicated in St Lawrence Church, Toot Baldon.  An RAF ensign and a standard of the Oxfordshire Branch of the Parachute Regimental Association flank the tablet and the roll of honour.  A commemorative service is held each year on the first Sunday of July.  Relatives, as well as villagers, attend.