The crew was taking part in a cross-country navigation exercise
from Stradishall to Plymouth and back. Wilson had already
flown 80 hours in Wellingtons at night and was considered
an experienced pilot. Barton had just 2 ½ hours blind
flying experience in Wellingtons.
Villagers in picturesque Milbourne Port first heard an aircraft
making ‘a loud whining noise’, before they saw
an aircraft then came out of cloud and dived straight into
the ground a few hundred yards east of the cemetery. An explosion
shook the ground and the glow of a fire lit up the surrounding
hills. L4290 had crashed, taking it three man crew to their
deaths.
The initial conclusion of the court of enquiry was that the
inexperienced Barton was at the controls at the time of the
crash and that he had lost control when trying to turn out
of a cloud. Significantly the court also recorded that the
Wellington had a tendency to become nose-heavy in a turn,
that would develop quickly into a dive from which it could
take considerable height to recover. These were early days
for the Wellington and later it was discovered that it suffered
from ‘rudder overbalance’ that caused the rudder
to lock to one side and the aircraft to enter an unrecoverable
spiral dive.
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The crash site with the village of Milbourne Port in
the background. |
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It soon became clear that the aircraft had hit the
ground almost vertically, but that the wreckage was
not deeply buried. |
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Only one of the engines remained on site, the other
having been cleared in 1939. |
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There's always one! |
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Steve and Victoria Vizard with one of recovered blades.
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A brass plate from the recovered engine - patented in
France and Germany. |
