Pat Lowe, an RAF navigator, was involved in the crash of an English Electric Canberra B. Mk.6 WT207 of No.76 Squadron RAF, around the village of Monyash on the 9th April 1958

This is his account of that incident. I hope you find it interesting!

“What a long time ago it all seems

In April 1958 Flt Lt De Salis and myself were flying in a modified Canberra B6 with Napier Twin Scorpion rocket motors mounted at the rear of the bomb bay.

The plan was to practice firing the Scorpions at high level. The first firing was uneventful. Flt Lt De Salis levelled the aircraft at high level, selected his two firing switches and as was the normal procedure I then selected the switches in the navigator’s position, the rockets lit and the aircraft climbed under the residual power of the Avons plus the rockets, no kick in the back or anything, just a steady rate of climb.

On the completion of the burn we switched off the rockets and started a slow descent. There was still some High Test Peroxide left in the tank and, as was usual we decided to use up as much as possible before returning to base, since it was all good practice and in any case any remaining HTP would have had to be jettisoned before landing.

So again the aircraft was levelled off and after completing the checks the rockets were fired.

I have not seen the results of the Board of Enquiry so I do not know what actually happened, however the effects were: the aircraft pitched nose down violently and the right wing dropped, there was an explosive decompression and the cockpit filled with dust.

With the savoir faire of the typical RAF Flying Officer I thought it was high time I wasn’t there and  went fairly rapidly through the ejection procedure, I am bound to say without reference to the pilot.

I jettisoned the hatch and pulled the ejection blind. I do not remember the actual ejection, which I think is quite normal in emergency ejections, but obviously the seat worked, the drogue gun fired and the drogue chute stabilised the seat. The seat straps parted and I fell out of the seat: all in 3 seconds or whatever the standard time was.

I remember falling out of the seat, feeling fairly uncomfortable due to the pressure suit, trousers and helmet all being fully pressurised.

As I fell, the pressure outside slowly increased of course and I became more comfortable. I was falling facing the ground in a stable attitude and in a slow flat right turn.

My hands were very cold (indeed the only damage I suffered was frostbite on my fingers, fortunately without permanent damage). Otherwise I was OK and really surprisingly unworried - presumably because I thought the hard bit was over, assuming that the parachute opened OK.

I had just read an article on skydiving which had just started in the States and I remember trying to control my turn by moving my arms and legs in and out, but without any effect.

I knew that the cloud base was 9000 feet and decided that if the parachute hadn’t opened by then I would pull the D ring. In fact, it opened automatically on the barostat and (this only occurred to me later) I didn’t even look up to see if it was OK. I suppose I had become convinced that it was my day and nothing could go wrong.

I landed in a field of stubble, rolled over on to my back and, since I had seen a tractor driver at work in the field, just waited to be helped.

Since I was deaf due to the decompression, lisping due to having bitten my tongue on landing and I couldn’t find the zip on the back of my helmet due to my frostbitten fingers, I was quite relieved when an ATC (Air Training Corps) cadet with his father arrived in the field, unbuckled me and took me to Bakewell Cottage Hospital.

At the time I was quite convinced, as was Pete De Salis, that the other one couldn’t have survived. We met later in Chesterfield Royal Infirmary: this was the really surprising thing about the whole incident.”

Pat Lowe in his flying suit: