Bomber crash a vivid memory
It is 50 years since an RAF Vulcan bomber crashed during a low-level flight in front of 20,000 spectators at an airshow.
The Battle of Britain Week event at Syerston Aerodrome on Saturday, September 20, 1958, was organised to mark 40 years of the RAF.
At 2pm the V-shaped 50-ton Vulcan Bomber roared into sight.
At the controls of VX700, the first Vulcan made, were a Rolls Royce test crew and an RAF navigator.
What happened next was captured on a Dacora Royal camera by an 18-year-old apprentice fitter and turner at Ransome and Marles, David Midworth, of Lincoln Road, Newark.
Mr Midworth had gone to Syerston with two friends who shared his interest in aircraft.
He had just bought the camera from one of them, Keith Vernon, who was teaching him how to use it.
They got there early so they could see the aircraft on the ground and elbowed their way to a good vantage point right by the rope that kept the crowds from the runway.
“It was the first time I had a camera that had different apertures and shutter speeds,” he said.
“I lined up the camera and remembered to pan,” he said.
Vulcan pilot Keith Sturt (29) descended to 200ft and, still losing height to give the crowd a close-up view, swept past the control tower.
Then, in an explosive flash, the starboard wing disintegrated and, amid orange-tinted smoke, jagged pieces of metal began to rain down on the runway and surrounding turf, narrowly missing those on the ground.
The port wing dipped and hit the runway and the aircraft exploded into a fireball.
The crew of four, including Mr Sturt, of Wollaton, died instantly.
The main body of the aircraft roared into an RAF runway control caravan, killing both its occupants, and into a fire patrol Jeep killing one of its occupants and seriously injuring the other.
Remarkably, no spectators were hurt.
“I had pressed the button but instead of a click there was a terrific big bang,” Mr Midworth said.
“It was an horrendous sight. I was aware that people had died. There was no shouting or screaming; no panic.
“Keith said to me: ‘keep taking pictures,’ so I did.”
The photograph of the Vulcan’s mid-air break-up taken by Mr Midworth, now 68 and living at High Street, Sutton-on-Trent, has been described as “one of the outstanding news pictures of all time.”
In the intervening years, it has has been reproduced several times in newspapers, books and magazines.
Yet he did not realise he had a picture of such quality until it was developed in a dark room at Keith’s home.
Less than a fortnight after the crash, the inquests into the deaths at Newark Town Hall heard Sturt was a “capable and careful pilot” with 1,644 hours of flying time, 118 of them on VX770.
He had flown at the Farnborough airshow earlier that year and, according to his pilot’s logbook, had never been involved in any accident.
Mr Midworth often thinks of the crash and has researched it and the plane and its crew.
The 50-year anniversary spurred a remarkable journey of discovery for a descendant of someone who lost a loved one in the crash.
Mr Sturt and his wife, Norah, had no children, but from an earlier marriage, Norah did have children of her own.
She rarely spoke of Keith in the years after the crash.
Mrs Catherine Coulthard, Norah’s granddaughter, heard snippets and began to piece the story together for herself using records and the internet.
That research culminated in a visit to his grave in Hucknall on Friday and a walk around the Syerston aerodrome, which is still used for glider flying.
Mrs Coulthard, of Solihull, told the Advertiser: “When I realised it was the 50th anniversary of Keith’s death it became sort of a pilgrimage to visit Syerston and his grave.
“It was very humbling. I feel as if I laid a lot of ghosts to rest on behalf of my grandmother.”
It was also a tragic end to an aircraft that had helped to shape aviation history.
For the 15 months prior to the crash, VX770 had been based at the Rolls Royce experimental station at Hucknall, where it was used to test the world’s most powerful jet engine, the Conway.
Earlier in 1958 it set an unofficial record for speed, flying between England and Rome in 23/4 hours.
The cause of the crash was put down to possible metal fatigue.
