Air Crashes around Stubton
8th May 1939 – 2 x Audax
Both pilots were killed when 2 Hawker Audax aircraft from RAF Cranwell collided over Stubton. The pilots were Flight Cadets Bernard Guille and Robert Morgan. Eyewitnesses said that the aircraft remained locked together for a long time as they fell into open ground, with one of them catching fire.
23 June 1939 – Hurricane
On 23rd June 1939 a 73 Sqn Hurrricane Mk I from RAF Digby crashed between Beckingham and Stubton. The pilot, Plt Off Anthony D’Orton Lamarque (22) was taken to Newark Hospital but died the next day.
23 Mar 1962 – Victor
On Friday the 23rd March 1962, the crew of a Victor jet bomber were conducting low-speed handling trials. The crew consisted of an Handley Page test pilot, an RAF test pilot, an RAF navigator and two Handley Page flight test observers. At about 1.30 p.m. the aircraft was at 15,000ft. over Lincolnshire, with the landing gear and flaps down. The aircraft entered a stall, from which a flat spin developed. The pilots were unable to regain control. At 9,000 feet, the captain gave the order to abandon the aircraft, and the two pilots ejected. The rear crew in ‘V’ bombers had no ejection seats and had to open a hatch and parachute out – this was would have been extremely difficult in a spin and only one of the observers managed to escape in time.
Below them was Home Farm, Stubton, where Mr. and Mrs. Dennis Burtt were in their dining room. They heard an unusual noise, then the noise of the two ejector seats firing, and moved to the French window to see what they could see. Ninety tons of Victor then landed on the house. They were blown through the window, sustaining a broken leg and burns respectively. Their housekeeper, Annie Gibson, and her niece Cecily Gibson, a nursemaid, were in the farm kitchen and were killed, along with the two remaining crew members.
Mrs Burtt staggered towards the cottage of their farm foreman, John Scrimshire. He rushed to the scene and dragged Mr Burtt from the wreckage before the site was engulfed in flames. He was later awarded the British Empire Medal for gallantry. Annie Gibson’s husband, Sidney, arrived moments later but there was nothing he could do. As well as burning aviation fuel, a store of diesel in an outhouse exploded, destroying more buildings. The headmaster’s wife at Stubton Hall school called 999 and the fire service reacted quickly, preventing the fire spreading to other houses. The Burtts were taken to the RAF Hospital at Nocton Hall.
The 17th century farmhouse was destroyed. The Burtts had been planning to move to a new house, which was nearly complete. Their children, who were out when the crash occured, initially stayed with their uncle at Hougham. When Mrs Burtt was discharged from hospital, they planned to stay with her father in law, Bevington Burtt, at Court Leys.
