Sabre 19365 Crash - RCAF Investigation Report - 1953

[AX 365]

As I have mentioned before, my uncle was killed flying this Sabre in France on 09 June 1953. On doing research, I discovered the Collections Canada (formerly Library and Archives Canada) had the original Accident Investigation Branch Report and the Report of the Board of Inquiry. On Tuesday 09 August, I had the opportunity to review the contents of the original RCAF file into my uncle's accident. Here are some of the photos I took of the documents. The Board of Inquiry Report was 30 pages long requiring some 50 photos so they aren't posted here. Here are photos of his ejection seat, the AIB Report and one other document. I learned a lot from this. Here we go...

More in the next post.

Mike

[AX 365]

Part 2 - The AIB Report - First Half

[AX 365]

Part 3 - The AIB Report - Second Half

More to follow.

Mike

[AX 365]

Part 4 - Form - Report on Flying Accident or Aircraft Ground Accident

Thanks for letting me share some of the details of my uncles accident. I had made a few assumptions before reviewing the entire file but it's tough not knowing whether it was pilot or mechanical error.

Mike

[Wolfgun33]

That's very interisting. You rarly get to see an accident report like that (unless your an investigator or pilot). It's unfortunate that it was your Uncle. My condolences.

[Antoine]

Very interesting report, thanks.

Here's a link to the map

[Jay Chladek]

Whatever it was, things happened pretty fast for him to not even be able to let out a radio call before he made the decision to eject. Investigations don't always lead to answers, or the answers we want them to be. The most important thing is finding a way to learn from it and move on. You can't let such things consume you because they can really eat at a person. I think if your uncle was here today though, he would certainly appreciate that you are taking an interest in what he did all those years ago.

[AX 365]

wolfgun:

I had never even thought of searching Library and Archives Canada records until someone mentioned it to me a little while back. I'm glad my friend pointed me in this direction. It was a great resource to review, looking at and handling documents older than me.

Antoine:

Thanks for the link. I actually visited the area when I had the opportunity to go to France last year. A friend of mine, who was a Red Indian at Grostenquin at the same time as my uncle, told me that the maps in the day had Grostenquin airfield seven miles offset from its actual location. Maps and weather briefings in those days were very suspect. Too bad they didn't have Google maps back then.

Jay:

I sent these photos and many others (the entire file on uncle Guy's crash) to the friend I referred to above, Mr. Des Peters. After his stint with the RCAF, he joined Transport Canada as an Air Accident Investigator. He said he had never seen the report into Guy's crash but after reading the file and based on his own experiences in flying in poopy weather France in the 50's and those with his work in the AIB, he believes that it is most likely that uncle Guy became disoriented or suffered from vertigo and ejected too late. The file revealed that uncle Guy only had 2.5 hours of actual flying time in IFR conditions in Sabres although he had over 40 hours in 'blind flying' with a canvass hood in T-33s.

Uncle Guy's crash and passing hasn't consumed me at all. He passed away 8 years before I was born. It's more an interest in what happened all those years ago. Aunt Barbara rarely discussed Guy's accident and death and the knowledge I've learned is through research like this at LAC and through first hand accounts from wonderful people like Mr. Peters. Thanks for your kind words.

[HOLMES]

Mike,

This is a very fascinating and interesting read..I guess it is because I like detail and intrigue

and getting to the bottom of things....this is such a magnificent,very important, detailed historical document that

one learns a lot of how thinga were and came to be. { I did reading this }......It is always heart wreching and heart breaking to

discover how ones ancesters served the country and what happened to them.Truly sad And I am sorry for your loss.

Mike I am pleased and glad that you were able to find the information and documented reports for your Uncle

1953 air crash...I am sure it may have evoked mixture of emotions but now you have a peace of mind as to what happned....

THANK you for sharing this.I read it several times.Most invaluable information indeed.....

BEST wishes and for your Uncle.

HOLMES

[Emvar]

Mike,

Thanks for sharing... just one thought though, Low flying could have ingested something while in the cloud.

Interesting read nevertheless.

Emil

[alvin5182]

Mike:

Very interesting stuff! Thanks for sharing that!

Al Davis

[redwoodmodels]

Mike,

Thanks for sharing... just one thought though, Low flying could have ingested something while in the cloud.

Interesting read nevertheless.

Emil

Good point. Bird strike?

I wish they could've found the jet.

[ya-gabor]

Hello Mike,

This is a fascinating read. Yes, it is not usual to be able to read something like this. For me it is interesting to read about the ejection itself. It is lessons learned from this kind of accidents that led to the constant development of ejection seats, to the introduction of the automatic seat release systems and the reduction of the time between initiation to separation from the seat and eventual canopy opening to somewhere near the 1 ^1/4 second mark.

The aircraft is somewhere still there in the lake!

We had in Hungary a mid-air with two MiG-21 bis fighters from Taszar base where one of them went into a lake and could not be recovered, it was so deep. The soil or the lake bed is so soft that it consums everything very easily and it goes down very deep. I am not surprised that they found so little of the a/c in 1953!

Thanks for sharing the information!

Best regards

Gabor

[AX 365]

HOLMES, Emil, Al, Gabor and redwoodmodels:

Thanks for your replies and kind words. I'm glad you were able to enjoy(that's not the right word, is it?) the documentation. I found it fascinating to read the entire file. As a matter of fact, up until 1987, the Armed Forces was still considering an attempt to salvage more of the wreckage but decided against doing so. As the accident was over 30 years old, we were no longer flying the Sabre and the cost of the operation would have outweighed any benefits of attempting the recovery, it was decided to leave what was left of the jet in the lake / swamp. It is very likely that parts of 19365 are still in the deep silt of the Etangs de Benestroff.

Here is a photo of the lake / swamp when it was drained in the fall if 1953. In the centre of the photo, you can make out the crater / impact point of the Sabre in the bottom of the lake / swamp.

Here is a photo of some of the 1953 recovery team walking out to the site of the impact. If a 175 pound man sinks that far into the quagmire, imagine how far down a Sabre, with 1,500 lbs of fuel and traveling at say 500 mph, would have gone into the muck? It's probably half way to China.

Here is a photo of some of the parts recovered from 19365. The parts in the background (wings, gun ports, etc) were not recovered from Guy's Sabre. As indicated in the formal Board of Inquiry Report, the Sabre literally disintegrated on impact.

There was very little outward trauma to the body. I had always been told that the impact had broken Guy's neck. The report of the medical officer at the Board of Inquiry was quite graphic and detailed about the extent of his injuries. There were no photos in the file. Thank goodness. THE DESCRIPTION OF THE INJURIES UNCLE GUY SUSTAINED ARE IN THE NEXT PARAGRAPH. IF YOU HAVE WEAK CONSTITUTION, YOU MIGHT NOT WISH TO READ ANY FURTHER.

No post mortem was performed. The mechanism of death was apparent. The ejection seat landed on its left side. Guy's head was crushed between the headrest and the ground. His neck was not broken. His entire skull was crushed. His left eye was deflated and it retreated back into the socket. The right eye was forced from the socket and was dangling loosely, held to the head by the optic nerve. There were several fractures of the jaw and cheek bones. There were large cuts on his scalp. Most of his brain matter had been ejected from the skull during the time the head was crushed between the earth and the headrest and brain matter was evident on the ground near his body. There were a number of cuts on his right hand, presumably from pulling or trying to pull the "D" ring of the parachute. His left hand had a number of broken bones in the fingers. There were a few cuts and bruises in the groin due to the seat harnesses. There was no bleeding from any of these smaller cuts.

As for a bird strike, I suppose anything is possible. There's nothing in the Board of Inquiry Report about bird strikes or birds being in the area at the time but it remains a possibility. I've sent a note to Mr. Peters asking him about that probability and possibility of a bird strike being part of this equation. I'm awaiting his reply.

Thanks to all who have taken the time to read about my uncle's crash and his unfortunate demise.

Mike

[AX 365]

I got a reply from Mr. Peters last night about his thoughts on a bird strike with uncle Guy's Sabre:

"I don't think for one moment that it was a bird strike. Look back at the failure to follow the many instructions of the GCA controller. And that was happening in cloud! Birds don't fly in solid cloud and it is a bit of a stretch to think so. He came out of cloud at a 60 degree angle of descent and that is nowhere near normal controlled flight at that altitude. So no, because of his low experience in instrument flying in cloud, then vertigo is the most likely cause of the accident and his ejection was because of the sudden view he had of the ground and his speed and rate of descent. That was about all he could do at that stage and was correct."

For what it's worth...

Mike

[Emvar]

Mike,

It was just a thought, thanks for sharing......

You Know those European Swallows can be tough.

Emil

[ZOOMER]

Mike,

It was just a thought, thanks for sharing......

You Know those European Swallows can be tough.

Emil

What IS the wing speed velocity of a European Swallow?

[johnny_7713]

That's very interisting. You rarly get to see an accident report like that (unless your an investigator or pilot). It's unfortunate that it was your Uncle. My condolences.

I'm assuming you mean a military accident report? Because civilian accident reports are usually publicly available via the website of the respective investigating authority. All the reports published for example by the NTSB (US), TSB (Canada), ATSB (Australia), AAIB (UK), BEA (France), DSB (Netherlands)and the Indonesian National Committee for Transportation since about the mid-nineties can be pulled straight off their website in pdf format. And those are just the ones I know for certain.

I found it very interesting to compare the style of this report with the style of current reports, it was an interesting read. Thanks for sharing Mike.

Edited August 17, 2011 by johnny_7713