Date:	Friday 9 November 1928
Time:	afternoon
Type:	Royal Aircraft Factory S.E.5a
Owner/operator:	Lt Gwynn Henry Buller Madocks, British Army
Registration:	G-EBQQ
MSN:	C1091
Fatalities:	Fatalities: 1 / Occupants: 1
Aircraft damage:	Destroyed
Location:	Brooklands Aerodrome, West Byfleet, Weybridge, Surrey -   United Kingdom
Phase:	Manoeuvring (airshow, firefighting, ag.ops.)
Nature:	Demo/Airshow/Display
Departure airport:	RAF Hendon, Middlesex
Destination airport:	Brooklands, West Byfleet, Weybridge, Surrey
Confidence Rating:	Information is only available from news, social media or unofficial sources

Narrative:
Ex-RAF C1091; First registered (C of R 1356/C of A 1610) on 4/4/1927 to Lt Gwynn H.B. Madocks, Coldstream Guards, London, (aircraft normally based at Brooklands).

Written off (destroyed) when Lieutenant Gwynn Henry Buller Madocks, an officer in the Coldstream Guards, was fatally injured in the crash of his privately owned S.E.5a WW1 fighter at Brooklands Aerodrome, West Byfleet, Weybridge, Surrey on 9/11/1928. Lt Madocks was practicing his aerobatics for a flying display to be held that day. He was removed from the wreckage and taken to Weybridge Cottage Hospital where he died from his injuries.
R.I.P.

The most comprehensive account of the incident appears to have been in the following newspaper report ("Nottingham Journal" - Saturday 10 November 1928)

"TWO MORE AIR FATALITIES.
BRIGADIER-GENERAL’S SON KILLED.
TRAGIC FAMILY.
BROTHER LOSES LIFE EIGHT MONTHS AGO.

Two more air fatalities have been added to the week's heavy toll. There have been five deaths since Tuesday.

An aeroplane crashed Brooklands when arriving for a display by the Household Brigade Flying Club, and the pilot, Lieut. G. H. B. Madocks, was fatally injured. He was the son of Brigadier-General Madocks.

Pilot-Sergt. Lockwood was killed, and his passenger, Aircraftsman C. R. Thane, seriously injured in an accident near Buckingham on Thursday evening.

MOTHER’S SHOCK.
SEES SON’S WRECKED ’PLANE AT GUARDSMEN’S RALLY.
Lieutenant Madocks crashed while arriving for a display by the Household Brigade Flying Club at Brooklands.

Hundreds of people who had come to see the first meeting of the newly formed Household Brigade Flying Club witnessed the accident. Lieut. Madocks flew his machine, a single sealer, from Hendon. Mr. A. A. Anderson, who is connected with the Henderson Flying School at Brooklands, describing the accident to a Press representative said: "I saw the 'plane arriving at the aerodrome. Right above it got in a spin and I could see that unless the pilot could get out of it quickly he would crash. He managed to get out of it and dived, but he was so near the ground then that he struck it angle of about forty-five degrees. The machine crumpled up absolutely."

A SOCIAL RALLY
"In a second or two several of us were there, and we found Lieut. Madocks with shocking injuries, but still breathing faintly. There was no hope for him, and he died the way to hospital."

"I have known Lieut. Madocks for about two years. He was a pupil at the Henderson School and took his certificate a year ago. He was a fine fearless type of man. He was the prime mover in the Guards’ Flying Club, and this afternoon was to have been sort of social one to get the fellows together and collect subscriptions so that a 'plane could be bought for that club. There were many people here, and to keep up the moral several of our men volunteered to go up and do a few stunts. This they did, but the meeting, of course, was not carried as arranged."

FOUND SON DEAD
Shortly after Lieut. Madocks bad been taken from the ground his mother arrived to see the display. She actually saw the wrecked ‘plane and did not know at first who was the victim of the smash. When she was told she hurried the hospital in Weybridge only to find her son dead.

Lieut. G. H. B. Maddocks, of the Coldstream Guards, was the son of Brigadier-General A .R. N. Maddocks. He is the second member of the family to meet a violent death this year. Eight months ago his brother, Mr. Kenneth Maddocks, was killed in the motoring accident in France in which Viscount Trematon, the Queen’s nephew, was fatally injured."

There was a brief follow-up three days later, when the inquest into the death of the pilot was reported (Nottingham Evening Post - Tuesday 13 November 1928)

"BROOKLANDS AIR CRASH.
INQUEST ON COLDSTREAM GUARDS OFFICER.
The inquest was held at Weybridge to-day on Lieutenant Gwynn Henry Buller Madocks, Battalion Coldstream Guards, who was killed in an air crash at Brooklands on Saturday.

Wing Commander D. S. K. Crosbie, of the R.A.F., Hendon, said that Lieut. Madocks left Hendon about 1.30 p.m. on Friday, flying his own private single seater machine.

A verdict of "Death by misadventure" was returned"

Registration G-EBQQ cancelled by the Air Ministry in January 1929 (possibly 7-1-29) due to "destruction or permanent withdrawl from use of aircraft"

1. Royal Air Force Aircraft J1-J9999 (and WWI Survivors): Ray Sturtivant & Dennis Thompson (Air Britain, 1987 p.183)
2. Hull Daily Mail - Friday 09 November 1928
3. Nottingham Journal - Saturday 10 November 1928
4. Nottingham Evening Post - Tuesday 13 November 1928
5. http://afleetingpeace.org/index.php/aeroplanes/15-aeroplanes/82-register-gb-g-eb
6. http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~sooty/miscairdeaths.html
7. http://www.rcawsey.co.uk/Acc1929.htm
8. http://www.rafcommands.com/forum/showthread.php?17344-RAF-fatalities-1928
9. National Archives (PRO Kew) File AVIA 5/10/C132: http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C6576600
10. https://cwsprduksumbraco.blob.core.windows.net/g-info/HistoricalLedger/G-EBQQ.pdf
11. http://www.airhistory.org.uk/gy/reg_G-E3.html .

Date/time	Contributor	Updates
03-Mar-2015 21:08	angels one five	Added
03-Mar-2015 21:09	angels one five	Updated [Narrative]
23-Mar-2015 09:06	angels one five	Updated [Operator]
20-Jun-2018 17:49	Dr. John Smith	Updated [Time, Operator, Location, Nature, Departure airport, Destination airport, Source, Narrative]
29-Aug-2019 00:59	angels one five	Updated [Aircraft type, Narrative]
08-Mar-2020 20:53	Dr. John Smith	Updated [Time, Departure airport, Source, Narrative]
08-Mar-2020 20:59	Dr. John Smith	Updated [Source, Narrative]