Date:	Friday 12 May 1939
Time:	16:20
Type:	De Havilland DH.82 Tiger Moth
Owner/operator:	20 E&RFTS RAF
Registration:	N5487
MSN:	3760
Fatalities:	Fatalities: 1 / Occupants: 2
Other fatalities:	1
Aircraft damage:	Destroyed
Location:	Cobham Woods,near Gravesend, Kent, England -   United Kingdom
Phase:	Approach
Nature:	Training
Departure airport:	Gravesend Airport, Gravesend, Kent
Destination airport:
Confidence Rating:	Information is only available from news, social media or unofficial sources

Narrative:
DH.82 Tiger Moth MSN 3760 (Gipsy Major #80713): Taken on charge as N5487 at 24 MU Ternhill 12.11.38. To 20 E&RFTS Gravesend 3.3.39

Written off (destroyed) 12.5.39 in a midair collision with Tiger Moth N6451 during blind-flying practice, Cobham Woods, near Gravesend, Kent. One of the two crew was killed:

Flying Officer ´(190487John Furley Spanton (instructor) RAF killed
Midshipman (Air) Colin Gerald Shaw Hodgkinson (pupil pilot under training) injured - see below

Collision took place at 800 feet. Although Colin Hodgkinson survived, his legs were so severely damaged that they had to be amputated. (see link #2, which is the autobiography of the survivor, Colin Hodgkinson (1920-1996) published in 1957). According to Colin Hodgkinson's wikipedia entry (see link #5)

"Hodgkinson carried out training aboard the aircraft carrier HMS Courageous in the De Havilland Tiger Moth. He had completed some 20 hours of flying, including solo flights.

On 12 May 1939 he was practising blind flying at RAF Gravesend, with a hood over his head. At an altitude of 800 feet his Tiger Moth struck another aircraft and plummeted to the ground. The crash killed his 28 year old trainer, Flying Officer John Fyrley Spanton, and seriously injured Hodgkinson. He was rushed to hospital, where his right leg was amputated above the knee and his left leg below the knee. He was transferred to the Royal Naval Hospital in Chatham to recover. During this period he was introduced to Archibald McIndoe, who convinced him to join the "Guinea Pig Club" and have plastic surgery on his burned face.

By Christmas 1940, just over a year after his accident, he was walking on artificial limbs to such a standard that he was allowed back into the air. He subsequently joined the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve and went on numerous flights, including as a rear gunner on a bomber."

The crash site of Cobham Woods is a 242.7 hectares (600 acres) biological Site of Special Scientific Interest on the western outskirts of Rochester in Kent. It is in the Kent Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and part of it is managed by the National Trust.

1. Royal Air Force Aircraft L1000-N9999 (James J. Halley, Air Britain, 1983)
2. Best Foot Forward: The Autobiography of the RAF's Other Legless Fighter Pilot By Colin Hodgkinson (1957), Odhams Publishing, ISBN 0552106879 - avaiable on line at https://reader.paperc.com/books/Best-Foot-Forward/794875/ht06
3. http://www.rcawsey.co.uk/Acc1939.htm
4. http://www.airhistory.org.uk/dh/p037.html
5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colin_Hodgkinson_(RAF_officer)
6. http://www.tangmere-museum.org.uk/artefact-month/colin-hoppy-hodgkinson-guinea-pig-club-member
7. https://ww2aircraft.net/forum/threads/colin-hoppy-hodgkinson-2-kills-metal-legs.591/
8. http://forum.12oclockhigh.net/showthread.php?p=236149
9. http://www.rquirk.com/Behague/hodgkinson.html
10. https://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1939/1939%20-%201587.html
11. https://air-britain.com/pdfs/production-lists/DH82.pdf
12. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobham_Woods
13. https://www.flickr.com/photos/135768186@N08/44518215065
14. http://www.n5490.org/Pilots/Pilots.html
15. https://www.rauxaf.net/page157.html

Date/time	Contributor	Updates
27-Mar-2018 22:53	Dr. John Smith	Added
27-Mar-2018 23:04	Dr. John Smith	Updated [Source]
20-Nov-2018 15:10	Nepa	Updated [Operator, Nature, Operator]
01-Aug-2021 18:28	Dr. John Smith	Updated [Operator, Source, Narrative, Category]
01-Aug-2021 18:30	Dr. John Smith	Updated [Narrative]
01-Aug-2021 18:33	Dr. John Smith	Updated [Narrative]
01-Aug-2021 20:21	Jouda	Updated [Time, Operator, Location, Narrative, Operator]