ASN Wikibase Occurrence # 243554
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| Date: | xx Jun 1975 |
| Time: | day |
| Type: | Smith A - Santos Dumont Gas Airship |
| Owner/operator: | Anthony John Francis Smith (regd. owner) |
| Registration: | G-BAWL |
| MSN: | 1 |
| Fatalities: | Fatalities: 0 / Occupants: 2 |
| Aircraft damage: | Substantial |
| Location: | Old Warden Airfield (EGTH), Biggleswade, Bedfordshire. -
 United Kingdom
|
| Phase: | Landing |
| Nature: | Demo/Airshow/Display |
| Departure airport: | Cardington Airfield, Eastcotts, Bedfordshire, UK |
| Old Warden Airfield (EGTH), Biggleswade, Bedfordshire. | |
| Confidence Rating: |  Information is only available from news, social media or unofficial sources |
The airship was flying, with a BBC camera man on board, from Cardington Airfield to attend the second day of the 'Shuttleworth -where time flies by-Air Display' and was landing at Old Warden Airfield, when just before touch down the wind shifted forcing the pilot Mr Jasper Tomlinson to swerve and avoid colliding with three parked aircraft, this caused the airship to plunged into a tree, where a branch punctured and deflated the envelope.
On the day before the Shuttleworth Air Display, G-BAWL with a BBC camera man on board was being flown from Cardington to Old Warden by the designer/builder Mr Anthony Smith when it encountered an overriding head wind and landed 2 miles south of the airfield where it collided with a tree and landed in a field of Brussels sprouts. The airship was then manually hauled to the airfield. Early the next morning the airship was flown back to Cardington for minor repairs and preparation for return to Old Warden for the second days air display and fateful crash.
An excellent 40 minute BBC video of both flights and crashes are shown on "Old Warden": https://www.fai.org/sites/default/files/documents/cia-hof-smith-anthony.pdf" (see link #1)
G-BAWL was first registered on 18 April 1973, and the registration was belatedly cancelled by the CAA on 21 January 1987.
Sources:
1. Old Warden https://www.fai.org/sites/default/files/documents/cia-hof-smith-anthony.pdf
2. Aeroplane Monthly - October 1976 - Anthony Smith 'The Santos Dumont' P.546-549
3. https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/anthony-smith-cpjsnwk6tjz
4. https://paulbolam.wordpress.com/2016/08/19/airship-crash-1975-old-warden/
5. https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo/old-warden-airfield.html
6. https://cwsprduksumbraco.blob.core.windows.net/g-info/HistoricalLedger/G-BAWL.pdf
Revision history:
| Date/time | Contributor | Updates |
|---|---|---|
| 02-Oct-2020 18:06 | Peter Clarke | Added |
| 28-May-2022 23:14 | Dr. John Smith | Updated [Date, Time, Operator, Source, Narrative, Category] |
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