ASN Wikibase Occurrence # 387697
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| Date: | Thursday 2 August 1945 |
| Time: | 11:15 |
| Type: |  North American P-51C Mustang III |
| Owner/operator: | 316 (Warszawski) Sqn RAF |
| Registration: | FX876 |
| MSN: | |
| Fatalities: | Fatalities: 1 / Occupants: 1 |
| Aircraft damage: | Destroyed |
| Location: | Gould’s Farm, Duckend Green, nr Rayne, Essex, England -
 United Kingdom
|
| Phase: | Manoeuvring (airshow, firefighting, ag.ops.) |
| Nature: | Military |
| Departure airport: | |
Mustang FX 876 took off at 10:15 hrs, on its first flight since the inspection was completed. It should be noted that the aircraft was not test flown. The pilot, W/O Pietrzak, had been briefed to take part in a Squadron formation exercise which was to be followed by dive bombing practice. FX876 was one of the first pair in the formation to leave the ground. The other member of this pair was the Squadron Commander. Almost as soon as the two aircraft were airborne, W/O Pietrzak overtook his leader and a few seconds later called him on the R/T (radio transmitter) to state that his rudder control had jammed and that he could not use starboard rudder but he could still apply port rudder. The Squadron Commander immediately ordered him to return and land and W/O Pietrzak thereupon turned away and disappeared. Some four minutes later, after the rest of the Squadron had formed up with the leader and W/O Pietrzak’s original place in the formation had been filled, FX876 reappeared and W/O Pietrzak requested permission to rejoin, stating that his aircraft was now serviceable. This permission was granted. Various squadron formation manoeuvres were then carried out for a period of forty minutes, during which FX876 appeared to fly normally.
Dive bombing practice then began from a height of about 12,000 feet.
The Squadron formed line astern with W/O Pietrzak as number 7. Each aircraft in turn pulled up into a stalled turn to the left and entered its dive, the instructions to each pilot being that recovery should be affected at 5,000 ft. FX876 entered its dive in exactly the same way as had those aircraft ahead of it, but, instead of pulling out at 5,000 ft, its dive was seen by the pilot of number 8 aircraft which was close behind, to become suddenly steeper until it reached an angle over the vertical. Number 8 realised that something was amiss and endeavoured to follow FX876 in order to keep it under observation.
The pilot of number 8 stated that when FX876 started to dive over the vertical he also noticed that it was side-slipping to the left and he declared that he had great difficulty in following it. He stated that he then saw it carry out an aileron turn one and a half times round and the pulled out of its dive inverted at an altitude well under 100 feet.
The pilot of number 8 lost sight of it at this point because his own airspeed was over 500 m.p.h. I.A.S. and his height was only around 3,000 ft. He therefore had his attention fully occupied in recovering normal flight, which he did by using his tail trim after unsuccessfully trying to ease back the stick.
He then caught sight of FX876 again. It was still inverted and climbing.
Although he himself was still travelling at very high speed, FX876 overtook him and nosed over into a dive which continued to the ground.
It subsequently transpired that W/O Pietrzak had fallen out of his aircraft whilst it was inverted and travelling at tremendous speed across Andrews Field Aerodrome at a height of only about 20 ft. His body was found near by. He had undoubtedly been thrown from the cockpit under high negative “g”. The fact that no pieces of the cockpit hood were found way from the main wreckage suggested that the hood was open when the pilot was ejected. W/O Pietrzak was killed instantly.
The funeral of Aleksander Pietrzak was held at 3.00 p.m on the 7th August at Epping Cemetery.
Sources:
https://www.wingsmuseum.co.uk/our-work/aviation-archaeology/mustang-iii-fx876/. Last Accessed 06/05/24 15:10
https://www.braintreeandwithamtimes.co.uk/news/3690659.wartime-plane-unearthed-62-years-on/ Last Accessed 06/05/24 17:30
Revision history:
| Date/time | Contributor | Updates |
|---|---|---|
| 06-May-2024 14:40 | PaulL | Added |
| 06-May-2024 17:18 | PaulL | Updated [Location, Source] |
| 07-May-2024 10:54 | Nepa | Updated [Aircraft type, Operator, Location, Narrative, Operator] |
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