ASN Wikibase Occurrence # 155983
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| Date: | Monday 29 May 1939 |
| Time: | 19:00 LT |
| Type: | Hillson Praga |
| Owner/operator: | Northern School of Aviation & Club Ltd |
| Registration: | G-AEUK |
| MSN: | HA.27 |
| Fatalities: | Fatalities: 2 / Occupants: 2 |
| Aircraft damage: | Destroyed |
| Location: | Kirkholt Farm, Balderstone, near Rochdale, Lancashire -
 United Kingdom
|
| Phase: | En route |
| Nature: | Private |
| Departure airport: | Manchester Barton (EGCB) |
| Confidence Rating: |  Information is only available from news, social media or unofficial sources |
Registered as G-AEUK (C of R 7689) 19.3.37 to Northern School of Aviation Ltd, Barton; renamed Northern Aviation School & Club Ltd 24.9.37. Delivered by road to Barton 3.3.37; first flight 23.3.37. C of A 5841 issued 23.3.37.
Written off (damaged beyond repair) when crashed into field at Kirkholt Farm, Balderstone, near Rochdale, Lancashire, on 29.5.39 following structural failure in steep dive; both persons on board (David Johnstone and David Ferguson) killed. According to a contemporary newspaper report (see link #6):
"It was Rochdale’s first and only fatal plane crash.
Seventy five years ago ‘horror descended swiftly and terribly from the sky’ when the Hillson Praga light aeroplane nose-dived into fields in Balderstone. he two men on board were killed instantly.
The Rochdale Observer reported: “Just before 7pm on the evening of one of the most perfect Whit-Mondays ever known, horror descended on Rochdale swiftly and terribly from the sky.
“On such a glorious evening hundreds of people were enjoying a ramble through the fields in Balderstone and Thornham districts, when a small aeroplane flying at moderate height from the direction of Royton attracted attention by the curious and unsteady noise of its engine. Then the engine stopped, started again and with a coughing splutter stopped again. There was a noise like an explosion.
Part of the wing fell and bits of the machine drifted down through the sun-drenched air until it looked, in the graphic phrase of one witness, ‘as though there was a paper chase in the sky’. A few moments later another large piece dropped. The machine came down in a spiral dive and crashed into the ground against a fence in a field adjoining Kirkholt Farm. There were two men in the aeroplane. Both were killed instantly and terribly mangled.”
The plane, which belonged to the Northern Aviation School and Club, had taken off 30 minutes earlier from Barton Airport on May 29, 1939. Witnesses reported seeing parts falling off as it flew from the direction of Royton over Rochdale. Debris was found in the railway sidings at Castleton, in the grounds of Castleton Congregational Church on Heywood Road and in a garden in Alexander Street among other places.
John Taylerson, of Ramsden Road, Wardle,’probably the person nearest to the actual crash’, was sitting in the fields near Top o’th’ Hill Farm when the plane came down. He said: “I saw the aeroplane coming over. There was a crack and I saw a wing drop off and fall near the farm. Then the machine plunged down in a spiral dive and hit the ground with a crash.”
The victims were David Johnston, a car salesman at Collinge Motors Limited in Drake Street, and Donald Ferguson, a commercial traveller, from Beverley, East Yorkshire. Both men were members of the flying club.Pilot Mr Johnston, a Belfast native, had moved to Rochdale just 12 months earlier. The 24-year-old was in training for the ‘B’ licence which would have allowed him to fly commercially. He was survived by his wife who he had married just three months earlier
Mr Ferguson, 26, was also a qualified pilot and a member of the Civil Air Guard. An inquest three weeks later heard the plane had been checked on the morning of the flight and found to be in ‘perfect order’. Witnesses told the hearing prior to the crash the plane had ‘dived as if for a loop’ but then flattened out at a height of about 2,000 feet.
Shortly afterwards the left wing fell off and the plane plummeted to the ground. County coroner Stanley Turner recorded a verdict of ‘accidental death’."
Registration G-AEUK belatedly cancelled 1.12.46 at Post-War census.
Sources:
1. https://publicapps.caa.co.uk/docs/HistoricalMaterial/G-AEUK.pdf
2. http://www.airhistory.org.uk/gy/reg_G-A9.html
3. http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C2684813
4. http://afleetingpeace.org/index.php/aeroplanes/15-aeroplanes/79-register-gb-g-ae
5. http://www.ab-ix.co.uk/hillson%20praga.pdf
6. https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/rochdales-first-only-fatal-plane-7294357
7. http://www.etherit.co.uk/1939/05/29.htm
Revision history:
| Date/time | Contributor | Updates |
|---|---|---|
| 19-May-2013 11:31 | ryan | Added |
| 19-May-2014 05:56 | Dr. John Smith | Updated [Date, Aircraft type, Registration, Cn, Operator, Total fatalities, Total occupants, Other fatalities, Location, Phase, Nature, Departure airport, Destination airport, Source, Narrative] |
| 19-May-2014 05:57 | Dr. John Smith | Updated [Narrative] |
| 28-Oct-2017 21:13 | Dr. John Smith | Updated [Time, Location, Source, Narrative] |
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