Date:	Sunday 27 March 1949
Time:	noon
Type:	Supermarine Spitfire Mk 22
Owner/operator:	615 (County of Surrey) Sqn RAF
Registration:	PK372
MSN:	CBAF.
Fatalities:	Fatalities: 1 / Occupants: 1
Other fatalities:	1
Aircraft damage:	Destroyed
Location:	Old Farm Cottage, Milking Lane, Leaves Green, Orpington, Kent -   United Kingdom
Phase:	En route
Nature:	Training
Departure airport:	RAF Biggin Hill, Bromley, Kent
Destination airport:	RAF Biggin Hill, Bromley, Kent
Confidence Rating:	Information is only available from news, social media or unofficial sources

Narrative:
PK372: Spitfire F.22. Delivered to 39MU 3-8-45. To Vickers Armstrongs Keevil, Wiltshire 22-4-47 for mods. Issued to 615 (County of Surrey) Squadron 9-9-48. Written off (destroyed) when dived into house out of cloud during weather test Creswells Farm, Leaves Green, Orpington Kent (FACE - Flying Accident Cat. E) 27-3-49. Struck off charge and sold for scrap 5-8-49. Pilot - Flight Lt Derek Alfred Benson, killed, along with one person on the ground.

The pilot was carrying out a weather test, but the pilot was out of practice in respect of instrument flying (IFR), and it is thought that he lost control of the aircraft while "flying blind" in cloud. The aircraft was seen to dive steeply out of the cloud base at around 800 feet, "mushed" into the ground, and struck a house at Leaves Green, Keston, Kent, injuring two men, and killing a young woman on the ground.

Note that sources differ as to the exact location of the crash site: "Cresswells Farm, Leaves Green, Orpington, Kent" is stated on official reports as the crash location for Spitfire PK372 and the location of where the pilot died. However, civilian authorities give the location of death for the young woman killed as "Anne Drina Forbes Cockell. Born Sept 1930 Marylebone. Probate of 102 Rivermead Court, Ranelagh Gardens, Hurlingham, Middx. Spinster died 27.3.1949 at Leaves Green Keston, Kent". The two locations are some 2.4 miles apart.

Therefore, reports that Spitfire PK372 crashing at "102 Rivermead Court, Hurlingham, Middlesex" are based on the home address of the brother of the female civilian casualty (a long way - some 20 miles - from where she was, and where the accident occurred) and others give the crash location as "Leavis Green" [sic] which doesn't exist, and is probably a mis-recording of "Leaves Green", which is some 5 miles south of Bromley and 2 miles north of Biggin Hill.

According to a contemporary newspaper report ("Daily Herald" - Monday 28 March 1949)

"Spitfire kills girl in parlour
In the split-second in which a runaway 400-miles-an-hour Spitfire tore through this show-piece Kent hamlet on the edge of "Death Valley," considered by wartime pilots to be one of the worst flying areas in Britain.

The pilot, Flight-Lieut. D. A. Benson, one of the RAF's most brilliant young flyers, was left dead high up in the trees which centre the village green; A pretty girl visitor, 18-year-old Miss Ann Drina Forbes Cockell, was killed in the cottage parlour in which she sat. Two men were cut down and seriously injured by a flying wing that screamed up the street. The plane's tail, flying airborne full tilt at the timber walls of the King's Arms tavern, in which seven men were drinking, was diverted by a parked car. Walls, trees, hedges and house along a quarter-mile track through the centre of the village were demolished as if by a tornado.

As Cars passed
It all happened in a flash just after noon, when men were out with their dogs, women were cooking the Sunday meal, and a long procession of cars passing through on the way to the open country. London stockbroker Mr. Seton Forbes Cockell, of Rivermead Court, Hurlingham, S.W., whose sister was killed, said:

"I had left my sister in the downstairs parlour of Farm Cottage with Ann Camilla Leworthy, five-year-old daughter of my friends, who own the house. Their baby son Richard (nearly a year old) was in his pram in the garden, but near the door of the room. I was upstairs when the whole building seemed to leap, and I heard the roar of falling masonry. There was a stench of petrol and oil. I found myself on a sort of bridge of tottering walls and plaster."

Dog fell dead
"Everywhere outside was a litter of aeroplane wreckage. I found that the plane's engine had shot completely through the ground floor, missing the children by inches. My sister was dead."

Mr. H. Greaves, of Twickenham, motoring by, said: "I was passing the King's Arms when hundreds of pieces of aluminium, flashing in the bright sun, spattered up the street like grape-shot. I saw a man walking with his dog. The dog dropped dead. The tail-unit of a plane dashed straight at the King's Arms bar, hit a car outside and crushed it like a matchbox, spun for a moment like a top and then flew on past the inn. So far as I could see, the car, flung by the flying tail, demolished the front of the inn."

Petrol everywhere
Farther up the road Alan Ellis, of Swivelands-road, Biggin Hill, and George Statham, of West-road, Biggin Hill, had started to cross towards a phone box. They lay on the ground after a wing had screeched by, the one with a broken leg, the other with head injuries. George Statham said tonight:

"I saw the plane make one complete circuit over the aerodrome. Then the note of its engines changed and I could hear it come screaming down."

Customers in the King's Arms bar, said: "It was just as if a shell had hit the place. Outside was petrol everywhere, but although we had a fire and most of us were smoking there was no outbreak."

Through a wall
The plane hit Tom Gallon's meadow as if in a desperate effort to land, shot through an orchard, tearing the tops off six trees, demolished a high flint wall, travelled 100 yards across the front lawn of unoccupied Old House Farm, tearing down more trees, and then bouncing from a second wall which it also demolished, disintegrated. From here on engine, wings, tall and fuselage all went different ways. Twenty-one fragments were picked up in a square yard of the main street. Cars travelling through the village were pitted as if with shrapnel."

It should be noted that the above newspaper ("The Daily Herald") changed its name in 1964 the "The Sun"; apparently, hyperbole and "purple prose" in its reporting was something that was established long before the name change!

***** UPDATE May 2022. Coroner's report gives crash location as Old Farm Cottage, Leaves Green. Narrative states: Miss Cockell was visiting premises with her brother when the aircraft crashed. Scene examination shows aircraft hit a wall and a tree, severing the engine which crashed through Old Farm Cottage, fatally injuring Miss Cockell, who was taking tea, seated on a settee, in the drawing room. A woman and child in the room suffered severe shock. The engine then traversed the nursery before exiting into the garden, narrowly missing a child in a pram." The narrative states the fuselage and one wing caused serious damage to the next-door King's Arms. Another wing hit two passers-by, fracturing the leg of one man. The pilot, who was engaged to be married, had 1,000 flying hours logged.

Crew of Spitfire PK372:
Flight-Lieutenant Derek Alfred Benson, RAF (pilot, aged 26) is buried in Keston Parish Churchyard.

1. Halley, James (1999) Broken Wings – Post-War Royal Air Force Accidents Tunbridge Wells: Air-Britain (Historians) Ltd. p. 87 ISBN 0-85130-290-4.
2. Final Landings: A Summary of RAF Aircraft and Combat Losses 1946-49 by Colin Cummings p 488
3. Air-Britain Royal Air Force Aircraft PA100-RZ999
4. Daily Herald" - Monday 28 March 1949
5. The Age (Melbourne, Victoria, Australia) Wednesday 6 Apr 1949, Page 4: https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/206078503
6. 615 Sqn RAF ORB for the period 1-6-1946 to 31-12-1950: National Archives (PRO Kew) file AIR27/2523: https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C2505161 (NOTE: The entries are missing between Feb-July 1949).
7. http://www.airhistory.org.uk/spitfire/p085.html
8. https://www.rafcommands.com/database/serials/details.php?uniq=PK372
9. https://www.avialogs.com/spitfire-and-seafire-registry/item/79568-pk372
10. http://sussexhistoryforum.co.uk/index.php?topic=11474.0
11. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leaves_Green

Date/time	Contributor	Updates
07-Sep-2013 03:18	JINX	Added
29-Dec-2013 11:18	angels one five	Updated [Aircraft type, Operator, Total fatalities, Other fatalities, Location, Departure airport, Destination airport, Source, Narrative]
29-Dec-2013 18:35	angels one five	Updated [Location]
03-Mar-2014 17:44	Nepa	Updated [Aircraft type, Operator]
23-Apr-2014 08:23	angels one five	Updated [Aircraft type, Operator, Nature]
27-Mar-2015 17:58	Jixon	Updated [Operator, Departure airport, Narrative]
27-Mar-2015 17:59	Jixon	Updated [Location, Source]
11-Feb-2020 23:12	Dr. John Smith	Updated [Time, Cn, Other fatalities, Location, Departure airport, Destination airport, Source, Narrative]
11-Feb-2020 23:15	Dr. John Smith	Updated [Source, Narrative]
11-Feb-2020 23:17	Dr. John Smith	Updated [Source, Narrative]
22-May-2022 17:21	Anon.	Updated [Time, Location, Source, Narrative]