Date:	Saturday 29 September 1934
Time:	17:30 LT
Type:	Airspeed AS.5A Courier
Owner/operator:	London Scottish & Provincial Airways
Registration:	G-ACSY
MSN:	16
Fatalities:	Fatalities: 4 / Occupants: 4
Aircraft damage:	Destroyed
Location:	Timberden Bottom, Sevenoaks, North of Shoreham, Kent -   United Kingdom
Phase:	En route
Nature:	Passenger - Scheduled
Departure airport:	Heston Aerdrome, Heston, Middlesex
Destination airport:	Le Bourget, Paris (LBG/LFPB)
Confidence Rating:	Information is only available from news, social media or unofficial sources

Narrative:
First registered (C of R 5075) 17.5.34 as G-ACSY to Airspeed Ltd, Portsmouth Aerodrome, Portsmouth, Hampshire. C of A 4304 issued 26.5.34. Company reformed 20.7.34 as Airspeed (1934) Ltd. Operated by London Scottish & Provincial Airways Ltd.

Written off (destroyed) 29.9.34: The aircraft took off from Hounslow Aerodrome at around 17:00 on a scheduled international passenger flight to Le Bourget Airport, Paris, France. It flew into an isolated storm over north west Kent. An eyewitness reported seeing the aircraft emerge from the clouds in a vertical dive. The cloud base was at an altitude of 1,200 feet (370 metres) and the hills around Shoreham reached an elevation of 600 feet (180 metres). The aircraft crashed just north of Shoreham, near Sevenoaks, Kent, in Timberden Bottom, at the bottom of Cockerhurst Road. All four people on board were killed. Two women walking in the vicinity of the accident were injured when they were struck by flying débris.

Some parts of the aircraft were found 66 feet (20 metres) to the south west and 100 feet (30 metres) west of the main wreckage. An eyewitness stated that he thought the pilot may have stalled trying to avoid high tension power lines.

The pilot was Ronald Maxwell Smith (26), of Ealing, and his three passengers were a mother, her daughter and a friend. Smith was an experienced pilot, who had served in the RAF, with some 1,500 hours, 150 of which were on the LSPA London to Paris service. The Courier was said to be fully airworthy on departure from Heston and its loaded weight was well below the permitted maximum. Pilot error was considered to be the cause of the crash - a conclusion which Airspeed, the manufacturer of the Courier, disputed - but the true cause never was established.

Despite the witness who claimed that he saw the Courier come out of cloud in a dive, there is another account claims that it was flying below the cloud. That account then sub-divides in that it is claimed both that the Courier stalled trying to avoid high tension electricity cables and that it struck the ridge of one of the local hills. Flight magazine's report of the accident seems to combine all these elements. In its edition of 4 October 1934, it reports as follows:

"One of our newest operating companies, London Scottish and Provincial Airways, Ltd., suffered a tragedy on Saturday afternoon, when a machine on the Leeds-Heston-Paris service crashed in the Kent hills near Shoreham. Three passengers and the pilot, Mr.R. M. Smith, were killed instantly. Judging from witnesses' accounts, the machine, after leaving the base of the low clouds, circled, began a spin, and hit the ground before it could be pulled out of the recovering dive. As the Airspeed "Courier" was in common with the others in the service, fitted with a turn and bank indicator, it seems possible that the pilot stalled the machine while endeavouring to pick up his position, and not while flying "blind," or that, realising the proximity of H.T. wires, he pulled up too steeply.

Whatever the evidence obtainable from the wreckage, the cause is likely to remain at least as much of a mystery as that of the accident at Meopham, Kent, in 1930".

An inquest into the accident was held at Sevenoaks on 2.10.34. The victims were identified by documentation and personal belongings as they had received injuries which made visual identification "extremely difficult, if not impossible". Evidence was given that the aircraft was not operating anywhere near its maximum take-off weight of 4,000 pounds (1,800 kg) and that it had been airworthy on departure from Heston.

The pilot was experienced. He was a former Royal Air Force pilot and had 1,500 hours flying time, of which 150 hours were on the Heston-Paris route. A memorial cross was installed near the crash site on Cockerhurst Road but after it was vandalised it was removed to Shoreham churchyard, by the north west corner of the tower.

Registration G-ACSY cancelled by the Air Ministry 7.10.34 due to "destruction or permanent withdrawl from use of aircraft"

1. Ingleton, Roy (2010). Kent Disasters. Barnsley: Pen & Sword. ISBN 978-1-84563-116-1.
2. "Four Killed In Air Crash" The Times (London) Monday, 1 October 1934 (46873), col G, p. 19.
3. "Kent Air Crash Inquest" The Times (London) Wednesday, 3 October 1934 (46875), col D, p. 9.
4. Illustrated London News - Saturday 06 October 1934
5. https://cwsprduksumbraco.blob.core.windows.net/g-info/HistoricalLedger/G-ACSY.pdf
6. https://www.ab-ix.co.uk/pdfs/airspeed_prewar.pdf
7. http://afleetingpeace.org/index.php/15-aeroplanes/77-register-gb-g-ac
8. Flight magazine 30 August 1934 p 907: https://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1934/1934%20-%200905.html
9. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1934_London,_Scottish_%26_Provincial_Airways_Airspeed_Courier_crash
10. https://www.edp24.co.uk/norfolk-life/air_crash_mystery_1_598760
11. http://www.baaa-acro.com/crash/crash-airspeed-as5a-courier-shoreham-4-killed
12. "The Shoreham Accident" Flight magazine 4 October 1934 p.1025: https://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1934/1934%20-%201023.html

Date/time	Contributor	Updates
06-Jan-2014 19:32	Dr. John Smith	Added
09-Jun-2017 17:57	TB	Updated [Time, Operator, Location, Source, Narrative]
27-Dec-2017 15:42	Dr. John Smith	Updated [Location, Source, Narrative]
24-Feb-2020 18:22	Dr. John Smith	Updated [Location, Source, Narrative]