Date:	Monday 12 December 1955
Time:	day
Type:	de Havilland DH.112 Venom FB Mk I
Owner/operator:	FWS RAF
Registration:	WK426
MSN:
Fatalities:	Fatalities: 0 / Occupants: 1
Aircraft damage:	Destroyed
Location:	RAF Leconfield, East Yorkshire, England -   United Kingdom
Phase:	Landing
Nature:	Training
Departure airport:	RAF Leconfield, East Yorkshire
Destination airport:	RAF Leconfield, East Yorkshire
Confidence Rating:	Information is only available from news, social media or unofficial sources

Narrative:
de Havilland DH.112 Venom FB Mk.I WK426: Delivered 23/3/54. Service career was with 266 Squadron and the FWS (Fighter Weapons School), RAF

Written off (damaged beyond repair) 12/12/55: Nose wheel collapsed on landing, aircraft slid along the runway at RAF Leconfield at high speed, and caught fire. According to the following eyewintess account (posted on Facebook - see links #5 & #6)

"Venom nose wheel collapse!
Looks like a large amount of ground crew needed to resolve this one!

On the 12 December,1955 this D.H.Venom (WK426) of the FWS landed back at its Leconfield base and suffered a nose wheel collapse which forced the guns in the nose back into the fuel tank, which then ruptured leaving a trail of burning jet fuel as it passed along the runway. The fire was hard to put out since the airfield’s main fire truck was being repaired and the only one available was a small auxiliary with a limited amount of foam and CO2 extinguishers. The aircraft guns were still loaded and the ejection seat still armed, so there was real danger of explosion. But everyone got lucky, particularly the pilot! The aircraft was damaged beyond repair and later Written off .

Tim Kendrick took the photos on the day. Kendrick was lucky enough to be standing right by the edge of the runway with a camera when it happened. The camera, he had was an RAF K24, used 5” wide roll film, which was originally designed for aerial photography, with two hand grips, a trigger, and a large crank for advancing the film. It weighed about 20Ib. and was not ideally suited to high speed action photography! As Kendrick was normally a pilot, not an official photographer, this was not something he normally did. But he had signed out this camera to record the performance of a new towed-target launching system his unit was developing on the Trials Flight and shot the Venom!"

1. Halley, James (1999) Broken Wings – Post-War Royal Air Force Accidents Tunbridge Wells: Air-Britain (Historians) Ltd. p.177 ISBN 0-85130-290-4.
2. Royal Air Force Aircraft WA100-WZ999 (James J Halley, Air Britain, 1983 p 66)
3. Category Five; A Catalogue of RAF Aircraft Losses 1954 to 2009 by Colin Cummings p.169
4. https://www.facebook.com/RAFLECONFIELD/photos/a.245336555497432/1904659119565159/?type=3&theater
5. https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1754311141325692&set=p.1754311141325692&type=3&theater
6. http://www.ukserials.com/results.php?serial=WK
7. http://www.airhistory.org.uk/dh/_DH112%20prodn%20list.txt

Date/time	Contributor	Updates
18-Jun-2008 04:07	JINX	Added
20-Jun-2013 04:40	Nepa	Updated [Aircraft type, Operator, Location, Phase, Nature, Destination airport, Narrative]
06-Jun-2020 16:56	Dr. John Smith	Updated [Time, Aircraft type, Operator, Location, Departure airport, Destination airport, Source, Narrative]
06-Jun-2020 16:57	Dr. John Smith	Updated [Narrative]
06-Jun-2020 18:36	Jixon	Updated [Aircraft type, Operator, Location, Nature, Operator]