Date:	Tuesday 11 July 1950
Time:	day
Type:	Vickers Wellington Mk X
Owner/operator:	201 AFS RAF
Registration:	RP323
MSN:
Fatalities:	Fatalities: 0 / Occupants: 3
Aircraft damage:	Destroyed
Location:	Wimbish, near Newhouse Farm, Thaxted, Essex, England -   United Kingdom
Phase:	En route
Nature:	Training
Departure airport:	RAF Swinderby, Lincolnshire
Destination airport:
Confidence Rating:	Information is only available from news, social media or unofficial sources

Narrative:
Wellington RP323 of 201 AFS from RAF Swinderby. Burst into flames over Saffron Walden, Essex and in the emergency landing that followed the aircraft hit a hay stack and came to rest in the middle of the main road (the B184 Thaxted Road) to Thaxted near Newhouse Farm, Wimbish. The Wellington was burnt out and the road was closed for 10 hours. The three crew all escaped unhurt. A contemporary newspaper report (the "Lincolnshire Echo" of July 12 1950) named the three crew as "Pilot Officer Rodgers, Flying Officer K. Sharman, and Sergeant Graham"

According to a report in the "Saffron Walden Reporter" (January 4 2017):

"When the burning mass of a plane crashed in Wimbish in 1950 a brave-hearted soldier leapt up, abandoned his game of bridge, grabbed a fire extinguisher, and jumped into the wreck to rescue the people inside.

The hero, Alan Mack, was disobeying orders when he saved the pilot and an airman by cutting them free and pulling them out of the flames".

Alan, who was described as a “well-known amateur sportsman”, told the newspaper at the time: “I grabbed a fire extinguisher and rushed outside, the fierce blaze prevented me getting near the plane, but I went round it and found I could approach from the far side.”

He said that as “we began cutting his parachute harness away [a] sudden burst of flame forced them” into a ditch, but eventually they were able to get the pilot clear.

The pilot, K Sharman, had to go to Saffron Walden General Hospital but was not severely injured. At the time military personnel were forbidden to rescue anyone from Wellington bomber planes, because they were so unpredictable and likely to explode".

Alan Mack was the Anglicised name of Alfons Wiktor Maćkowiak (born March 29, 1916 in Berlin, died January 31, 2017 in London at the age of 100 - just 27 days after the above newspaper story.)(see link #6)

1. Halley, James (1999) Broken Wings – Post-War Royal Air Force Accidents Tunbridge Wells: Air-Britain (Historians) Ltd. p.89 ISBN 0-85130-290-4.
2. Last Take Off; A Catalogue of RAF Aircraft Losses 1950 to 1953 by Colin Cummings p.68
3. Lincolnshire Echo of 12 July 1950
4. https://www.pprune.org/aviation-history-nostalgia/616790-wellington-crash-1950-essex.html
5. https://www.saffronwaldenreporter.co.uk/news/wimbish-world-war-two-plane-crash-hero-speaks-out-about-5355220
6. https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfons_Ma%C4%87kowiak
7. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wimbish

Date/time	Contributor	Updates
26-Dec-2020 21:31	Dr. John Smith	Added
27-Dec-2020 11:49	Digger	Updated [Operator, Location, Narrative, Operator]