Date:	Monday 9 July 1951
Time:	09:52 LT
Type:	de Havilland DH.100 Vampire F Mk 3
Owner/operator:	601 (County of London) Sqn RAF
Registration:	VV187
MSN:	EEP/42...
Fatalities:	Fatalities: 0 / Occupants: 1
Aircraft damage:	Destroyed
Location:	Epping Road, near RAF North Weald, Essex, England -   United Kingdom
Phase:	Take off
Nature:	Military
Departure airport:	RAF North Weald, Essex
Destination airport:
Confidence Rating:	Information is only available from news, social media or unofficial sources

Narrative:
de Havilland DH.100 Vampire F.Mk.3 VV187, 601 (County of London) Squadron, RAF: delivered 2/4/1948. Written off (damaged beyond rewpair) 9/7/1951: The pilot aborted the take off run from RAF North Weald, Essex, but was unable to stop the aircraft before it ran off the end of the runway. Although the aircraft was wrecked (not repaired, and Struck Off Charge as Cat.5(c)) the pilot survived, and walked away from the crashed aircraft with only minor injuries.

The Newsletter of the RAF North Weald Museum (Summer 2015 - see link #6) goes into further details:

"Another Vampire accident, occurring on July 9 [1951] involved Flying Officer 201760 G J Briggs, who had a total flight experience of 125 hrs, of which 23 hours had been on the Vampire. Setting off along the North Weald runway for a low flying detail at 09:52hrs, the pilot believed that the aircraft, VV187, was not going to fly, he quickly throttled back and braked the aircraft, but it was going too fast, and ended up going through the airfield boundary fence. The pilot climbed out and walked away from the Vampire, which had crashed across the main Epping Road with part of the fuselage across the road, in a style that had been performed many times before!"

1. Halley, James (1999) Broken Wings – Post-War Royal Air Force Accidents Tunbridge Wells: Air-Britain (Historians) Ltd. p.115 ISBN 0-85130-290-4.
2. Royal Air Force Aircraft SA100-VZ999 (James J Halley, Air Britain, 1983)
3. Last Take Off; A Catalogue of RAF Aircraft Losses 1950 to 1953 by Colin Cummings p.157
4. http://www.ukserials.com/results.php?serial=VV
5. http://www.airhistory.org.uk/dh/_DH100%20prodn%20list.txt
6. http://www.nwamuseum.co.uk/index_htm_files/Summer%202015.pdf

Date/time	Contributor	Updates
02-Feb-2021 20:51	Dr. John Smith	Added
03-Feb-2021 10:15	E.Robot	Updated [Operator, Location, Operator]