Date:	Monday 18 May 1953
Time:	day
Type:	de Havilland DH.100 Vampire FB Mk 5
Owner/operator:	229 OCU RAF
Registration:	VV623
MSN:	EEP/42...
Fatalities:	Fatalities: 1 / Occupants: 1
Aircraft damage:	Destroyed
Location:	Lynmouth Bay, 2 miles NW of Lynton, Devon, England -   United Kingdom
Phase:	Manoeuvring (airshow, firefighting, ag.ops.)
Nature:	Training
Departure airport:	RAF Chivenor, Barnstaple, Devon
Destination airport:	RAF Chivenor, Barnstaple, Devon
Confidence Rating:	Information is only available from news, social media or unofficial sources

Narrative:
de Havilland DH.100 Vampire FB Mk 5 VV623, 229 OCU (Operational Conversion Unit), RAF: delivered 28/2/1949. Written off 18/5/1953 when crashed into Lynmouth Bay, two miles North West of Lynton, Devon.

After taking off from RAF Chivenor, the aircraft made contact with the banner target towing aircraft, and had made several firing passes without incident. Then, a small vessel sailed into the target firing area, and the pilot of the banner target towing aircraft ordered the pilot of Vampire VV623 to make a mock attack on the intruding vessel

During the initial stages of the mock attack, the pilot of Vampire VV623 allowed the aircraft to stall, and the aircraft went into an inverted spin, from which it did not recover, due to the limited amount of altitude available. Also, as the aircraft dived into the sea from a fairly low altitude, there was insufficent time for the pilot to bail out, and he was killed.

Crew of Vampire VV623
Pilot Officer (2523804) Walter PORTE (pilot) RAF- killed in service 18/5/1953

Some wreckage was apparently recovered, which was formally Struck Off Charge on 4/6/1953 as CAT 5(S). The reported crash site was two miles off the coast, in Lynmouth Bay, very close to where Vampire FB.5 WA230 crashed less than a month earlier, on 21 April 1953

1. Halley, James (1999) Broken Wings – Post-War Royal Air Force Accidents Tunbridge Wells: Air-Britain (Historians) Ltd. p 145 ISBN 0-85130-290-4.
2. Last Take-off: A Record of RAF Aircraft Losses 1950 to 1953 by Colin Cummings p 371
3. Royal Air Force Aircraft WA100-WZ999 (James J Halley, Air Britain, 1983)
4. 229 OCU ORB (Operation Record Book)(Air Ministry Form AM/F.540) for the period 1/1/1951 to 31/12/1955: National Archives (PRO Kew) File AIR 29/2167 at https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C4101877
5. http://www.ukserials.com/results.php?serial=WA
6. http://www.airhistory.org.uk/dh/_DH100%20prodn%20list.txt
7. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynton
8. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynmouth
9. https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/39479/supplement/1178/data.pdf

Date/time	Contributor	Updates
27-Apr-2021 23:59	Dr. John Smith	Added
28-Apr-2021 00:01	Dr. John Smith	Updated [Narrative]
28-Apr-2021 10:24	Adell	Updated [Operator, Narrative, Operator]
28-Apr-2021 19:17	Dr. John Smith	Updated [Narrative]
07-May-2021 15:45	Dr. John Smith	Updated [Source]