Date:	Wednesday 21 October 1953
Time:	day
Type:	Westland Dragonfly HR.3
Owner/operator:	A&AEE Boscombe Down
Registration:	WG714
MSN:	WA/H/28
Fatalities:	Fatalities: 0 / Occupants: 1
Aircraft damage:	Destroyed
Location:	Newton Tony, 2 miles East of Boscombe Down, Wiltshire -   United Kingdom
Phase:	En route
Nature:	Test
Departure airport:	Boscombe Down, Wiltshire (EGDM)
Destination airport:	Boscombe Down, Wiltshire (EGDM)
Confidence Rating:	Information is only available from news, social media or unofficial sources

Narrative:
Westland Dragonfly HR.3 WG714, A&AEE Boscobme Down: first flown 29/10/1952, delivered 17/11/1952. Written off (damaged beyond repair) 21/10/1953 when crashed at Newton Tony, two miles east of Boscombe Down, Wiltshire.

The helicopter was at 2,700 feet, flying in cloud, while the pilot carried out practice instrument flying. The attitude indicator showed that the helicopter was flying "right wing down", and the application of corrective action did not result in any change to the indicator, so further corrective action was taken.

At this point, the helicopter became uncontrollable, and went into a vertical dive. On breaking through the cloud base, the pilot, Wing Commander (33386) Hubert Neville Garbett, was able to regain partial control. He attempted to land using the partial control he had, being able to hover, but then he discovered that he had no yaw control, which meant that he decided to make a forced emergency landing,

The original instrument failure was caused by the failure of a vacuum pump, while the yaw controls failed due to severe stress forces acting on the helicopter's tailcone during the dive.

The reported crash location of Newton Tony is a rural English village and civil parish in the county of Wiltshire, close to the border with Hampshire. Situated in the Bourne Valley, Newton Tony is about 9 miles north-east of Salisbury.

1. Halley, James (1999) Broken Wings – Post-War Royal Air Force Accidents Tunbridge Wells: Air-Britain (Historians) Ltd. p.151 ISBN 0-85130-290-4.
2. Last Take-off: A Record of RAF Aircraft Losses 1950 to 1953 Colin Cummings p 421-422
3. Royal Air Force Aircraft WA100-WZ999 (James J Halley, Air Britain, 1983 p.45)
4. https://www.helis.com/database/cn/48681/
5. http://www.ukserials.com/prodlists.php?type=398
6. http://www.ukserials.com/results.php?serial=WG
7. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton_Tony.
8. Pilots Papers & Archive 1937-1959: RAF Museum DORIS (Department of Research and Information Services) file Reference: X004-2475 (See Also National Archives (PRO Kew) File at https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/N13713696)

Date/time	Contributor	Updates
19-May-2021 19:42	Dr. John Smith	Added
19-May-2021 19:45	Dr. John Smith	Updated [Source]