A NEW memorial to honour flyers who died testing Bristol-built aircraft has been unveiled.
The memorial at Aerospace Bristol, the Filton aviation museum, was unveiled on November 6 – the 68th anniversary of the day a prototype Bristol Britannia crashed in Downend during test a flight, killing all 15 crew and technicians on board.
A total of 42 people who died in accidents involving Bristol Aeroplane Company and British & Colonial Aeroplane Company aircraft between 1910 and 1960 are remembered on the memorial.
Aerospace Bristol held a search to ensure as many relatives as possible could attend the unveiling: some travelled from as far as Australia to be there.
Among those present were Philip Todd, whose father William died in the Downend Britannia crash in 1957, and his daughter Esme.
Philip was seven at the time of the disaster.
He said: “I was at school, and when I went home at lunchtime, my mum said she’d had a phone call from BAC to say ‘there’s been an accident but we don’t know what’s happened’.”
Philip went back to school but when he returned home, it had been confirmed that his father was dead.
Esme said: “When I talk about the crash to friends, no-one has ever heard about it.
“It’s important to talk about it and remember.”
Also at the unveiling was Peter Coombs, who saw the Britannia spiral out of control from the playground of Downend Church of England School in North Street, where he was a pupil waiting for the lunch bell.
It crashed in the wooded area now known as Britannia Woods and behind homes on Overndale Road.
Peter said: “I didn’t take any notice at first but then it went from a gentle left hand turn into a steep right hand turn, and went into a spiral dive towards the playground.
“It passed over me and disappeared behind the church and trees – then we saw a big cloud of smoke and it was fairly obvious what had happened.
“A few terribly badly-behaved pupils ran off down the road to see what had happened – they came back looking sheepish, and said it had crashed in the woods.
“My parents lived at the bottom of Cleeve Hill and my father was an aircraft design engineer. On the day in question a chap who was working for him, John Parry-Jones, came into the office and said ‘I’ve got the opportunity to fly in the Britannia.’ My dad said ‘yes, of course’.
“He never came back.”
Peter became an apprentice aero engineer after leaving school, and worked on the Concorde programme before becoming an air accident investigator.
He has looked at the records from the investigation, which focussed on a suspected malfunction in the autopilot system.
Peter said the most likely explanation is that the autopilot stopped working and prevented the crew from taking back control of the Britannia in time to avert the crash, but the evidence is inconclusive because the instruments and equipment were destroyed in the explosion and fire.
Many people contacted Aerospace Bristol to share memories of the Downend crash after reading an appeal in last month’s Voice.
One of them was Ray Dawe. His father George was an aero engineer working on the Britannia, and had expected to be on board the flight that crashed.
Ray, who lives near Britannia Wood, told Aerospace Bristol his family faced an “anxious wait” before his dad managed to send a message through that he was safe.
Richard Boyd, who was a seven-year-old pupil of Oldbury Court Primary School on the day of the crash, told Aerospace Bristol he heard the aircraft before seeing the explosion and fire caused by the crash, a sight which “still lives with me today”.
The memorial was the idea of Aerospace Bristol trustee Bill Morgan, a former pilot and aviation engineer who was working at Filton at the time of the crash, and knew John Parry-Jones.
Bill said: “It’s important to find a way of sharing these stories and show that these lives were not lost in vain.
“Perhaps their biggest impact is their contribution to something we now take for granted – the fact that we can board an aircraft today and be confident that it’s the safest way we can travel.”
The memorial was unveiled in front of the museum’s Britannia exhibit by South Gloucestershire Council chair Katie Cooper and Aerospace Bristol vice-patron Sir George White, the great-grandson of Bristol Aeroplane Company’s founder.
Aerospace Bristol chair of trustees Sir Iain Gray spoke at the unveiling, as did Filton and Bradley Stoke MP Claire Hazelgrove.
The memorial’s permanent home will be in the museum’s cafe.
Those who died in the Downend crash are also remembered on a plaque at Lincombe Barn, opposite the crash site, and at a memorial in front of Britannia Woods.
Downend & Bromley Heath Parish Council and South Gloucestershire Council are planning a new information board about the crash in Britannia Woods, along with a new bench.
Aerospace Bristol is still trying to trace relatives of some flyers named on the memorial.
For more details visit www.aerospacebristol.org/aviation-heroes.
