From the Lincolnshire Echo
Three Killed in Air Collision at Scampton
Bombers touch 200 feet from ground
One on Camera Gun Practice: Other Taking Off
WRECKAGE STREWN NEAR MAIN ROAD
Three men were killed in a mid-air collision between two RAF aeroplanes at Scampton, near Lincoln this morning.
The crash occurred at a height of about 200 feet and the Echo understands that one machine was taking off and the other was engaged in camera-gun practice.
The two planes touched, the undercarriage and one wing of the machine which was in full flight were torn off.
The wreckage of this plane was scattered on the landing ground over a wide area. and the wreckage of the other machine crumpled up in a ploughed field beside the Lincoln-Kirton Lindsey road.
All three men were killed instantly. There were no other occupants.
Both machines belonged to the No.49 Bomber Squadron, which came to Scampton from Worthy Down, Winchester, a fortnight ago. They were Hawker Hind light bombers.
The men killed were:
Pilot Officer John Nugent de Merle Tyrell of London NW8
Sergeant Benjamin Gordon Davies of Oadby near Leicester
A/C2 James Henry Scoberg of Plasimarl, Swansea, Glamorganshire
Pilot Officer Tyrel was flying solo the machine which was engaged in camera gun practice and which crashed on the landing ground.
No.49 Squadron was formed at Bircham Newton in February 1936 and moved to Worthy Down six months later.
The accident happened at about 10 o'clock this morning. The target at which one of the machine was shooting was erected a few yards from the main road on the aerodrome landing ground.
FARM WORKER'S STORY.
Mr W.H.Chapman, a farm worker of Scampton, was eating his lunch in a field on Mr Robert Sanderson's farm, which runs by the south side of the landing ground, when the crash occurred.
He told an Echo reporter that he did not actually see the machines collide but, hearing a crash, he looked across the aerodrome and saw one of the machines diving into a field by the roadside and another 'plane skimming across the landing ground only a few feet up.
"I noticed that the undercarriage had been torn off and that there was a wing missing.
Bits of it were dropping from it as it flew along, with one wing almost touching the ground. Then it crumpled up."
PINNED IN WRECKAGE
The body of Pilot Officer Tyrel was pinned in the wreckage and it was not removed until about an hour after the accident. A derrick had to be erected to lift the fuselage before the body could be extricated.
From the roadside to the spot where the major portion of this machine lay, a quarter of a mile way, there was wreckage strewn on the turf.
The other machine lay in a newly ploughed field on Mr Lockwood's farm, a few feet beyond the hedge on the west side of the Lincoln-Kirton Lindsey Road.
The wings were torn off, the fuselage broken in two, the tail crumpled and small pieces wrenched off in the collision and its contact with the ground, lay all around.
A few yards from the broken tail lay the lid of the first-aid box!
FIRST FATAL CRASH
This is the first fatal accident at Scampton since the station was opened in October 1936.
There have been two previous crashes at the aerodrome. The first was on September 1st last year when a heavy bomber was wrecked when it collided with a tree and the roof of a house on the northern border of the landing ground.
No one was injured but the plane was completely wrecked and considerable damage was done to the house. The occupants of the house left the same day and came to live in Lincoln. They have since taken another house some distance away from the aerodrome.
On September 16th, as a bomber was landing in the dusk, one wing tip touched a haystack and it crashed but the two occupants were uninjured.
The accident brings the RAF death roll to 44 in 29 accidents. Last year 93 fatal accidents resulted in 153 deaths.