1939 Brighton Audax crash
1939 aviation accident
On 11 February 1939, a Hawker Audax aircraft, registered K7459 of the No. 19 E&RFTS, en route from Gatwick Airport near Crawley to RAF Tangmere in Tangmere crashed into a house in Brighton, England. There were four fatalities in total: the pilot, who was the sole crew member, and a mother and her two children in the house.
Incident
K7459, a Hawker Audax I of the No. 19 E&RFTS from Gatwick Airport encountered dense fog; it was en route to RAF Tangmere. Its pilot became lost in the low visibility and was far off course, failing any low-flying attempts to identify local landmarks. Local residents reported hearing "the sound of a plane flying far too low". He flew over Whitehawk Hill seeking a landing place and was within 50 feet (15 m) of safety when he saw a group of Wolf Cub Scouts exercising there, so he continued to fly in order to avoid descending upon them. As he flew on he damaged some gardens, striking a greenhouse and the corner of a shed, and shaving a thick hedge's upper branches. The aircraft also struck a tree and lost one of its wheels after striking a wireless (radio antenna) mast.
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This entry incorporates text from “1939 Brighton Audax crash” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.