SIR,

I wondered whether you are aware of an aeroplane crash that occurred in the Severn estuary 60 years ago on 5th February?

The plane, a Britannia prototype, was piloted by Bill Pegg, a talented and well known test pilot flying out of Filton, Bristol.

There were 12 passengers and crew on board and had just taken off on a demonstration flight when one of the four turbo-prop engines caught fire.

Flying at 10,000 feet, the fire raged in number 3 engine and with 2,000 gallons of Kerosine in the starboard wing, it was decided to shut down the fuel to both starboard engines and fly on the remaining two port engines.

The Britannia was approximately 50 miles north of Filton at this point, so it was unlikely they would make it back to land there. So Bill attempted to extinguish the fire by diving steeply and as fast as possible.

He had been successful in achieving this on a large American bomber.

Pulling out at around 2,000 feet to avoid the Welsh hills the steward reported the fire was a little worse than before.

A terrible 10 minutes felt like an hour. Would the plane hold together? Would the ailerons still work? A quick waggle of the controls confirmed they did. An attempted landing in open country would be madness, so the decision to press on to Filton and the better potential landing country of the Severn estuary was made.

Once a decision had been made, Bill was going to stick to it and there would be no going back.

On board was the chief designer and sales manager, who had been trying to re-assure the other passengers (who were possible customers), of the build qualities and reliability of the Britannia.

The steward reported pieces of molten metal flying off the engine which had now been burning for 15 minutes.

Having flown down the Wye Valley they eventually arrived over the estuary opposite Sharpness. There was nothing Bill could do at this stage to check whether the undercarriage lowering gear would work, and a belly landing on hard ground would no doubt ignite and rupture the other wing's fuel tanks.

Bill could now see the state of the tide and it was out enough to expose reasonably wide stretches of mud.

All hopes were that the mud banks would be 'soft' enough to land on.

Flying at around 50ft and at 200 knots, Bill scanned the banks for a landing site when the two engines on the port side cut out. This was due to of all things, part of the fire prevention system. Luckily and without any prompting from Bill, the co-pilot isolated the fire prevention circuit and the two engines fired into life once again. This action undoubtedly saved a serious crash as the plane would have hit a large ditch running across the bank down to the estuary.

Once over the ditch Bill cut the engines and 'belly flopped' onto a smooth soft mud bank and brought the Britannia to a stop after sliding for about 400 yards.

The engine fire was immediately extinguished by the mud but the huge bow wave covered the passenger windows with the thick mud and they thought the plane had submersed in the water. When the steward went to open the doors and hatches, they were very relieved not to have to swim ashore. Their only problem was having to wade through the thick, slimy, black, waist-high mud.

The landing was near Aust and all 12 passengers and crew were unhurt.

Unfortunately the potential customers, although grateful for Bill Pegg's amazing flying skills, did not order any Britannias and the development was set back several years by which time the Comet jet aircraft was to revolutionise passenger air travel.

Dave Iliffe

(Newport)