1938 Jersey Airport disaster

1938 Jersey Airport disaster
Accident
A De Havilland DH.86, similar to the aircraft involved
Date	4 November 1938
Summary	Pilot error
Site	near Jersey Airport, Jersey
Aircraft
Aircraft type	De Havilland D.H.86
Aircraft name	St Catherine's Bay
Operator	Jersey Airways
Registration	G-ACZN
Flight origin	Jersey Airport
Destination	Southampton
Passengers	12
Crew	1
Fatalities	14 (1 on ground)
Survivors	0

The 1938 Jersey Airport disaster occurred at 10:50am on Friday 4 November 1938 when the Jersey Airways de Havilland D.H.86 airliner St Catherine's Bay (G-ACZN) crashed in the parish of Saint Brelade, 500 yards east of Jersey Airport, killing the pilot and all twelve passengers on board as well as farm hand Edmund Le Cornu, who was working on the ground.^[1] In terms of loss of life, it was the worst crash of a rigid aircraft on British territory to date and the second-worst overall crash of a British rigid aircraft after the crash of an Imperial Airways airliner in Belgium in 1933 (in which 15 people died).

The airliner had just taken off from Jersey en route to Southampton. The sky was overcast, with a cloud base of 120–150 feet. The aircraft had been fully inspected and was not carrying a full load.

The Air Ministry investigation concluded that the accident was due to pilot error. The pilot had made a climbing turn into the clouds and inadvertently allowed the aircraft to sideslip when he was still too close to the ground to avert disaster. The aircraft had exploded and several bodies had been thrown up to 40 feet away.

Among the dead were the daughter, son-in-law and baby granddaughter of surveyor and aerial archaeology pioneer G. A. Beazeley.^[2]

Footnotes

^ "Air Disaster Inquest", The Times, 10 November 1938
^ Obituary, The Times, 9 November 1938

References

"Jersey Air Disaster Inquest", The Times, 7 November 1938
"Crash that Caused 14 Deaths 'An Error of Airmanship'", The Times, 19 April 1939
From Sea Eagle to Flamingo: a history of Channel Island Airways, Neville Doyle, 1991 (Self Publishing Association)

External links

Details on PlaneCrashInfo.com

Aviation accidents and incidents in 1938 (1938)

Jan 10

Northwest Airlines Flight 2

Jan 11

Sikorsky S-42 Samoan Clipper

Feb 5

SSSR-V6 Osoaviakhim

Mar 1

TWA Flight 8

Jul 24

Santa Ana air show disaster

Jul 28

Martin M-130 Hawaii Clipper

Aug 24

Kweilin Incident

Sep 4

Edmonton, London, air crash

Oct 25

Kyeema crash

Nov 4

Jersey Airport disaster

1937 ◄ ► 1939

v t e Aviation accidents and incidents in the United Kingdom, British Crown Dependencies, and British Overseas Territories
Before 1910	Thomas Harris (May 1824) Cecil Shadbolt (July 1892) Percy Pilcher (October 1899)
1910s	Charles Rolls (July 1910) Cecil Grace (December 1910) Brooklands Flanders Monoplane (May 1912) Cody Floatplane (August 1913) Maxstoke (August 1918) Transatlantic flight of Alcock and Brown (June 1919) Airship N.S.11 (July 1919)
1920s	Golders Green Handley Page O/400 (December 1920) R38-class airship (June 1921) Air Union Farman Goliath (August 1923) Daimler Airway de Havilland DH.34 (September 1923) KLM Fokker F.III disappearance (April 1924) Imperial Airways de Havilland DH.34 (December 1924) Air Union Blériot 155 (August 1926) Air Union Blériot 155 (October 1926) KLM Fokker F.VIII (August 1927) Imperial Airways Handley Page W.10 (June 1929) Luft Hansa Junkers G 24 (November 1929)
1930s	Air Union Farman Goliath (February 1930) Meopham air disaster (July 1930) London, Scottish & Provincial Airways Airspeed Courier (September 1934) Hillman's Airways de Havilland Dragon Rapide (October 1934) SABENA Savoia-Marchetti S.73 (December 1935) Jersey Air Disaster (July 1936) KLM Croydon accident (December 1936) Edmonton air crash (September 1938) Jersey Airport disaster (November 1938)
1940s	Dunbeath air crash (August 1942) Ruislip Wellington accident (October 1942) RAF Hudson (May 1943) Gibraltar Liberator AL523 (July 1943) Moordown air disaster (March 1944) Freckleton air disaster (August 1944) USAAF Boeing B-17 on North Barrule (April 1945) Elvetham air crash (October 1945) Broadway Consolidated Liberator (November 1945) Railway Air Services Dakota (December 1946) BOAC Douglas C-47 (January 1947) Croydon Dakota accident (January 1947) Heathrow disaster (March 1948) Northwood mid-air collision (July 1948) KLM Constellation air disaster (October 1948) Exhall mid-air collision (February 1949) Manchester BEA Douglas DC-3 accident (August 1949)
1950s	Llandow air disaster (March 1950) Heathrow BEA Vickers Viking (October 1950) Ringway Dakota (March 1951) Aer Lingus C-47 accident (January 1952) Farnborough Airshow crash (September 1952) Little Rissington UFO incident (October 1952) Aldbury Valetta accident (January 1954) Swissair Convair CV-240 (June 1954) Prestwick air disaster (December 1954) Hawker Hunter multiple aircraft accident (February 1956) RAF Lakenheath nuclear near-disaster (July 1956) London Heathrow Avro Vulcan (October 1956) Sutton Wick air crash (March 1957) British European Airways Flight 411 (March 1957) Blackbushe Viking accident (May 1957) Nutts Corner BEA Viscount (October 1957 Aquila Airways Solent (November 1957) Winter Hill air disaster (February 1958) London Vickers Viking accident (September 1958) Syerston Avro Vulcan (September 1958) BOAC Bristol Britannia (December 1958) Turkish Airlines Gatwick (February 1959)
1960s	Channel Airways Dakota accident (May 1962) BAC One-Eleven test crash (October 1963) British United Airways Flight 1030X (April 1965) Little Baldon air crash (July 1965) Skyways Coach-Air Avro 748 (July 1965) Cambrian Airways Liverpool (July 1965) Pan Am Flight 292 (September 1965) Felthorpe Trident crash (June 1966) Holden's Lightning flight (July 1966) Stockport air disaster (June 1967) Iberia Flight 062 (November 1967) Hawker Hunter Tower Bridge incident (April 1968) BOAC Flight 712 (April 1968) BKS Air Transport Flight C.6845 (July 1968) Ariana Afghan Airlines Flight 701 (January 1969) 1969 theft of C-130 (May 1969)
1970s	British European Airways Flight 548 (June 1972) Court Line Flight 95 (April 1974) British Airways bombing attempt (July 1974) Norfolk mid-air collision (August 1974) Graham Hill plane crash (November 1975) British Airtours Boeing 707 crash (March 1977) British Army Gazelle downing (February 1978) Dan-Air Flight 0034 (July 1979)
1980s	Biggin Hill Invader crash (September 1980) Aer Lingus Flight 164 (May 1981) Dan-Air Flight 240 (June 1981) Bristow Helicopters Westland Wessex crash (August 1981) British Army Gazelle friendly fire incident (June 1982) British Airways Sikorsky S-61 crash (July 1983) Manchester Airport disaster (August 1985) Hindawi affair (April 1986) British Army Lynx shootdown (June 1988) British International Helicopters Sikorsky S-61N crash (July 1988) Pan Am Flight 103 (December 1988) template Kegworth air disaster (January 1989)
1990s	British Army Gazelle shootdown (February 1990) Scotland RAF Shackleton crash (April 1990) British Airways Flight 5390 (June 1990) Llyn Padarn helicopter crash (August 1993) British Army Lynx shootdown (March 1994) Mull of Kintyre Chinook crash (June 1994) Air Algérie Flight 702P (December 1994) Bristow Helicopters Flight 56C (January 1995) Royal Air Force Nimrod R1 ditching (May 1995) Knight Air Flight 816 (May 1995) Virgin Atlantic Flight 024 (November 1997) Edinburgh Air Charter Flight 3W (September 1999) Korean Air Cargo Flight 8509 (December 1999)
2000s	Loganair Flight 670A (February 2001) British Airways Flight 268 (February 2005) Loganair Islander accident (March 2005) Morecambe Bay Eurocopter AS365 crash (December 2006) Alderney UFO sighting (April 2007) British Airways Flight 38 (January 2008) Biggin Hill Cessna Citation crash (March 2008)
2010s	Vauxhall helicopter crash (January 2013) CHC Scotia Flight 23R (August 2013) Glasgow helicopter crash (November 2013) Haughey Air AgustaWestland AW139 crash (March 2014) Loganair Flight 6780 (December 2014) Blackbushe Phenom 300 crash (July 2015) Shoreham Airshow crash (August 2015) Leicester helicopter crash (October 2018) Gatwick Airport drone incident (December 2018) English Channel Piper PA-46 crash (January 2019)
Includes Crown dependencies and current overseas territories; this template excludes currently independent countries formerly a part of the British Empire, and this template also excludes Hong Kong