Sunday 5 January 2014

a wartime bomber crash in Bristol



An incident over Bristol in April 1941. A Wellington bomber from a Cambridgeshire based Operational Training Unit was on a night training flight. They were supposed to fly to Andover, then turn and go to Sharpness, the harbour on the Severn estuary north of Bristol, presumably to drop practice bombs on a bombing range in the estuary.

They were a few miles south of their intended course, and flew into the cables of two of Bristol's barrage balloons, the second one at Stapleton Road Gas Works sports ground (the site of the present IKEA). Trailing the cable, they lost height and crashed into St Andrew's Park. Of the six crew, three were killed and three survived.

The full story is here at Wellington T2905, a website devoted to this incident.

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